Gente o tradutor do google é um pouco bugado então vou botar a loja original
Anti cringe tent, sit, sleep, relax and recover! And the tent is protected from cringe! 🏕️ Here's some free items: Bleach🧴 Holy water 🍶 Sword🗡️ Dual swords⚔️ Shield🛡️ Throwing knife🔪 Anti cringe pill 5000000×💊 Bow🏹 Arrows 50000000× (for the bow)
Paid items section(almost just every free item but better)
Katana (sword but stronger)🗡️ 5 likes Sharp Shield(can also kill cringe)🛡️ 10 likes Gun🔫 15 likes Reusable Anti cringe pill💊 20 likes Sharp, unlimited throwing knifes 🔪∞ 30 likes unlimited holy water🍶∞ 50 likes unlimited bleach🧴∞ 50 likes
OP items (are pretty expensive): cheat codes👨‍💻 100 likes Minecraft commands: 90 likes Hacks: 125 likes Cringe deleter (deletes cringe)🔫 300 likes OP instakill gun🔫 350 likes OP Rocket launcher🚀 800 likes Instakill Unlimited Throwing knifes🔪∞ 250 likes nuclear bomb launcher: 800 likes High tech, ∞ food and ∞ drinks and ∞ guns and ∞ ammo bunker:1000 likes
Emergency (free): Bunker Gun (to kill yourself) Nuclear bomb (will destroy the entire world) portable bunker
Powerups Infinite ∞ damage for any gun: 1000 likes Instant Recharge: 950 likes Infinite ∞ Ammo for any gun: 1000 likes ∞ Auto-builders:250 likes Ride your gun bullets (go insanely fast): 100 likes Invincible from cringe: 900 likes Kill every cringe that exists (no cringe will ever exist again): 5000 likes
Auto-builders (all of them are protected from cringe): Anti cringe defense tower Anti cringe house Anti cringe tent Anti cringe Castle Anti cringe Mansion Anti cringe trap Anti cringe military Anti cringe bunker Custom auto builder (can build whatever you want)
Melees (some of them were mentioned before): Sword🗡️ Katana🗡️ Crucible 4 element katana🗡️💧🌍💨🔥 Dual swords⚔️ OP instakill sword🗡️ OP instakill katana🗡️ Spear Throwing knife🔪 Knife🔪 Fists👊 Murasama Bee Sword Copper Sword Zenith Infinitely OP avaritia sword (∞ damage) Draconic sword Sharpness 32767 netherite sword iron mace Bat Bat with spikes Knockback 32767 stick Tang knife Custom melee weapon
Enchantments Sharpness Knockback Reach Frost walker Unbreakable Fortune Efficiency Feather falling Silk touch Infinity Strength Custom enchantment
Armor Leather armor chain armor Iron armor Gold armor Diamond armor Netherite armor Draconic armor Infinitely OP avaritia armor Hacked armor God armor Custom Armor
Heals Bandage ×500000 Bandage ×∞ - 1 like Medkit ×250000 Medkit ×∞ - 10 likes Vaccine ×300000 Vaccine ×∞ - 10 likes OP Heal ×25000 OP Heal ×∞ - 50 likes Chug Jug ×50000 Chug Jug ×∞ - 75 likes Infinitely OP Heal (That is infinite and makes you have ∞ Health and ∞ Shield) - 100 likes Custom Heal - 25 likes
Yeah, that's it for now the shop will be updated! and you can come back anytime you want!

Anti cringe tent, sit, sleep, relax and recover! And the tent is protected from cringe! 🏕️ Here's some free items: Bleach🧴 Holy water 🍶 Sword🗡️ Dual swords⚔️ Shield🛡️ Throwing knife🔪 Anti cringe pill 5000000×💊 Bow🏹 Arrows 50000000× (for the bow) Anything and how much things you want, even if its not in the shop Create an item
Paid items section(almost just every free item but better)
Katana (sword but stronger)🗡️ 5 likes Sharp Shield(can also kill cringe)🛡️ 10 likes Gun🔫 15 likes Reusable Anti cringe pill💊 20 likes Sharp, unlimited throwing knifes 🔪∞ 30 likes unlimited holy water🍶∞ 50 likes unlimited bleach🧴∞ 50 likes Anything and how much things you want, even if its not in the shop: Free Create an item: Free
OP items (are pretty expensive): cheat codes👨‍💻 100 likes Minecraft commands: 90 likes Hacks: 125 likes Cringe deleter (deletes cringe)🔫 300 likes OP instakill gun🔫 350 likes OP Rocket launcher🚀 800 likes Instakill Unlimited Throwing knifes🔪∞ 250 likes nuclear bomb launcher: 800 likes High tech, ∞ food and ∞ drinks and ∞ guns and ∞ ammo bunker:1000 likes Anything and how much things you want, even if its not in the shop: Free Create an item: Free
Emergency (free): Bunker Gun (to kill yourself) Nuclear bomb (will destroy the entire world) portable bunker Anything and how much things you want, even if its not in the shop Create an item
Powerups Infinite ∞ damage for any gun: 1000 likes Instant Recharge: 950 likes Infinite ∞ Ammo for any gun: 1000 likes ∞ Auto-builders:250 likes make everything and anything ∞: 1000 likes Ride your gun bullets (go insanely fast): 100 likes Invincible from cringe: 900 likes Kill every cringe that exists (no cringe will ever exist again): 5000 likes Anything and how much things you want, even if its not in the shop Create an item
Auto-builders (all of them are protected from cringe): Anti cringe defense tower Anti cringe house Anti cringe tent Anti cringe Castle Anti cringe Mansion Anti cringe trap Anti cringe military Anti cringe bunker Custom auto builder (can build whatever you want) Anything and how much things you want, even if its not in the shop Create an item
Melees (some of them were mentioned before): Sword🗡️ Katana🗡️ Crucible 4 element katana🗡️💧🌍💨🔥 Dual swords⚔️ OP instakill sword🗡️ OP instakill katana🗡️ Spear Throwing knife🔪 Knife🔪 Fists👊 Murasama Infinitely OP avaritia sword (∞ damage) Draconic sword Sharpness 32767 netherite sword iron mace Bat Bat with spikes Knockback 32767 stick Tang knife Custom melee weapon Anything and how much things you want, even if its not in the shop Create an item
Enchantments Sharpness Knockback Reach Frost walker Unbreakable Fortune Efficiency Feather falling Silk touch Infinity Strength Custom enchantment Anything and how much things you want, even if its not in the shop Create an item
Armor Leather armor chain armor Iron armor Gold armor Diamond armor Netherite armor Draconic armor Infinitely OP avaritia armor Hacked armor God armor Custom Armor Anything and how much things you want, even if its not in the shop Create an item
Heals Bandage ×500000 Bandage ×∞ - 1 like Medkit ×250000 Medkit ×∞ - 10 likes Vaccine ×300000 Vaccine ×∞ - 10 likes OP Heal ×25000 OP Heal ×∞ - 50 likes Chug Jug ×50000 Chug Jug ×∞ - 75 likes Infinitely OP Heal (That is infinite and makes you have ∞ Health and ∞ Shield) - 100 likes Custom Heal - 25 likes Anything and how much things you want, even if its not in the shop Create an item
Yeah, that's it for now the shop will be updated! and you can come back anytime you want!

Anti cringe tent, sit, sleep, relax and recover! And the tent is protected from cringe! 🏕️ Here's some free items: Bleach🧴 Holy water 🍶 Sword🗡️ Dual swords⚔️ Shield🛡️ Throwing knife🔪 Anti cringe pill 5000000×💊 Bow🏹 Arrows 50000000× (for the bow)
Paid items section(almost just every free item but better)
Katana (sword but stronger)🗡️ 5 likes Sharp Shield(can also kill cringe)🛡️ 10 likes Gun🔫 15 likes Reusable Anti cringe pill💊 20 likes Sharp, unlimited throwing knifes 🔪∞ 30 likes unlimited holy water🍶∞ 50 likes unlimited bleach🧴∞ 50 likes
OP items (are pretty expensive): cheat codes👨‍💻 100 likes Minecraft commands: 90 likes Hacks: 125 likes Cringe deleter (deletes cringe)🔫 300 likes OP instakill gun🔫 350 likes OP Rocket launcher🚀 800 likes Instakill Unlimited Throwing knifes🔪∞ 250 likes nuclear bomb launcher: 800 likes High tech, ∞ food and ∞ drinks and ∞ guns and ∞ ammo bunker:1000 likes
Emergency (free): Bunker Gun (to kill yourself) Nuclear bomb (will destroy the entire world) portable bunker
Powerups Infinite ∞ damage for any gun: 1000 likes Instant Recharge: 950 likes Infinite ∞ Ammo for any gun: 1000 likes ∞ Auto-builders:250 likes Ride your gun bullets (go insanely fast): 100 likes Invincible from cringe: 900 likes Kill every cringe that exists (no cringe will ever exist again): 5000 likes
Auto-builders (all of them are protected from cringe): Anti cringe defense tower Anti cringe house Anti cringe tent Anti cringe Castle Anti cringe Mansion Anti cringe trap Anti cringe military Anti cringe bunker Custom auto builder (can build whatever you want)
Melees (some of them were mentioned before): Sword🗡️ Katana🗡️ Crucible 4 element katana🗡️💧🌍💨🔥 Dual swords⚔️ OP instakill sword🗡️ OP instakill katana🗡️ Spear Throwing knife🔪 Knife🔪 Fists👊 Murasama Infinitely OP avaritia sword (∞ damage) Draconic sword Sharpness 32767 netherite sword iron mace Bat Bat with spikes Knockback 32767 stick Tang knife Custom melee weapon
Enchantments Sharpness Knockback Reach Frost walker Unbreakable Fortune Efficiency Feather falling Silk touch Infinity Strength Custom enchantment
Armor Leather armor chain armor Iron armor Gold armor Diamond armor Netherite armor Draconic armor Infinitely OP avaritia armor Hacked armor God armor Custom Armor
Heals Bandage ×500000 Bandage ×∞ - 1 like Medkit ×250000 Medkit ×∞ - 10 likes Vaccine ×300000 Vaccine ×∞ - 10 likes OP Heal ×25000 OP Heal ×∞ - 50 likes Chug Jug ×50000 Chug Jug ×∞ - 75 likes Infinitely OP Heal (That is infinite and makes you have ∞ Health and ∞ Shield) - 100 likes Custom Heal - 25 likes
Yeah, that's it for now the shop will be updated! and you can come back anytime you want!

If I had to pick an embarrassing moment which will haunt me until I die—it has to be the time I tried out for The Sunbeam cheer squad last year. I was a freshman, and I wanted community. Friends.
I heard the cheer squad were just an extra-curricular group rather than an actual majoring level class, so I figured I’d give them a shot. It’s not like I could ignore them.
On my first day when I was moving into my dorm room, I must have walked into the same girl three times. I am in strict belief that it is not possible for a human being to be permanently happy.
And yet that was her. She wandered around like the sun shone right out of her ass, and it was both endearing and terrifying.
The girl resembled the sun herself, a halo of golden curls held in a scrunchie and a flaunting sundress, matching ribbons wrapped around her. The Sunbeam Squad were easy to spot because they were all wearing insanely bright yellow—waving around gold streamers, ribbons tangled in their hair. They all spoke in insanely high pitched voices like they inhaled helium for a living, but that must have been their shtick, right? It was kind of cute. I wasn’t expecting such a welcome in the shape of guy’s and girl’s looking like they had just stepped off of ABC Kids. The girl who handed me a flyer and yelled in my face about school spirit was practically hopping up and down, a bright grin splitting her lips apart.
I nodded and smiled politely, stuffing the flyer in my bag and heading into my room to finish moving my stuff in. When I looked out of my window a few hours later, the Sunbeam squad was still threaded through the crowd, each of them wrapped in glittering fairy lights illuminated in the late evening sunset glow. Sunbeam. Yeah, I got it, but it was still kinda overkill. They were starting to remind me of a cult.
That, however, didn’t stop me trying out. I’m fairly athletic, and they were exactly what I wanted. I’ve never had a group of people I could call friends.
Though it’s not like I could blame anyone but myself. I was a shut-in for most of high school. I either worked or preferred my own company in my room. One of my biggest regrets is pushing people away, friends I wanted to get even closer to. Because now they had built these lifelong friendships and relationships, and I was stuck at 18 years old with nobody but childhood friends I spoke to once a year when we sent mutual holiday greetings to each other. But college could change that.
At least, that’s what I hoped. I spoke to as many people as possible on my first day—and in my head I was making them. Slowly but surely I was actually making friends in my classes I wanted to hang out with.
Sunbeam were my attempt to go even further and join a club. Through word of mouth in my first few weeks of classes, I learned they were more of an extra-curricular group for fun.
They didn’t cheer competitively and had been formed in the mid-90’s by some kids who wanted to make a community out of positivity and school spirit. Sunbeam had a reputation for being Watson State student body’s beacons—and their team’s good luck charm. It was well known across campus that the squad was the reason behind the college’s fortune.
It had been like that since they formed 30 years ago, with members through the generations carrying out that pledge to spread as much pep as possible. While I say that they seemed nice judging from what I heard from others, they weren’t exactly the easiest clique to get into. Unless you were on the squad.
I saw them around campus between classes. They always moved as a group, the six of them with their arms wrapped around each other, brandishing the school colours. The guy’s in loose fitting varsity jackets, while the girl’s flaunted cheer skirts.
The way they acted was a little too close, like they were more than friends—and community and friendship had bled into something else. Like they had just walked out of an early 2000’s teen movie. Not that I was complaining. Their style was intriguing. They were like this untouchable group of god’s who had been placed on the highest pedestals. They ruled over campus, which made me want to get to know them even more. So, I tried out. Which was my first mistake of many in my freshman year.
It didn’t hit me that I was in way over my head until I was in the college gymnasium, standing in front of a four person panel like I was auditioning for a Hollywood movie. Sunbeam took their try-outs incredibly seriously. Which was weird considering they were known to be the complete opposite.
There were maybe fifty or so applicants, and we had to stand near the back wall and watch others try out one by one. Which was already setting off my anxiety. Weren’t they supposed to be closed try-outs? Initially, I was excited.
I had my routine in my head. What I had learned from watching the squad at my old school. High V, Low V, followed by a Touchdown, and then a backflip. I was confident. I mean, it ticked most cheer moves off, and even had a flip to complete the routine. My high school were a multi-sex quad, so I learned a lot from watching the guy’s moves during pep rallies.
I wasn’t really worried about the quality of the moves since they were known not to take everything too seriously. But watching the others try-out, impossible flips without crash mats and twisting their bodies in ways I didn’t know was possible, I quickly realised I was screwed. My competitors were acting like they were auditioning for an Olympic level team. My gut was dancing when I took centre stage.
The panel were made up of four members of the squad. Two boys and two girl’s, including the blonde who handed me the flyer on my first day. I was surprised when her eyes lit up with recognition.
"Oh, I know you!" She squeaked. Leaning forward, her smile seemed to brighten, illuminating her features. All four of them seemed to emanate a warm glow.
I felt myself relax slightly, the knot in my stomach loosening. Maybe their heightened positivity thing wasn’t a shtick, after all. The girl, as well as the other members of the team seemed genuinely happy to see me trying out. “What’s your name?” Her voice reverberated off of the walls, and I was suddenly aware of a dozen other students watching me.
“Alex.” I said, offering a shy wave. “Hey.”
Still grinning, she nudged a redhead next to her playfully. The guy was like no other I’d seen before. He was a god damn traffic light. He was easy to spot in a crowd and was usually one of the low-key members who kept his head down. All of those colours painting him, and yet somehow he wasn’t blinding people.
Though admittedly, he suited them; bright red hair clashing with the blue and gold of his football jersey, pasty skin and dark eyes drinking me in while the blonde girl pulled at his sleeve. “See, I told you annoying freshmen would work!”
In response, he chuckled, rolling his eyes. “Whatever you say, Evie.” The guy straightened up, leaning his chin on his fist, a curious spark in his eyes. “Alright.” Twisting around in his chair, he signalled for music. When it started, the beat slammed into me, rumbling under my feet. “Let’s see what you’ve got!”
I’m not going to describe my routine because I don’t have time to describe how fucking bad I was. In my head, I was doing okay. I was ready to finish with my back flip, but the music abruptly cut off and I found myself struggling to find my breath with my hands in the air, panting like an idiot. The blonde maintained her smile, but it was slightly strained. I could tell she was struggling to keep the façade of a Sunbeam member while also retaining critical thinking.
The redhead looked like he was in pain. He was first to speak, and I could tell by his sympathy smile I’d screwed up. The others who I hadn’t fully taken in until that moment, an asian American guy, and a girl with pigtails, were laughing like pre-schoolers. And they didn’t stop until the redhead shot them the warning eyes.
Weirdly enough, the crowd of onlookers didn’t join in. I expected the redhead to politely tell me I sucked, but instead he cocked his head, chewing on his pen. “You’re good.” He said. “You’re a good dancer, and I liked your moves…”
He trailed off. “But it’s positivity we’re looking for. And you didn’t smile once through your whole routine which made you look stiff. Like you weren’t even enjoying it.” He shrugged helplessly. “I like you, and I like your dancing. And I’m sure you could be better if you worked on it. There are countless dancing clubs here, so maybe you might be better fitted there.” After exchanging a look with the blonde, he sighed. “Unfortunately, you’re not the type of person we’re looking for.”
Evie nodded. “I agree. We pride ourselves on staying positive and smiling. I didn’t see that on you, Alex.”
“Same here.” Pigtails, still giggling, joined in. “I don’t think you’ve got enough school spirit.”
The other guy scoffed. He looked to be of Korean descent. Unlike the redhead, he was always at the centre of their group, always joking around and laughing. Just looking at him told me he was the leader. “Bullshit!” He slapped the table with one hand, running his hands through thick dark hair with the other. “I liked it. Fuck pep, amirite?” He threw his pen at the blonde, who retaliated in a squeak, lobbing hers at him. “Ignore these clowns. I think you’ve got what it takes. We just gotta work on you, y’know? All you’re missing is a cheesy grin.”
He pointed to himself, stretching his lips into the widest smile he could muster. “See? Like this.”
“Clowns?” Evie shook her head. “I didn’t see one smile. Sunbeam is all about smiling!”
“You make us sound like a cult.” The Korean-American caught my eye. “Which we’re not, by the way. These guys are just scared of change.”
“Okay, that’s too far.” Pigtails shot him a scowl. Are you seriously disrespecting the alumni who created us? Who birthed us?
“Well, yeah!” He threw his paper at her. “Sunbeam is a pep cult. We get high off of happiness. I thought we distinguished that.”
“Take that back!”
“Never! Why do you think I joined? To get high! Do you really think I joined for the cheering?”
They were joking around. I could tell by the smiles on their faces—a smile I knew I would never be able to mimic.
“Quiet.” The redhead shushed them. The guy had been sitting silently. Studying me. He leaned back, folding his arms.
“See, even now—even when I’m considering giving you a chance, there’s no hope in your eyes. Not even a glitter of excitement. You’re still not smiling and that’s what we want, Alex. We want people who will embody what Sunbeam is all about. Even if I give you a second chance to brighten up your routine your smile will be fake. And that’s not what we want. We want people who are willing to shed their humanity and become beacons.”
Beacons, huh?
And they were seriously saying they weren’t a cult?
The redhead stabbed at his sheet of paper with the end of his pen. “Can’t you just give us one smile? It won’t kill you.”
It was then when the others watching started to laugh—and I wanted to punch the asshole in the face.
“Dude, chill.” The Korean-American played with his pen, twirling it between two fingers. “He’s right, as much as I hate saying it. We do need smilers, unfortunately. But hey, you can try out next year! Just remember to smile, alright?” He threw something at me. A squashed candy bar.
Which made me look even more pathetic.
I found myself nodding, even when I knew it was all bullshit. Still though, what each member had told me hit me harder than it should have. They were just words, what could they do? It turned out, words were far more powerful than I realised—I just didn’t know it yet. I didn’t wait for the others to speak and made a quick getaway, my gut twisting and turning.
They were a cult. That is what I decided. These guys were a cult who needed members willing to throw away their souls. Probably for ritualistic sacrifice.
They needed weak people, I thought. Even when part of me knew they were right. I wasn't a smiler. Every photo I'm in, I'm either frowning or look constipated. Still though, I didn't dwell on the try-outs for too long. By the time a week had gone by, I had mostly forgotten about it and threw myself into my studies and college life.
Though something was wrong with me. It was as if the world had slowed down, had stopped making sense completely. Every day felt like a dream, and I myself felt like I was a ghost, like I was disassociating from my own body. Conversations with people felt fake. Like I was making them up.
I remember waking up day after day in a daze I couldn’t get myself out of. It was only several weeks later did the thick mind fog which had been blanketing my brain finally lift—only for me to hear the news that all six members of the Sunbeam squad had disappeared. I don’t know how I didn’t notice, how I didn’t see the police investigation, or hear rumours being spread around like wildfire.
According to the college, it wasn't technically considered a disappearance since the members were all over eighteen, no longer minors. However, an investigation was conducted, with a statement being released that they were due to be performing at Knoxville College, cheering on our football team. But they never turned up. And what made it worse, was their bus was found abandoned on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Sounds bad, right?
Well, that's what we all thought. Vigils were already being held, and bodies weren't even found yet. Every time I walked back to my dorm after classes, the night would be lit up in warm golden light, candles flickering in the breeze. I'm not sure how many days had gone by-- they all seemed to blur into one-- when our college made another statement. The members of the Sunbeam squad were alive and healthy and had been sent to a training academy for professionals.
When the student body responded with confusion and scepticism, the college reassured us they were coming back once they were finished training. And while my classmates were relieved, I found myself confused. Sunbeam didn't cheer competitively. Their whole thing was that all they wanted to do was spread cheer and pep, regardless of how good they were. I had seen them perform, and they were good, sure. They were better than average. But definitely not good enough to be trained into pro’s. Their moves were too clumsy, too half assed—which I was convinced they thought overwhelming amounts of positivity could fix. So it didn’t make sense that they had been sent to some training academy. I kept up my scepticism until I saw them for myself.
The college were right. Sunbeam returned a week later like nothing had happened.
I did see a change in them. I think that was a universal opinion though. Sunbeam were well known for their pep and cheer, their constant smiling faces which drove me crazy—and it’s not like that stopped. They still smiled. They still walked around campus laughing together, in their own little world. That was when people were watching. When they had an audience. I caught them when they didn’t have an audience. Without eyes on them, they detached from each other, their eyes darkening, expressions twisting, like each of them could smell something rotten in the air. I started noticing they were getting progressively clumsier at keeping up that Sunbeam façade they must have pledged when they joined the group. I figured it was just tiredness. They must have been through some pretty intense training.
Anyway, months went by. I started to feel less distant, and the fog which had been choking me faded, thankfully. I started my junior year moving into a shared house with my roommate, and the only talk I’d heard about Sunbeam was that one of their ex members was rumoured to be pregnant. As for the rest of the squad, they were still popular, still talked about—but their disappearance had definitely made people wary of them. I even heard someone say they were considered bad luck. I guess people thought they had sold themselves out for a chance to get into the big leagues. And it wouldn’t surprise me.
Forced positivity can get you a long way, sure—but recognition can get you further.
It was just a few weeks ago when I was invited to a game. Our first of the season, thanks to delays due to cuts in the sports department. I’m not much of a sports fan, though I needed a distraction from the copious amounts of assignments I’d let pile on my desk.
When I sat down with a chilli dog and Coke, I wasn’t expecting to get so invested in a game where I had no idea what was happening. It was loud and obnoxious and I was choking on the stink of fried food, but it was fun. It was fun until Sunbeam walked out onto the side-lines. I glimpsed them in a blur of blue and gold, and a dull pain crawled across the back of my head. “You okay?” My housemate’s voice was barely distinguishable in my ears, when I found myself transfixed by the way they moved in erratic jumps, quickly taking position. They had gotten better. Everything which was Sunbeam had been stripped away. Their smiles were forced. Wrong.
I remembered they used to push and shove each other, making the crowd laugh. Now though, they were in almost perfect sync in the way they moved, no longer shakily, sometimes stumbling into each other. Their routine was longer than it usually was—and when the Korean-American guy perfected a triple flip, the crowd went crazy. I expected him to smile when he landed, grinning into the audience to generate what Sunbeam was made for. But his expression stayed stoic. Robotic. They were stiff. Heads up, backs straight, staring ahead of them. I was told when I tried out that fake smiles weren’t allowed, and yet that was all I was seeing. I was seeing egotistical grins and curled lips, quick glances between each member.
I expected looks of reassurances, and in jokes only they found funny. Instead, it looked like a mutual agreement.
They were planning something. From the looks on their faces, it wasn’t a firework show.
Sunbeam used to generate happiness. Their smiles, even under a façade, had always been real.
These guys emanated power. The way they stood. The guy’s at the front, readying what I guessed was a lift, and the girl’s on top of them.
Their routine ended with the music reaching a climax, and the two main girl’s being lifted into the air while performing High V’s.
But they didn’t stop there.
When the crowd exploded with applause, one of the girl’s slowly raised her arms and shot into the crowd with finger guns.
She shot twice—and with every time she pulled that imaginary trigger, her painted lips stretched into a maniacal grin.Until her gaze was on me. And then behind me. I could see it in her glittering eyes I could no longer call human. I met Evie at the start of my freshman year, and then at the disastrous try-outs.
I knew her wide smile, and the glint of passion twisting her expression—a love for the group and the members she couldn’t put into words. Right then I wasn’t seeing Evie, a Sunbeam cheerleader. I was seeing something else entirely, a being scanning faces in the crowd for a victim.
Her expression seemed to melt, from a gleeful grin, to something twisted and putrid, someone who craved the exact opposite of what Sunbeam preached. I watched her lips. I watched the words pop into existence, drowned into nothing by the crowds cheering. But I saw them in perfect clarity. “Drop.” She said, before pulling the imaginary trigger again.
No sooner had the words left her mouth before someone screamed behind me. I twisted around to see a guy had collapsed. He was pronounced dead five minutes later by his sobbing girlfriend who had attempted CPR. When I twisted back to look out onto the field, the Sunbeam Squad were gone. It didn’t make sense that they were the ones to cause the guy’s death—but it couldn’t have been a coincidence, right? Evie had shot into the crowd at the exact same time the guy had dropped dead. Finger guns weren’t a weapon of course, but the timing was too coincidental. I already knew there was something wrong with Sunbeam. And this just strengthened my claims.
Obviously, when I tried to tell people this, I was called crazy. Delusional. I reported it to the student information building and just got a blank stare.
The woman wasn’t even attempting to hear my story. She just heard “murder” and “Sunbeam” and her lips curved into an amused smirk. “You know, you are quite fascinating,” leaning back against her chair, the woman frowned at me through wonky glasses. "First you unexpectedly quit, and then you accuse them of murder. Which I can tell you is false.”
She flipped through a notebook in front of her. “According to the autopsy report released a few days ago, the young man died of a brain haemorrhage, not the result of being pretend shot at by a cheerleader miming finger-guns.” The woman cleared her throat.
“Tell me, what exactly do you have against the Sunbeam squad?"
“What?”
“You quit the squad at the end of your freshman year,” she said, “And now you’re trying to accuse them of murder? Fascinating.”
Her words struck me, a shiver sliding down my spine. The office was cosy, and when I sunk into the rich leather of the couch in front of a roaring fire I recognised the book on her desk. It was a dog eared copy of Harry Potter. I’d seen it before. But that was impossible. I had never been in her office. “Quit?” I shook my head. “No, I don’t…” I trailed off, stumbling over my words. “I’ve never been part of Sunbeam.”
“Were you not?” She shook her head, a crease forming between her brows. “Ah, I must be getting you mixed up with someone else.”
I nodded. “Just… can you just listen to me? That Evie girl was fucking—”
She cut me off. “Language.”
“Sorry. Evie. She was… I don’t know what she was doing... she was doing like... like magic?”
“Are you sure you didn’t dream it?”
“Yes!"
“Mmm hmm.” The woman cleared her throat, dismissing my protests. “I’m not a doctor, but If you’re experiencing memory loss and confusion, I suggest you go to the hospital. As for your ludicrous claims, you should keep them to yourself. That poor young man died due to a brain haemorrhage. Terrible and tragic, yes. But it was accidental, and not the work of… I’m sorry, what were you claiming it to be?”
“Magic.” I said, again.
When she raised her brow, I couldn’t resist a groan. “I saw her! She shot into the crowd and mouthed something!”
“She… mouthed something?”
“Yes! But—"
Again, her words sliced into mine. “Okay, let’s say you were right,” she said. “If you are saying this girl shot into the crowd with her imaginary gun, wouldn’t it be a gun shot which would have killed him? You said it yourself—, it was some kind of witchy magic to kill him. So, where was the bullet wound?” When I tried to speak, she raised her arm to shut me up.
“Exactly. There was none. Because the man suffered a haemorrhagic stroke, and nothing could be done to save him. Your claims a group of young people carried this out as a murder is not only blatant defamation, but also disrespectful to the young man and his family. Now, please leave my office. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” The woman nodded for me to stand up. “I think you have been watching too much TV. Might I suggest focusing on your studies?”
I left her office, slamming the door.
My housemate wasn’t helpful when I told him. He told me I was maybe a little too obsessed with Sunbeam. He headed to work, and I ended up in the lounge trying to focus on an episode of Criminal Minds. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Evie.
I saw what she said.
Drop.
But it wasn’t the force of her imaginary finger-guns ricocheting back. It was the word. Drop.
It had been alive on her lips like it was a sentient thing bleeding into existence. I managed to fall asleep, twisted like a pretzel in my housemate’s favourite chair, when three loud knocks on the door tore me from slumber. I was on my feet, blinking, disoriented. It was rare when we got a visitor. Stumbling over to the door, I had a moment of hesitation. I imagined Evie on the other side.
I imagined her raising her hand and shooting her pretend finger-guns directly into my head.
When I opened the door, I was surprised to see three little kids. The youngest must have been maybe nine years old. To my surprise, they were dressed in Halloween costumes. There was a little witch, a ghost, and a scarecrow all carrying pumpkin shaped holders It took me a moment to realise I was staring at a group of Trick or Treaters. It wasn’t even mid-October yet.
“Hey there,” I said, “Uh, you guys are a little early.”
The little girl’s eyes were wide and unblinking. “We want candy.” She held out her candy holder. “Now.”
I decided to be firm with them. “It’s not Halloween.” I said, taking a small step back. I was grasping the handle, ready to slam it in their faces. These little shits were freaking me out. Not just their tone, but their expressions were vacant. There were no lights on and that terrified me. “Sorry kids, I don’t have any candy. But like I said, come back when it’s actually Halloween, and I’ll have candy bars for all of you. "
What I wasn’t expecting was for the Scarecrow to pull a knife out of his pumpkin shaped candy holder. He didn’t hold it like a kid should, clumsily, confused. There was a strategic way the way his fingers were wrapped around the handle—like he’d brandished one before. The kid held the knife up to his own neck and made a slicing motion. Like the little girl, his eyes were blank. Unblinking. There was something wrong in the way he was standing. Stiff, like a puppet on strings. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He squeaked out a laugh. I didn’t see him lunge forward, I was already moving back, stumbling, losing my footing.
The kid moved with impossible speed—and before I knew what was happening, the hilt of the knife was buried in my lower leg. I didn’t even feel pain. My body was being driven by adrenaline, pushing me to get away from him. I remember falling back. I remember my own trembling hands grasping hold of the handle and pulling out the knife. Red was pooling down my jeans and onto our hardwood floor. The little kids turned around and ran back down the steps into the night, and I watched them in a sort of daze.
They didn’t move like normal.
They stalked down the sidewalk like video game characters. The witch shoved a passing old man before pulling out a gun and pointing it at his head. But she didn’t shoot. The three of them ran off—and it was only when I was watching the top of the girl’s witch hat disappear into the night, when I glimpsed something—or someone—at the corner of my eye.
Before I heard laughter. The tree in front of me moved. At first I thought they were shadow’s. Before the shadows bled into figures. Four of them. I glimpsed the school colours. Blue and Gold. I saw twin ponytails, velvet and blonde-- as well as the tell-tale Sunbeam varsity jacket. The group were laughing, whispering to each other. Not exactly doing a good job of hiding. When they slipped from their hiding place, I recognised Evie. Her fingers gingerly on her nose while intense red pooled down her chin.
The others were the same, swiping at their faces with jacket sleeves. They didn’t seem fazed. The redhead’s gaze was latched onto the retreating children, his lips curling. I could sense he was still tethered to them. He was still commanding them to act out grand theft auto. They had caused the man’s death at the game and had controlled those children.
I wasn’t crazy or delusional. Evie had killed someone by simply shooting imaginary finger guns, and somehow the others were able to bleed into children’s heads, taking them over.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I heaved out a breath. The pain was starting to hit in waves I had to grit through. I couldn’t move. I was stuck, curled up on my floor. While they laughed.
I was halfway through stabbing 911 into my phone when one of them came over. It was the Korean-American. The one who had been the nicest to me out of all of them. The real smile I remembered was gone, replaced by something inhuman. Something I didn’t want to question.
With his hands stuffed in his varsity jacket pockets, he approached me with mocking eyes, almost an attempt at trying to mimic his old self.
The guy knelt in front of me with a chuckle. “Kids these days, right? They’re animals.”
His voice, no, his words, were hurting me. I felt each one penetrate me like gunshots.
My wound wasn’t bad. That’s what I estimated, anyway. I don’t think the kid had hit anything vital. But I needed the emergency room. I still had one hand grasping at my side, drenched in red.
I managed a hiss, grasping for my phone when he pulled it out of my grasp and waved it in the air. “Fuck off. What did you do to those little kids?” I gritted out, trying to reach for my damn phone. I was starting to feel the pain in my side and it hurt like a mother fucker—dizzying bolts of electricity which felt like waves of boiling hot water slamming into me one by one. I tried to get onto my knees, but he pushed me back down again. The guy cocked his head to the side, confusion creasing his expression.
“Ouch. That must hurt.”
"What did you... what did you do?" I hissed out.
His presence was hurting me. Every time he opened his mouth, it was agony. Somehow, it was worse than the stab-wound. This kind of pain was no other I’d felt before. The type I’d rather die than feel. A cry was clawing at my throat, fight or flight taking over. Again, I tried to move, I tried to get away from him. But he was holding down my arms and prodding at my side before sticking his finger in the cut and twisting. "I didn't do anything, Alex.”
His voice barely hit me when my vision blurred and I screamed. Like a fucking animal, I screamed. But not because his fingers were digging around in my insides.
Because my brain was suddenly boiling, a metal rod piercing my skull and stirring it into a soupy mess. His voice was inside me. It was bleeding into me, taking over me. But not just his voice. The world blurred around me and I was no longer in my doorway, bleeding out against the wall.
Instead, I was moving. I was… I was walking. No, I was being dragged. Except these weren’t my memories. This wasn’t my mind. I could see bare feet beneath me delicately slapping on white tiles. When I looked up, I saw an expanse of white like I was being led straight into the clouds. This was a building. There were glass doors and electronic panels, people in black guarding each one. It took a while for me to gain my senses—or him to gain his.
We could smell something like chlorine and taste rusty coins at the back of our throat. Feel the ice cold tiles against our bare toes. A strange feeling at the back of our head. We kept wanting to run our fingers through our hair, but every time we did, our fingers only touched bare skin. Scuffed and rigged skin. Tight fingers were wrapped around our arm, dragging us further and further into a white oblivion. Until a glass door seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
From now on, I am going to describe his memories very vaguely. I’m just going to tell you what I saw.
The room we walked into reminded me of a classroom—but there were no desks. In front of me were the other members of Sunbeam pressed against the back wall. They faced forwards, their gazes penetrating nothing. But I saw they were trembling. Terrified. The squad were dressed in pale white shorts and t-shirt, ugly red spattering the front. There were still traces of blue and glitter on their faces, ribbons hanging from bedraggled curls.
Their feet were bare and filthy like ours. When we were shoved forwards, we took our place next to Evie who had half of her hair shaved off. Her arms were folded across her cheer uniform, her bare feet tapping a beat against the floor. When a woman with dark red hair held in a strict ponytail entered and asked if either of us wanted to show her what we had learned, Evie eagerly raised her hand. “Okay, Evie.” The woman’s voice was too sweet. Sickly sweet. She gestured for the girl forward. “Show us what you’ve got.”
The door opened, and a man stepped through. His hands were tied in front of him, his eyes blank.
Evie nodded, her eyes set in determination. She cleared her throat. “Shatter.”
Nothing happened.
“Intent, Evie.” The woman said. “It doesn’t matter how you say the word unless you use proper intent. Try again.”
The girl did, growling in frustration.
"Shatter.”
The man’s head flew from his torso suddenly in a river of red, and the girl squeaked in excitement.
While we watched in horror, the rest of the squad gave in to their own despair.
Different days bled into one—and we watched faces change. Heads were shaved. Hair grew back. Fear turned to joy.
A blonde girl exploded into bloody chunks, splattering against the walls.
“Yes!” The redhead high-fived pigtails, the two of them locked into some bizarre handshake. “That’s what I’m TALKING about!”
“Bang!” One of the girls used finger guns, and with each “shot” innocents dropped against the wall one by one, their heads blown through.
She jumped up and down in glee. “Bang, bang, bang!”
“Keep going,” the voice of the woman crackled through the speaker. “You’ve almost got it.”
“Divide.” Pigtails used her pointer finger at an old man who was skewed by an invisible force sending bloody chunks of him to the floor.
"Show off.” The redhead said in a sing-song voice. He was slumped against the back wall using his jersey to wipe blood from his face while the others painted the room scarlet. With simple words of intent and a hand gesture, they were able to take people apart piece by piece.
Pigtails snorted when another “test subject” was brought in. "Oh, you think you can do better?”
“Think I can? I know I can.”
This time he plunged two fingers into his temples. He was centre stage, the others against the back wall with their arms folded.
“Rip it out.”
The test subject’s eyes widened, her trembling hands clawing at her own head, fingernails digging into flesh. “Rip…rip it out?”
His lip curved. “That’s what I said.”
We didn’t see the test subject rip her own brain from her skull. We were already burying our head into our knees and screeching into the floor. Another flash. Like watching a movie.
This time we’re cutting into our wrist with shards of glass. Pulling back fleshy flaps of our flesh, there are two wires entangled with muscle and bone. One red and one blue. “Why won’t you submit?” A sharp growl, and I can feel our body pressed against metal. Our arms are restrained. “Out of all of them, you refuse it.” A hand slaps our face. “You don’t want it!”
He started to laugh.
“You don’t want… control?”
He leaned his face closer. “Tell me to mutilate myself. Tell me to… to tear out my brain stem! That’s the beauty of it! No matter how impossible the order is, it will be completed! Control, my boy. Use it. Do you even understand how much you are going to shape the world? Words! Do you know how powerful they are? When said from the right mouth, with the right intent, they can cause bloodshed, pain and misery-- a despair drowning our already shattered earth. And you will be the centre of it. You will bring this world to its knees, Jason."
"Now, do it. We call it cutting, but you will find familiarity in referring to it as erasure. You can make up your own words if you would like. What matters is the intent.” I feel something slicing into our arm. It’s nothing medical. It’s torture. He plunges something sharp into the same spot and twists the blade until we throw our head back and scream at the ceiling.
“You’re the last one.” The man hissed. “Do it.”
“No.” I heard his—our—voice. “I… I can’t!”
“Do it!”
He’s dragging us again, forcing us down a long winding corridor until we reach another door.
"Drown." The boy - - Jason's-- voice was suddenly in my head. I could sense it was trying to hold back, attempting to peel back whatever power his own words had. But the word came again and again until it was suffocating his mouth. “Drown. Drown. Drown. Drown.” We were standing in the doorway of a smaller room. In the corner there was a figure curled up with their head pressed against the wall.
It was a guy.
I recognised our school colours, a bloodied varsity jacket over shorts and t-shirt. When he lifted his head and twisted to face the boy whose mind I was in, I noticed he had an uncanny resemblance to me. His eyes wide, frightened. They were my mother's.
This guy looked exactly like me.
No, it WAS me.
My eyes were shadowed and haunted.
Like I had been drained of everything I was.
As quickly as the memories came crashing into me, they were yanked away when the guy must have pulled back.
I blinked rapidly, and Jason looked as confused as me. Slowly, he pulled his finger from my cut. The man's voice was in my skull, and it was agonising. I felt the command in my head, my body instantly reacting to... to nothing. I had my hands out, ready to do.... do something.
"That was… just a trick,” He said. “Yeah! Just a trick!”
I found myself nodding, echoing his words. Something warm ran from my nose.
"Just... a trick..." I whispered, the words forced from my lips.
Blood spattered down my chin.
“Louder.” He said.
"JUST A TRICK!" I yelled, the force of the wail sending me my knees, panting. The guy was frowning, seemingly unsure what to do with me.
He wrapped up my wound and told me it wasn’t bad—and it wasn’t. I watched in disbelief as my skin stitched itself back together.
"Go into your kitchen." Jason said, and I felt the power of his words ripping through me like bullets. My body moved on its own, and I got to my feet and stepped into my kitchen. He followed me, grabbing a scarf off of the table.
"Get on your knees." I did, dropping to my knees, my breath in my throat, my mouth sealed shut. I could sense the others in the doorway as he wrapped the scarf around my eyes, the heel of his shoe slamming into my neck forcing me onto my stomach.
"I want you to wait for me to kill you."
His words pierced into me. I did. Even when I knew he was gone, the door slamming shut-- I waited. I waited until the next morning, until I regained control over my own body and pulled the scarf from my eyes. I'm still waiting, my brain in constant panic, twisting around when I'm alone, looking into every corner.
I was roped into going to Friday's game against Harrington. During Sunbeam’s routine, they did it again. They had the crowd's attention, and Evie was mouthing something. I felt her words, sharp like needles cutting into me. But they didn't penetrate. They have done something to the student body. Ever since, I’ve been catching looks around me. Those whose heads they have crawled into. Mindless eyes. Every so often an arm will touch mine, fingers will wrap around my neck. I can hear their feet pitter pattering after me. Those little kids from that night. I keep seeing the little witch girl in the corner of my eye. They’re creating an army who are coming for me once he decides to kill me.
If only I knew what happened to the Sunbeam squad. Maybe I can help them somehow.
But something tells me they’re way past help.
And so am I.
I wonder if one day, I might be allowed a glimpse of my memories. What really happened to me during my freshman year.
And why, ever since going into his mind, I dream of a white room.

I have 3,000 hours in TCF and about 500 hours in Hunt Showdown. (And also 3,000 hours split among Apex, COD, Valorant, Counter Strike, Overwatch and other shooters)
I've drawn comparisons between both games, and have always wondered this one thing: "Why are shotguns so trash in TCF?"
In Hunt Showdown, you even think of getting close to a Romero, you risk getting one tapped even 10 meters away.(For context, the Romero is a single shot shotgun that costs close to nothing and is cheaper than a stim). In other games, walking near a shotgun is a death sentence. Hell, even mobas understand the concept of a shotgun being devastating up close and not as effective the farther the target is.(See: Graves from League of Legends)
Now why are shotguns so trash in TCF? I understand that in Hunt, there is a global objective in the game which pressures everyone to constantly keep moving, you can be revived, and that while you can hold down corners, you can't sit in a tight spot for 4 hours and wait for an unfortunate passerby. Taking this into account, balancing shotguns around the concept of getting ratted by a shotgun should be more forgiving isn't necessarily the wrong take, it definitely is a bad one, since shotguns have to be inherently bad in all aspects of the game just so it does not excel in one particular area.
So how do we go about making shotguns work without making it a powerful tool for people who can just sit all day in Starport Admin?

1. Remove jump accuracy penalty to all shotguns. I can understand being inaccurate with a rifle if you fire it while jumping up and down, but even in real life logic, how does jumping up and shooting the shotgun mid-air increase the spread of the pellets?
2. Buff all shotguns except the Bulldog. Shotguns should be devastating and strong close up and weaker farther away. At the moment, PDWs are challenging Shatterguns no problem just because shotguns are that weak.
3. Add more shotguns into the game. Why can't we have a one-shot one-tap shotty(Romero from Hunt Showdown), or a double barrel shotgun(Caldwell Rival from Hunt Showdown, Shorty from Valorant), or a sci-fi shotgun that charges up and tightens the spread(Peacekeeper from Apex Legends), shotguns with alternate fire modes that can shoot normally or explode a distance away for farther reach(Roadhog's Scrap Gun from Overwatch, Bucky from Valorant). There are many shotguns from other games to draw inspiration from, yet we only have the classic pump shotgun, a pistol shotty, a semi auto shotgun, and a purple pump shotgun.
4. Replace pen mods with actual mods. I like the idea of slugs, but the lack of shotgun variations render it only useful on the PKR which I don't mind. Why not just make it a PKR exclusive attachment, and add other attachments for other shotguns? Why not add a double-tap trigger mod(from Apex Legends) for the trenchgun, a flare rounds attachment(from Hunt Showdown) for the bulldog, a precision choke(from Apex Legends) for the Shattergun? So much can be done to increase the utility of shotguns and actually make it worthwhile to run.

Now let's say the devs in their infinite wisdom decided that I am right and did everything I and everyone who comments their thoughts below, what happens then because shotguns will be overpowered when rats use them?
Give us the tools to deal with rats. No need to nerf guns to balance out ratting, let us just get rid of rats some other way. And one way I thought of was how in Hunt Showdown, you can throw decoy fuses in a building to flush defenders out of position because they thought you threw a dynamite stick. The same mechanic could be done in TCF - why not just replace Audio decoys with Decoy Grenades? Or keep the Audios, just make their trail red instead of orange. I get that Gas nades have green trails so that you can react appropriately and make the correct calls to your team, but decoys are supposed to be, well, decoys. I don't understand the logic behind color coding it into it's own specific color - are we supposed to be calling out to our teammates "care, you just got audio'd, watch out"? They should also rework Audio Decoys to be server-sided and have actual soundclips from actual fights, and include death sounds, AI attacking sounds, reload sounds, footsteps, etc.
​
I'm curious to know what you guys feel, and how shotguns fit in the current iteration of the game, and what should be done to make shotguns useful.

The whirring blades of my MD-902 throbbed against the warm evening air, and I smiled.
From 5,000 feet, the ground flew by in a carpet of dark forests and kelly-green fields. The sun hung low on the horizon in a picturesque array of dazzling orange and gold, and I could make out the narrow strip of the Ohio River to my left, glistening in the fading daylight. This time of year, the trees would be full of the sweet aroma of fresh blossoms, and the frequent rains kept small pockets of fluffy white mist hanging in the treetops. It was a beautiful view, one that reminded me of why being a helicopter pilot trumped flying in a jumbo jet far above the clouds every day of the week.
Fourteen more days, and I’m debt free.
That made me grin even more. I’d been working as a charter pilot ever since I obtained my license at age 19, and after years of keeping my nose to the grindstone, I was closing on the final payment for real-estate in western Pennsylvania. With no debt, a fixer-upper house on 30 rural acres all to myself, and a respectable wage for a 26-year-old pilot, I looked forward to the financial freedom I could now enjoy. Maybe I’d take a vacation, somewhere exotic like Venice Italy, or the Dominican Republic. Or perhaps I’d sock the money back for the day I started a family.
“Remember kleineun, a real man looks after his own.”
My elderly ouma’s voice came back from the depths of my memories, her proud, sun-tanned face rising from the darkness. She and my Rhodesian grandfather had emigrated to the US when they were newlyweds, as the violence against white Boer descendants in South Africa spiraled out of control. My mother and father both died in a car crash when I was six, and it had been my grandparents who raised me. Due to this, I’d grown up with a slight accent that many of my classmates found amusing, and I could speak both English, and Afrikaans, the Boer tongue of our former home.
I shifted in my seat, stretched my back muscles, and glanced at the picture taped to my console. Both my parents flanked a grinning, gap-toothed six-year-old me, at the last Christmas we’d spent together. My mother beamed, her dark hair and Italian features a sharp contrast to my father’s sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. Sometimes, I liked to imagine they were smiling at me with pride at how well I flew the old silver-colored bird my company had assigned to me, and that made the long, lonely flights easier to bear.
A flicker caught my eye, and I broke my gaze away from the photograph.
Perched in its small cradle above the controls, my little black Garmin fuzzed over for a few seconds, its screen shifting from brightly colored maps to a barrage of grey static.
Did the power chord come loose?
I checked, ensuring the power-cable for the unit’s battery was plugged into the port on the control panel. It was a brand-new GPS unit, and I’d used it a few times already, so I knew it wasn’t defective. Granted, I could fly and navigate without it, but the Garmin made my time as a pilot so much easier that the thought of going blind was dreadful.
My fuel gauge danced, clicked to empty, then to full, in a bizarre jolt.
More of the gauges began to stutter, the entire panel seeming to develop terrets all at once, and my pulse began to race. Something was wrong, very wrong, and the sludge inside my bowels churned with sour fear.
“Come on, come on.” I flicked switches, turned dials, punched buttons, but nothing seemed to fix the spasming electronics. Every gauge failed, and without warning, I found myself plunged into inky darkness.
Outside, the sun surrendered to the pull of night, the sky darker than usual. A distant rumble of thunder reverberated above the roar of my helicopter’s engine, and I thought I glimpsed a streak of yellowish lightning on the far horizon to my left.
Calm down Chris. We’re still flying, so it must just be a blown fuse. Stay in control and find a place to set her down.
My sweaty palm slid on the cyclic stick, and both feet weighed heavy on the yaw pedals. The collective stuck to my other hand with a nervous vibration, and I squinted against the abyss outside.
Beep.
I jumped despite myself, as the little Garmin on my panel flared back to life, the static pulling aside to reveal a twitching display. Each time the screen glitched, it showed the colorful map detailing my flight path over the ground below, but I noticed that some of the lines changed, the names shifting, as if the device couldn’t decide between two different versions of the world.
One name jutted out at me, slate gray like most of the major county names, appearing with ghostly flickers from between two neighboring ones.
Barron County.
I stared, confused. I’d flown over this section of southeastern Ohio plenty of times, and I knew the counties by heart. At this point, I should have been over the southern end of Noble County, and maybe dipping lower into Washington. There was no Barron County Ohio. I was sure of it.
And yet it shown back at me from the digital landscape, a strange, almost cigar-shaped chunk of terrain carved from the surrounding counties like a tumor, sometimes there, sometimes not, as my little Garmin struggled to find the correct map. Rain began to patter against my cockpit window, and the entire aircraft rattled from a strong gust of wind. Thick clouds closed over my field of vision like a sea of gray cotton.
The blood in my veins turned to ice, and I sucked in a nervous breath.
Land. I had to land. There was nothing else to do, my flight controls weren’t responding, and only my Garmin had managed to come back to life. Perhaps I’d been hit by lightning, and the electronics had been fried? Either way, it was too dark to tell, but a storm seemed to be brewing, and if I didn’t get my feet on the ground soon, I could be in real trouble.
“Better safe than sorry.” I pushed down on the collective to start my slow descent and clicked the talking button for my headset. “Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, over.”
Nothing.
“Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, requesting emergency assistance, over.”
Still nothing.
If the radio’s dead, I’m really up a creek.
With my hand shaking, I clicked on the mic one more time. “Any station, this is—”
Like a curtain pulling back, the fog cleared from around my window, and the words stuck in my throat.
Without my gauges, I couldn’t tell just how far I’d descended, but I was definitely very low. Thick trees poked up from the ground, and the hills rolled into high ridges with flat valley floors, fields and pastures pockmarking them. Rain fell all around in cold, silvery sheets, a normal feature for the mid spring in this part of Ohio.
What wasn’t normal, were the fires.
At first, I thought they were forest fires for the amount of smoke and flames that bellowed from each spot, but as I swooped lower, my eyes widened in horror.
They were houses.
Farms, cottages, little clusters that barely constituted villages, all of them belched orange flames and black pillars of sooty smoke. I couldn’t hear above the helicopter blades, but I could see the flashes on the ground, along the road, in between the trees, and even coming from the burning buildings, little jets of golden light that spat into the darkness with anger.
Gunfire. That’s rifle fire, a whole lot of it.
Tiny black figures darted through the shadows, barely discernable from where I sat, several hundred feet up. I couldn’t see much, but some were definitely running away, the streaks of yellow gunfire chasing them. A few dark gray vehicles rumbled down one of the gravel roads, and sprayed fire into the houses as it went. They were fighting, I realized, the people in the trucks and the locals. It was horrific, like something out of war-torn Afghanistan, but worse.
Then, I caught a glimpse of the others.
They didn’t move like the rest, who either fled from the dark vehicles, or fired back from behind cover. These skinny figures loped along with haphazard gaits, many running on all fours like animals, swarming from the trees by the dozens. They threw themselves into the gales of bullets without flinching, attacking anyone within range, and something about the way they moved, so fluid, so fearless, made my heart skip a beat.
What is that?
“Echo Four Actual to unknown caller, please respond, over.”
Choking back a cry of shock, I fumbled at the control panel with clumsy fingers, the man’s voice sharp and stern. I hadn’t realized that I’d let go of the talking button and clicked it down again. “Hello? Hello, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot out of Pittsburgh, over.”
An excruciating moment passed, and I continued to zoom over the trees, the fires falling away behind me as more silent forest took over.
“Roger that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, we read you loud and clear. Please identify yourself and any passengers or cargo you might be carrying, over.”
Swallowing hard, I eyed the treetops, which looked much closer than they should have been. How far had I descended? “Echo Four Actual, my name is Christopher Dekker, and I am alone. I’m a charter flight from PA, carrying medical equipment for OSU in Columbus. My controls have been damaged, and I am unable to safely carry on due to the storm. Requesting permission to land, over.”
I watched the landscape slide by underneath me, once catching sight of what looked like a little white church surrounded by smaller huts, dozens of figures in the yard staring up at me as I flew over a towering ridgeline.
“Solid copy on that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot. Be advised, your transponder shows you to be inside a restricted zone. Please cease all radio traffic, reduce your speed, climb to 3,000 feet and proceed north. We’ll talk you in from there. How copy, over?”
My heart jumped, and I let out a sigh of relief. “Roger that Echo Four Actual, my altimeter is down, but I’ll do my best to eyeball the altitude, over.”
With that, I pulled the collective upward, and tried my best to gauge how far I was by eyesight in the gathering night, rain still coming down all around me. This had to be some kind of disaster or riot, I decided. After all, the voice over the radio sounded like military, and those vehicles seemed to have heavy weapons. Maybe there was some kind of unrest going on here that I hadn’t heard about yet?
Kind of weird for it to happen in rural areas though. Spoiled college kids I get, but never saw farmers get so worked up before. They usually love the military.
Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I turned out of reflex.
My mouth fell open, and I froze, unable to scream.
In the sky beside me, a huge shadow glided along, and its leathery wings effortlessly carved through the gloom, flapping only on occasion to keep it aloft. It was too dark for me to see what color it was, but from the way it moved, I knew it wasn’t another helicopter. No, this thing was alive, easily the size of a small plane, and more than twice the length of my little McDonald Douglass. A long tail trailed behind it, and bore a distinct arrow-shaped snout, with twig-like spines fanned out around the back of its head. Whatever legs it had were drawn up under it like a bird, yet its skin appeared rough and knobby, almost resembling tree bark. Without pause, the gigantic bat-winged entity flew along beside me, as if my presence was on par with an annoying fly buzzing about its head.
Gripping the microphone switch so tight, I thought I’d crack the plastic, I whispered into my headset, forgetting all radio protocol. “T-There’s something up here.”
Static crackled.
“Douglas Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, say again your last, you’re coming in weak and unreadable, over.”
“There’s something up here.” I snarled into the headset, still glued to the controls of the helicopter, afraid to deviate even an inch from my course in case the monstrosity decided to turn on me. “A freaking huge thing, right beside me. I swear, it looks like a bat or . . . I don’t know.”
“Calm down.” The man on the other end of the radio broke his rigorous discipline as well, his voice deep, but level. “It won’t attack if you don’t move too fast. Slowly ease away from it and follow that course until you’re out of sight.”
I didn’t have time to think about how wrong that sounded, how the man’s strict tone had changed to one of knowledge, how he hadn’t been the least surprised by what I’d said. Instead, I slowly turned the helicopter away from the huge menace and edged the speed higher in tiny increments.
As soon as I was roughly two football fields away, I let myself relax, and clicked the mic switch. “It’s not following.”
“You’re sure?”
Eyeing the huge flapping wings, I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, I’m well clear.”
“Good. Thank you, Mr. Dekker.”
Then, the radio went dead.
Something in my chest dropped, a weight that made my stomach roil. This wasn’t right, none of it. Who was that man? Why did he know about the thing I’d just seen? What was I supposed to—
A flash of light exploded from the trees to my right and shot into the air with a long finger of smoke.
What the . . .
On instinct, I jerked the cyclic stick to one side, and the helicopter swung to avoid the rocket.
Boom.
My world shook, metal screeched, and a dozen alarms began to go off inside the cockpit in a cacophony of beeps and sirens. Orange and red flames lit up the night sky just behind me, and the horizon started to spin wildly outside. Heat gushed from the cockpit door, and I smelled the greasy stench of burning oil. The safety belts dug into my shoulders, and with a final slip, the radio headset ripped free from my scalp.
I’m hit.
Desperate, I yanked on the controls, fought the bird even as she spun toward the ground in a wreath of flames, the inky black trees hurtling up to meet me. The helicopter went into full auto-rotation, the sky blurring past outside, and the alarms blared in a screech of doom. Panic slammed through my temples, I screamed at the top of my lungs, and for one brief second, my eyes locked on the little black Garmin still perched atop my control panel.
Its screen stopped twitching and settled on a map of the mysterious Barron County, with a little red arrow at the center of the screen, a few words popping up underneath it.
You are here.
Trees stabbed up into the sky, the belts crushed at my torso, glass shattered all around me, and the world went dark.
Copper, thick, warm, and tangy.
It filled my mouth, stank metallic in my nose, clogged my throat, choking me. In the murkiness, I fought for a surface, for a way out, blind and numb in the dark.
This way, kleineun.
My ouma’s voice echoed from somewhere in the shadows.
This way.
Both eyes flew open, and I gagged, spitting out a stream of red.
Pain throbbed in my ribs, and a heavy pressure sent a tingling numbness through my shoulders. Blood roared inside my temples, and stars danced before my eyes with a dizzying array. Humid night air kissed my skin, and something sticky coated my face, neck, and arms that hung straight up toward the ceiling.
Wait. Not up. Down.
I blinked at the wrinkled, torn ceiling of the cockpit, the glass all gone, the gray aluminum shredded like tissue paper. Just outside the broken windows, thick Appalachian bluegrass and stemmy underbrush swished in a feeble breeze, backlit by flashes of lightning from the thunderstorm overhead. Green and brown leaves covered everything in a wet carpet of triangles, and somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped.
Turning my head from side to side, I realized that I hung upside down inside the ruined helicopter, the top half burrowed into the mud. I could hear the hissing and crackling of flames, the pattering of rain falling on the hot aluminum, and the smaller brush fires around the downed aircraft sizzling out in the damp long grass. Charred steel and burning oil tainted the air, almost as strong as the metallic, coppery stench in my aching nose.
They shot me down. That military dude shot me out of the sky.
It didn’t make sense. I’d followed their orders, done everything they’d said, and yet the instant I veered safely away from whatever that thing in the sky had been, they’d fired, not at it, but at me.
Looking down (or rather, up) at my chest, I sucked in a gasp, which was harder to do that before.
The navy-blue shirt stuck to my torso with several big splotches of dark, rusty red. Most were clean slashes, but two held bits of glass sticking out of them, one alarmingly bigger than the other. They dripped cherry red blood onto my upturned face, and a wave of nausea hit me.
I gotta get down.
I flexed my arms to try and work some feeling back into them, praying nothing was broken. Half-numb from hanging so long, I palmed along my aching body until I felt the buckled for the seat belts.
“Okay.” I hissed between gritted teeth, in an effort to stave off my panic. “You can do this. Just hold on tight. Nice and tight. Here we go . . .”
Click.
Everything seemed to lurch, and I slid off the seat to plummet towards the muck-filled hole in the cockpit ceiling. My fingers were slick with blood and slipped over the smooth faux-leather pilot’s seat with ease. The shoulder belt snagged on the bits of glass that lay just under the left lowest rib, and a flare of white-hot pain ripped through me.
Wham.
I screamed, my right knee caught the edge of the aluminum ceiling, and both hands dove into a mound of leaf-covered glass shards on the opposite side of the hole. My head swam, being right-side-up again enough to make shadows gnaw at the corner of my eyes.
Forcing myself to breath slowly, I fought the urge to faint and slid back to sit on the smooth ceiling. I turned my hands over to see half a dozen bits of clear glass burrowed into my skin like greedy parasites, red blood weeping around the new cuts.
“Screw you.” I spat at the rubbish with angry tears in my eyes. “Screw you, screw you, screw you.”
The shards came out easy enough, and the cuts weren’t that deep, but that wasn’t what worried me. On my chest, the single piece of cockpit glass that remined was almost as big as my palm, and it really hurt. Just touching it felt like self-inflicted torture, but I knew it had to come out sooner or later.
Please don’t nick a vein.
Wiping my hands dry on my jeans, I gripped the shard with both hands, and jerked.
Fire roared over my ribs, and hot blood tickled my already grimy pale skin. I clapped a hand over the wound, pressing down hard, and grunted out a string of hateful expletives that my ouma would have slapped me for.
Lying on my back, I stared around me at the messy cargo compartment of the MD-902. Most of the medical supplies had been in cardboard boxes strapped down with heavy nylon tow-straps, but several cases had ruptured with the force of the impact, spraying bandages, syringes, and pill bottles all over the cluttered interior. Orange flames chewed at the crate furthest to the rear, the tail section long gone, but the foremost part of the hold was intact. Easily a million-dollar mess, it would have made me faint on any other trip, but today it was a godsend.
Half-blind in the darkness, I crawled along with only the firelight and lightning bolts to guide me, my right knee aching. Like a crippled raccoon, I collected things as I went, conscious of the two pallets of intact supplies weighing right over my head. I’d taken several different first-aid courses with some hunting buddies of mine, and the mental reflexes kicked in to help soothe my frazzled mind.
Check for bleeds, stop the worst, then move on.
Aside from my battered chest and stomach, the rest of me remained mostly unharmed. I had nasty bruises from the seatbelts, my right knee swelled, my nose slightly crooked and crusted in blood, but otherwise I was intact. Dowsing every scratch and cut with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol I found, I used butterfly closures on the smaller lacerations that peppered my skin. I wrapped soft white gauze over my abused palms and probed at the big cut where the last shard had been, only stopping when I was sure there were no pieces of glass wedged inside my flesh.
“Not too bad.” I grunted to myself, trying to sound impassive like a doctor might. “Rib must have stopped it. Gonna need stitches though. That’ll be fun.”
Pawing through the broken cases, I couldn’t find any suture chord, but just as I was about to give up, I noticed a small box that read ‘medical skin stapler’.
Bingo.
I tore the small white plastic stapler free from its packaging and eyeballed the device. I’d never done this before, only seen it in movies, and even though the cut in my skin hurt, I wondered if this wouldn’t be worse.
You’ve gotta do it. That bleeding needs to stop. Besides, no one’s coming to rescue you, not with those rocket-launching psychos out there.
Taking a deep breath, I pinched the skin around the gash together, and pressed the mouth of the stapler to it.
Click.
A sharp sting, like that of a needle bit at the skin, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the cut itself. I worked my way across the two-inch laceration and gave out a sigh of relief when it was done.
“Not going to bleed to death today.” I daubed ointment around the staples before winding more bandages over the wound.
Popping a few low-grade painkillers that tumbled from the cargo, I crawled wriggled through the nearest shattered window into the wet grass.
Raindrops kissed my face, clean and cool on my sweaty skin. Despite the thick cloud cover, there was enough constant lightning strikes within the storm to let me get glimpses of the world around me. My helicopter lay on its back, the blades snapped like pencils, with bits and pieces of it burning in chunks all around the small break in the trees. Chest-high scrub brush grew all around the low-lying ground, with pockets of standing water in places. My ears still rang from the impact of the crash, but I could start to pick up more crickets, frogs, and even some nocturnal birds singing into the darkness, like they didn’t notice the huge the hulk of flaming metal that had fallen from the sky. Overhead, the thunder rumbled onward, the feeble wind whistling, and there were other flashes on the horizon, orange and red ones, with crackles that didn’t sound quite like lightning.
The guns. They’re still fighting.
Instinctively, I pulled out my cellphone, and tapped the screen.
It fluttered to life, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get through to anyone, not even with the emergency function designed to work around having no service. The complicated wonder of our modern world was little better than a glorified paperweight.
Stunned, I sat down with my back to the helicopter and rested my head against the aluminum skin of the craft. How I’d gone from a regular medical supply run to being marooned in this hellish parody of rural America, I didn’t know, but one thig was certain; I needed a plan. Whoever fired the missile could have already contacted my charter company and made up some excuse to keep them from coming to look for me. No one else knew I was here, and even though I now had six staples holding the worst of my injuries shut, I knew I needed proper medical attention. If I wanted to live, I’d have to rescue myself.
My bag. I need to get my go-bag, grab some gear and then . . . head somewhere else.
It took me a while to gather my green canvas paratrooper bag from its place behind the pilot’s seat and fill it with whatever supplies I could scrounge. My knee didn’t seem to be broken, but man did it hurt, and I dreaded the thought of walking on it for miles on end. I focused instead on inventorying my gear and trying to come up with a halfway intelligent plan of action.
I had a stainless-steel canteen with one of those detachable cups on the bottom, a little fishing kit, some duct tape, a lighter, a black LED flashlight with three spare batteries, a few tattered road maps with a compass, a spare pair of socks, medical supplies from the cargo, and a simple forest green plastic rain poncho. I also managed to unearth a functioning digital camcorder my ouma had gotten me for Christmas a few years back, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to do any filming in such a miserable state. Lastly, since it was a private supply run from a warehouse area near Pittsburgh to a direct hospital pad in Ohio, I’d been able to bring my K-Bar, a sturdy, and brutally simple knife designed for the Marine Corps that I used every time I went camping. It was pitiful in comparison to the rifle I wished I had with me, but that didn’t matter now. I had what I had, and I doubted my trusty Armalite would have alleviated my sore knee anyway.
Clicking on my flashlight, I huddled with the poncho around my shoulders inside the wreck of the chopper and peered at the dusty roadmaps. A small part of me hoped that a solution would jump out from the faded paper, but none came. These were all maps of western PA and eastern Ohio. None of them had a Barron County on them anywhere.
The man on the radio said to head north, right before they shot me down. That means they must be camped out to the north of here. South had that convoy and those burning houses, so that’s a no-go. Maybe I can backtrack eastward the way I came.
As if on cue, a soft pop echoed from over the eastern horizon, and I craned to look out the helicopter window, spotting more man-made flashes over the tree tops.
“Great.” I hissed between clenched teeth, aware of how the temperature dipped to a chilly 60 degrees, and how despite the conditions, my stomach had begun to growl. “Not going that way, are we? Westward it is.”
Walking away from my poor 902 proved to be harder than I’d anticipated. Despite the glass, the fizzling fires, and the darkness, it still held a familiar, human essence to it. Sitting inside it made me feel secure, safe, even calm about the situation. In any other circumstance, I would have just stayed with the downed aircraft to wait for help, but I knew the men who shot me down would likely find my crash site, and I didn’t want to be around when they did.
Unlike much of central and western Ohio, southeastern Ohio is hilly, brushy, and clogged with thick forests. Thorns snagged at my thin poncho and sliced at my pant legs. My knee throbbed, every step a form of self-inflicted torture. The rain never stopped, a steady drizzle from above just cold enough to be problematic as time went on, making me shiver. Mud slid under my tennis shoes, and every tree looked ten times bigger in the flickering beam of my cheap flashlight. Icy fear prickled at the back of my neck at some of the sounds that greeted me through the gloom. I’d been camping loads of times, both in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, but these noises were something otherworldly to me.
Strange howls, screeches, and calls permeated the rain-soaked sky, some almost roars, while others bordered on human in their intonation. The more I walked, the softer the distant gunfire became, and the more prevalent the odd sounds, until the shadows seemed to fill with them. I didn’t dare turn off my flashlight, or I’d been completely blind in the dark, but a little voice in the back of my head screamed that I was too visible, crunching through the gloomy forest with my long beam of light stabbing into the abyss. It felt as though a million eyes were on me, studying me, hunting me from the surrounding brush, and I bitterly recalled how much I’d loved the old Survivor Man TV series as a kid.
Not so fun being out in the woods at night. Especially alone.
A twig snapped somewhere behind me, and I whirled on the spot, one trembling hand resting on the hilt of my K-Bar.
Nothing. Nothing but trees, bushes, and rain dripping down in the darkness.
“This is stupid.” I whispered to myself to keep my nerves in check as I slowly spun on the spot. “I should have went eastward anyway. God knows how long I’m going to have to—”
Creak.
A groan of metal-on-metal echoed from somewhere to my right, and I spun to face it, yanking the knife on my belt free from its scabbard. It felt so small and useless in my hand, and I choked down a wave of nauseas fear.
Ka-whump. Creak. K-whump. Creak.
Underbrush cracked and crunched, a few smaller saplings thrashed, and from deep within the gloom, two yellow orbs flared to life. They poked through the mist in the trees, forming into slender fingers of golden light that swept back and forth in the dark.
The soldiers . . . they must be looking for me.
I swallowed hard and turned to slink away.
Ice jammed through my blood, and I froze on the spot, biting my tongue to stop the scream.
It stood not yards away, a huge form that towered a good twelve feet tall in the swirling shadows. Unpolished chrome blended with flash-rusted spots in the faded red paint, and grime-smeared glass shone with dull hues in the flashes of lightning. Where the wheels should have been, the rounded steel axels curved like some enormous hand had bent them, and the tires lay face-down on the muddy ground like big round feet, their hubcaps buried in the dirt. Dents, scrapes, and chips covered the battered thing, and its crooked little radio antenna pointed straight up from the old metal fender like a mast. I could barely make out the mud-coated VW on the rounded hood, and my mind reeled in shock.
Is . . . is that a car?
Both yellow headlights bathed me in a circle of bright, blinding light, and neither I nor the strange vehicle moved.
Seconds ticked by, the screech-thumping in the background only growing closer. I realized that I couldn’t hear any engine noises and had yet to see any soldiers or guns pointed my way. This car looked old, really old, like one of those classic Volkswagen Beetles that collectors fought over at auctions. Try as I might, I couldn’t see a driver inside the murky, mold-smeared windows.
Because there wasn’t one.
Lightning arched across the sky overhead, and the car standing in front of me blinked.
Its headlights slid shut, as if little metal shades had crawled over the bulbs for a moment and flicked open again. Something about that movement was so primal, so real, so lifelike, that every ounce of self-control I had melted in an instant.
Cursing under my breath, I lunged into the shrubs, and the world erupted around me.
Under my shoes, the ground shook, and the car surged after me in a cacophony of ka-thumps that made my already racing heart skip several beats. A weather-beaten brown tow truck from the 50’s charged through the thorns to my left, it’s headlights ablaze, and a dilapidated yellow school bus rose from its hiding place in the weeds to stand tall on four down-turned axel-legs. They all flicked their headlights on like giants waking from their slumber, and as I dodged past them, they each blared their horn into the night in alarm.
My breaths came short and tight, my knee burned, and I crashed through thorns and briars without thought to how badly I was getting cut up.
The cheap poncho tore, and I ripped it away as it caught on a tree branch.
A purple 70’s Mustang shook off its blanket of creeping vines and bounded from a stand of trees just ahead, forcing me to swerve to avoid being run over, my adrenaline at all-time highs.
This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.
Slipping and sliding, I pushed through a stand of multiflora rose, and stumbled out into a flat, dark expanse.
I almost skidded to a stop.
What had once been a rather large field stood no taller than my shoestrings, the grass charred, and burnt. The storm above illuminated huge pieces of wreckage that lay scattered over the nearly 40-acre plot, and I could just make out the fire-blackened hulk of a fuselage resting a hundred yards away. The plane had been brought down a while ago it seemed, as there weren’t any flames left burning, and I threw myself toward it in frenzied desperation.
Burned grass and greasy brown topsoil slushed underfoot, and I could hear the squelching of the cars pursing me. Rain soaked me to the bone, and my lungs ached from sucking down the damp night air. A painful stich crept into my side, and I cursed myself for not putting in more time for cardio at the gym.
Something caught my left shoelace, and I hurtled to the ground, tasting mud and blood in between my teeth.
They’ve got me now.
I clawed at the mud, rolled, and watched a tire slam down mere inches from where my head had been. The Mustang loomed over me and jostled for position with the red Volkswagen and brown tow truck, the school bus still a few yards behind them. They couldn’t seem to decide who would get the pleasure of stomping me to death, and like a herd of stampeding wildebeest, they locked bumpers in an epic shoving match.
On all fours, I scampered out from under the sparring brutes, and dashed for the crumpled airplane, a white-painted DC-3 that looked like it had been cut in half by a gargantuan knife blade. I passed a snapped wing section, the oily remains of a turbo-prop engine, and a mutilated wheel from the landing gear. Climbing over a heap of mud, I squeezed into the back of the ruined flight cabin and dropped down into the dark cargo hold.
Wham.
No sooner had my sneakers hit the cold metal floor, and the entire plane rocked from the impact of something heavy ramming it just outside. I tumbled to my knees, screaming in pain as, once again, I managed to bash the sore one off a bracket in the wall.
My hand smeared in something gooey, and I scrabbled for my flashlight.
It clicked on, a wavering ball of white light in the pitch darkness, and I fought the urge to gag. “Oh man . . .”
Three people, or what was left of them, lay strewn over the narrow cargo area. Claret red blood coated the walls, caked on the floor, and clotted under my mud-spattered shoes. Bits of flesh and viscera were stuck to everything, and tatters of cloth hung from exposed sections of broken bone. An eerie set of bloody handprints adorned the walls, and the only reason I could tell it had been three people were the shoes; all of them bore anklebones sticking out above blood-soaked socks. It smelled sickly sweet, a strange, nauseas odor that crept into my nose and settled on the back of my tongue like an alien parasite.
Something glinted in the beam of my flashlight, and my pulse quickened as I pried the object loose from the severed arm that still clung to it.
“Hail Mary full of Grace.” I would have grinned if it weren’t for the fact that the plane continued to buck and roll under the assault from the cars outside.
The pistol looked old, but well-maintained, aside from the light coating of dark blood that stained its round wooden handle. It felt heavy, but good in my hand, and I turned it over to read the words, Waffenfabrik Mauser stenciled into the frame, with a large red 9 carved into the grip. For some reason, it vaguely reminded me of the blasters from Star Wars.
I fumbled with a little switch that looked like a safety on the back of the gun and stumbled toward a gap in the plane’s dented fuselage to aim out at the surrounding headlights.
Bang.
The old gun bucked reliably in my hand, its long barrel spitting a little jet of flame into the night. I had no idea if I hit anything, but the attacking cars recoiled, their horns blaring in confusion.
They turned, and scuttled for the tree line as fast as their mechanical legs could go, the entire ordeal over as fast as it had begun.
Did I do that?
Perplexed, I stared down at the pistol in my hand.
Whoosh.
A large, inky black shadow glided down from the clouds, and the yellow school bus moved too slow to react in time.
With a crash, the kicking nightmarish vehicle was thrown onto its side, spraying glass and chrome trim across the muddy field. Its electro-synth horn blared with wails of mechanical agony, as two huge talon-like feet clamped down on it, and the enormous head of the flying creature lowered to rip open its engine compartment.
The horn cut out, and the enormous flying entity jerked its head back to gulp down a mass of what looked like sticky black vines from the interior of the shattered bus.
At this range, I could see now that the flying creature bore two legs and had its wings half-tucked like a vulture that had descended to feed on roadkill. Its head turned slightly, and in the glow of another lightning bolt, my jaw went slack at the realization of what it was.
A tree trunk. It’s a rotted tree trunk.
I couldn’t tell where the reptilian beast began, and where the organic tree components ended, the upper part of the head shaped like a log, while the lower jaw resembled something out of a dinosaur movie. Its skin looked identical to the outside of a shagbark hickory but flexed with a supple featheriness that denoted something closer to skin. Sharp branch-like spines ranged down its back, and out to the end of its tail, which bore a massive round club shaped like a diseased tree-knot. Crouched on both hind legs, it braced the hooked ends of its folded wings against the ground like a bat, towering higher than a semi-truck. Under the folds of its armored head, a bulging pair of chameleon-like eyes constantly spun in their sockets, probing the dark for threats while it ate.
One black pupil locked onto the window I peered through, and my heart stopped.
The beast regarded me for a moment, with a curious, sideways sniff.
With a proud, contemptful head-toss, the shadow from the sky parted rows of razor-sharp teeth to let out a roar that shook the earth beneath my feet. It was the triumphant war cry of a creature that sat at the very top of the food chain, one that felt no threat from the fragile two-legged beings that walked the earth all around it. It hunted whenever it wanted, ate whatever it wanted, and flew wherever it wanted. It didn’t need to rip the plane apart to devour me.
Like my hunter-gatherer ancestors from thousands of years ago, I wasn’t even worth the energy it would take to pounce.
I’m hiding in the remains of the cockpit now, which is half-buried under the mud of the field, enough to shield the light from my screen so that thing doesn’t see it. My service only now came back, and it’s been over an hour since the winged beast started in on the dead bus. I don’t know when, or how I’m going to get out of here. I don’t know when anyone will even see this post, or if it will upload at all. My phone battery is almost dead, and at this point, I’m probably going to have to sleep among the corpses until daylight comes.
A dead man sleeping amongst friends.
If you live in the Noble County area in southeastern Ohio, be careful where you drive, fly, and boat. I don’t know if it’s possible to stumble into this strange place by ground, but if so, then these things are definitely headed your way.
If that happens . . . pray that they don’t find you.

Here is what I have:
2* & 3* Weapons - All Max Unless Noted (mobile swipe left/right for all perks)

Weapon Type	Prefix	Major	Minor
10mm Pistol	Junkies	Explosive	90% RW
10mm Pistol (lvl 5)	Mutant's	Explosive	+250 DR Reload
10mm SMG	Junkies	25% FFR	15% Reload
50 Cal	Anti Armor	Explosive	--
50 Cal	Furious	25% FFR	90% RW
50 Cal	Furious	Explosive	+1 PER
50 Cal	Junkies	25% FFR	90% RW
50 Cal	Junkies	Explosive	--
50 Cal	Troubleshooter's	Explosive	25% Less VATS
Baseball Bat - Yellow	Juggernaut	Replenish AP	90% RW
Baseball Bat - Yellow	Bloodied	40% Faster SS	15% Less DMG BLK
Fixer	Anti Armor	25% FFR	25% Less VATS
Fixer	Anti Armor	Explosive	+1 AGI
Fixer	Anti Armor	Explosive	+250 DR Reload
Fixer	Anti Armor	Replenish AP	15% Reload
Fixer	Aristrocrat's	25% FFR	25% Less VATS
Fixer	Bloodied	25% FFR	+250 DR Reload
Fixer	Bloodied	25% FFR	Stealth
Fixer	Bloodied	Explosive	FMSWA
Fixer	Furious	25% FFR	15% Reload
Fixer	Nocturnal	25% FFR	90% RW
Fixer	Quad	25% FFR	+250 DR Reload
Fixer	Quad	+50% Crit DMG	+15% VATS crits
Fixer	Quad	+50% Crit DMG	Break Slower
Fixer	Quad	Explosive	+1 AGI
Fixer	Quad	Explosive	Faster Movement
Fixer	Two Shot	25% FFR	25% Less VATS
Fixer	Vampire's	Explosive	Faster Movement
Fixer	Vampire's	Explosive	15% Reload
Gatling Gun	Junkie's	Explosive	Faster Movement
Gatling Gun	Quad	Explosive	Faster Movement
Handmade	Furious	Explosive	+50 DR Aiming
Handmade	Juggernaut's	25% FFR	Faster Movement
Handmade	Junkies	25% FFR	--
Handmade	Junkies	Explosive	+1 PER
Handmade	Quad	Explosive	90% RW
Handmade	Two Shot	Explosive	Faster Movement
Lever	Junkies	Explosive	+15% VATS Crits
Lever	Two Shot	Explosive	Faster Movement
Lever	Vampire's	Explosive	--
LMG	Furious	Explosive	+1 PER
LMG	Furious	Explosive	+1 PER
Meat Hook	Anti Armor	40% FSS	+1 STR
Minigun	Anti Armor	25% FFR	+50 DR Aiming
Minigun	Assassin's	Explosive	90% RW
Minigun	Juggernaut's	Explosive	Stealth Field
Minigun	Nocturnal	Explosive	25% Less VATS
Minigun	Two Shot	Explosive	--
Radium Rifle	Bloodied	25% FFR	+50 DR Aiming
Shotgun (Combat)	Quad	Explosive	90% RW
Shotgun (DB)	Anti Armor	Explosive	+250 DR Reload
Shotgun (DB)	Bloodied	Explosive	+50 DR Aiming
Shotgun (Pump)	Furious	25% FFR	15% Reload
SMG	Anti Armor	Explosive	+50 DR Aiming
Tesla Rifle	Quad	25% FFR	--

​
3* Armor - All Max Unless Noted (mobile swipe left/right for all perks)

Armor Type	Body Part	Prefix	Major	Minor
Combat - Light	Chest	Chameleon	Powered	Sneak
Combat - Sturdy	Right Leg	Vanguard	Powered	Sentinel's
Combat - Heavy	Left Leg	Auto Stim	Powered	Sneak
Combat - Heavy	Left Leg	Regenerating	Powered	Cavalier's
Forest Scout	Chest	Unyielding	Powered	Sentinel's
Forest Scout	Left Leg	Vanguard	+1 STR	Sentinel's
Forest Scout	Left Leg	Vanguard	Powered	Sentinel's
Forest Scout	Right Arm	Overeaters	H&T Grow Slower	Sneak
Forest Scout	Right Leg	Mutant's	Powered	Sentinel's
Forest Scout	Right Leg	Unyielding	+25 RR	Cavalier's
Forest Scout	Right Leg	Vanguard	Powered	Sentinel's
Leather - Sturdy	Chest	Unyielding	+1 STR	Sneak
Leather - Sturdy	Left Leg	Unyielding	+1 AGI	Sentinel's
Leather - Sturdy	Right Arm	Assassin's	Powered	Cavalier's
Marine	Chest	Chameleon	Powered	Sneak
Marine	Chest	Unyielding	+25 PR	Sentinel's
Marine	Left Arm	Chameleon	Powered	Cavalier's
Marine	Left Leg	Bolstering	+1 STR	Sentinel's
Marine	Right Leg	Vanguard	+25% DR	Sentinel's
Metal - Sturdy	Left Arm	Vanguard's	Powered	Sneak
Metal - Sturdy	Right Arm	Unyielding	+1 STR	Sneak
Raider - Sturdy	Left Arm	Unyielding	+1 STR	Sentinel's
Robot - Heavy	Chest	Weightless	Powered	Sentinel's
Robot - Heavy	Left Leg	Chameleon	Powered	Sentinel's
Trapper	Chest	Assassin's	Powered	Sentinel's
Urban Scout	Chest	Bolstering	+1 STR	Sentinel's
Urban Scout	Chest	Chameleon	Powered	Sneak
Urban Scout	Chest	Vanguard	Powered	Sentinel's
Urban Scout	Left Arm	Assassin's	Powered	Sentinel's
Urban Scout	Left Arm	Bolstering	Powered	Sentinel's
Urban Scout	Left Arm	Mutant's	Powered	Sentinel's
Urban Scout	Left Arm	Vanguard	Powered	Sentinel's
Urban Scout	Left Arm	Weightless	Powered	Cavalier's
Urban Scout	Right Arm	Unyielding	+1 STR	Sentinel's
Urban Scout	Right Arm	Vanguard	Powered	Sentinel's
Urban Scout	Right Leg	Unyielding	Powered	Sentinel's
Wood (lvl 5)	Chest	Vanguard	Powered	Sentinel's
Wood	Left Arm	Mutant's	Powered	Sentinel's
Wood	Left Leg	Bolstering	Powered	Sentinel's
Wood	Right Arm	Auto Stim	Powered	Sentinel's

​

• 5/5 Vanguard / Powered / Sentinel Scout set: Arms & Chest Urban, Legs Forest (included in list above)
• 5/5 Assassins / mixed / Cavaliers Ultracite PA set with jetpack arms
• Explosive Railway Set (21 total, all Explosive):
  • Anti-Armor / E / +50 DR Aiming, Assassins / E / 25% VATS, B / E / +15% vc, Berk / E / 25% VATS, Ext / E / AGI, F / E / +250 DR, Hunt / E / PER, Inst / E, Jug / E / +15% vc, J / E / FMSWA, Medics / E / FMSWA, Mutant Slayers / E / VATS Crits, Mutants / E / Break, Noc / E, Quad / E , Stalkers / E / FMSWA, Suppressors / E, Troubleshooters / E, TS / E / +250 DR, Vamp / E / PER, and Zealot's / E / PER
• Misc decent PA pieces:
  • Prototype X-01 Torso Cham / 7% Less Exp / Sent
  • Ultracite Helmet with Jetpack
  • Ultracite Left Arm: Vanguard / Powered / Cavalier's with Jetpack

​
Misc stuff to Trade/Sell:

• Outfits / Clothing: Forest Scout & Urban Scout Masks, Responders Fireman Outfit & Hat, Hunters Long Coat, Winter Man mask, Brotherhood Special Ops Suit & Mask, Chally Outfit & Mask, Blue Ridge Caravan Outfit & Gas Mask, Mr. Fuzzy Mascot Suit & Head, Swamp Camo Hazmat Suit, Deathclaw Hunter Outfit & Hat, Jaguar & Tulip Suits, Longshoreman Outfit, Radicals Face Mask, Grafton Monster Mask, Strongman Outfit, & Complete Asylum Uniform set.
• Rare Plans: All Daily Ops, All Meat Week, All Mole Miner, All Fasnatch, All "Grahm" (Mirror Ball, Rad Emitter, etc), All Spooky Scorched, Stimpak Diffuser, Bear Arm, Radiation Barrel, The Fixer, Backpack Mods (High Capacity, Armor Plated, & Insulated), Hachet Electro Fusion, Machete Sacrificial Blade, Ultracite Emergency Protocols, Kinetic Dynamo, Overdrive Servos, Welded Rebar, a full serum recipe set and others misc plans.

​
Here is what I'm looking for:

• Armor: A nice set of OE / Powered / Sent urban scout limbs
• Aid: Radshield & Berry Mentats
• Apparel: Leather Coat, Forest Camo Jumpsuit, Tattered Field Jacket, & BOS Jumpsuit, & Fatsnatch masks
• Junk (in order of need): Steel (100k), Ultracite (23k), Springs (9k), Silver (7k), Fiber Optics (4k), Coal (3k), Cork (6k), Screws (16k), Cobalt (6k), Oil (9k), Violet (6k), Crimson (3k), Florescent (2k), Asbestos (6k), Yellowcake (2k), Gold (4k) - But will entertain any bulk junk offers

Will entertain other trade offers also.

Daily Modifiers

Vanguard

• Brawler: Melee abilities deal more damage and recharge much faster.
• Arc Surge: 25% bonus to outgoing Arc damage.
• Void Surge: 25% bonus to outgoing Void damage.
• Stasis Surge: 25% bonus to outgoing Stasis damage.
• Arc Threat: 25% increase to incoming Arc damage.
• Power Level Disabled: Combatant difficulty is set at a fixed level.

Dares of Eternity

• Durandal's Edge: When you're holding a Sword, damage from nearby combatants is reduced.

Salvage

• Arc Threat: 25% increase to incoming Arc damage.
• Arc Surge: 25% bonus to outgoing Arc damage.
• Void Surge: 25% bonus to outgoing Void damage.
• Stasis Surge: 25% bonus to outgoing Stasis damage.

Deep Dives

• Deep Dive Rules: Successfully complete as many randomly chosen timed encounters as you can before being caught by the foes hunting you! Reach the sea floor to turn the tables, turning the hunters into the hunted! Power Level: Player Power levels are fixed. Each depth activates a new modifier for the remainder of the activity and increases all combatant Power levels over player Power levels. Asha's Gifts: Choose one of two random gifts from Asha at each depth to enhance yourself for the remainder of the activity before taking on the Darkness. Wrathful Predator: Final blows on these unique combatants will reward your fireteam additional time on the objective timer. Rewards: Victory at each depth increases the rewards and challenges of the next. Opt in with your entire fireteam to trigger Pressure Trial versions of activities for even greater rewards!
• Join In Progress Disabled: Your fireteam cannot be joined while in an activity. Return to orbit to add fireteam members.
• Classified: Keep it secret. Keep it safe.
• Blasts: Combatant splash damage is increased. Activates at the Midnight Depth.

Seasonal

Legend/Master Lost Sector

Exotic armor drop (if solo): Unknown
Lost Sector information is currently unavailable. Check the comments!

Neomuna

Terminal Overload: Zephyr Concourse

• Weapon: Circular Logic (Machine Gun)

Misc

• The Wellspring: Attack Weapon: Come to Pass (Auto Rifle)
• Altars of Sorrow Weapon: Blasphemer (Shotgun)

Guns & Materials

Banshee's Featured Weapons

Name	Type	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4
The Number	Energy Auto Rifle	Arrowhead Brake // Extended Barrel	Extended Mag // Flared Magwell	Threat Detector	Multikill Clip
Nezarec's Whisper	Energy Glaive	Ballistic Tuning // Low-Impedance Windings	Extended Mag // Accurized Rounds	Lead from Gold	Adrenaline Junkie
IKELOS_HC_v1.0.3	Energy Hand Cannon	Extended Barrel // Hammer-Forged Rifling	Extended Mag // Flared Magwell	Rapid Hit	One for All
Tarantula	Heavy Linear Fusion Rifle	Hammer-Forged Rifling // Polygonal Rifling	Accelerated Coils // Projection Fuse	Field Prep	Rampage
Royal Chase	Energy Scout Rifle	Chambered Compensator // Polygonal Rifling	Alloy Magazine // Flared Magwell	Auto-Loading Holster	Threat Detector

Perks re-roll at midnight UTC, so check his inventory twice per day!
Note: Fixed perks on weapons are not displayed

Master Rahool's Material Exchange

• Purchase Glimmer (10000 for 10 Legendary Shards)
• Purchase Glimmer (10000 for 10 Dark Fragment)
• Purchase Glimmer (10000 for 10 Phantasmal Fragment)
• Purchase Glimmer (10000 for 25 Herealways Piece)
• Enhancement Prism (1 for 10 Enhancement Core & 10000 Glimmer)
• Ascendant Shard (1 for 10 Enhancement Prism & 50000 Glimmer)

Bounties

Commander Zavala, Vanguard

Name	Description	Requirement	Reward
The Inner Storm	Defeat combatants with Arc damage in Vanguard playlists.	25 [Arc] Arc	XP+
Into the Abyss	Defeat combatants with Void damage in Vanguard playlists.	25 [Void] Void	XP+
Reversed Momentum	Defeat combatants in Vanguard playlists with Void abilities. Defeating weakened, suppressed, or volatile combatants grants additional progress.	50 [Void] Void ability	XP+
Loose Ends	Defeat combatants in Vanguard playlists with Strand damage.	25 Strand final blows	XP+

Lord Shaxx, Crucible

Name	Description	Requirement	Reward
Sparring Grounds	Complete matches in any Crucible playlist.	2 Crucible matches	XP+
Blinding Light	Defeat combatants blinded by Arc.	6 [Arc] Arc blind	XP+
Knockout Round	Defeat opponents with melee.	1 [Melee] Melee	XP+
All for One	In Rumble, complete matches.	1 Crucible matches	XP+

The Drifter, Gambit

Name	Description	Requirement	Reward
All Right, All Right, All Right	Complete a Gambit match.	1 Gambit matches	XP+
Big-Game Hunter	Eliminate a high-value target in Gambit.	1 Targets	XP+
Envoy While It Lasts	Defeat Primeval envoys during Gambit matches.	2 Envoys	XP+
Evanescent Emptiness	Defeat targets in Gambit by making them volatile with Void. Defeating Guardians grants more progress.	30 [Void] Void volatility	XP+

Banshee-44, Gunsmith

Name	Description	Requirement	Reward
Hand Cannon Calibration	Calibrate Hand Cannons against any target. Earn bonus progress with precision and against opposing Guardians.	100 [Hand Cannon] Hand Cannon	XP+ & Enhancement Core & Gunsmith Rank Progress
Linear Fusion Rifle Calibration	Calibrate Linear Fusion Rifles against any target. Earn bonus progress with precision and against opposing Guardians.	100 [Linear Fusion Rifle] Linear Fusion Rifle	XP+ & Enhancement Core & Gunsmith Rank Progress
Glaive Calibration	Calibrate Glaives against any target. Rapidly defeating targets and defeating Guardians grants additional progress.	100 [Glaive] Glaive	XP+ & Enhancement Core & Gunsmith Rank Progress
Kinetic Calibration	Calibrate Kinetic weapons against any target. Earn bonus progress with precision and against opposing Guardians.	100 Kinetic weapon	XP+ & Enhancement Core & Gunsmith Rank Progress

Nimbus, Neomuna

Name	Description	Requirement	Reward
Frozen in Motion	In Neomuna, defeat combatants affected by Stasis. Shadow Legion combatants grant additional progress.	60 [Stasis] Stasis	XP+ & 50 Neomuna Rank
The Old Standby	In Neomuna, defeat combatants. Vex combatants grant additional progress.	90 Targets	XP+ & 50 Neomuna Rank
Distant Doom	In a single life, defeat combatants in Neomuna using Sniper Rifles, Linear Fusion Rifles, Scout Rifles, or Rocket Launchers.	20 Targets	XP+ & 50 Neomuna Rank
Hacker's Paradise	Complete waves in Terminal Overload.	10 Waves cleared	1 Terminal Overload Key & 50 Neomuna Rank & XP+

Sonar Station, H.E.L.M.

Name	Description	Requirement	Reward
Delved Depths	Complete encounters in Deep Dive activities.	2 Deep Dive encounters	XP+
Deep Trouble: Taken	Defeat Taken. Taken defeated in Salvage or Deep Dive award bonus progress.	100 Taken	XP+
Spearfishing Aquanaut	Defeat targets with Sniper Rifles and Glaives. Defeated Guardians or combatants defeated in Salvage or Deep Dive award bonus progress.	100 Weapon	XP+
Unnatural Electrolysis	Defeat targets with Void or Arc damage. Grenade abilities award bonus progress, as well as defeating Guardians or defeating combatants in Salvage or Deep Dive.	100 Progress	XP+

First I will start with the good: After playing the new maps for over 10 matches EACH, as both a Commander, an SL, and as regular infantry, I have to say I LOVE both the new maps, they're beautiful, they play well and they play very differently from all the other maps in the game! El Alamein needs good MGs, Snipers, Tankers and AT gun crews to work, and the whole team needs to be coordinated and have a good grasp of map control to win! Driel I like just a bit less, as it feels a bit cheap to cross the water anywhere I want, but I guess that's better than Remagen... A system of pontoon bridges on one side and shallow water and island crossing on the other would be better I think, instead of being able to cross the river under the bridge where no one is looking! Also, some open houses with second-floor windows would be nice for Driel! Both maps do need some optimization, as they stutter a lot, and drop FPS in some locations and sight lines, but that will probably get fixed in a patch.
Now for the bad: Both the British and the Germans need at least 1 set of FREE desert uniforms! Anything else, you monetize, I don't care, so long as there's a single desert option like there's a winter one!
As for the gameplay itself, these are all possible options to balance the Brits (and Soviets) out and fix the other U14 issues (From a +1000h HLL Vet):

• You need to improve the sight design and strafe behavior of ALL British weapons to match other factions! Lower the flip-up ladder on the Lewis and just give it a V-notch, make the aperture and front post on Sten slimmer, also, slim down the Bren aperture a bit maybe? Lee Enfield No.4 has perfect sights, don't touch them!
• Give all Brits the Lee Enfield No.4 as the starting weapon, P14 should be optional or removed except for snipers! No.4 has absolutely GREAT sights and 10 round mag! Give them a Semi-Auto pistol (like the Browning Hi-Power) for MG and tanker classes, like you did for the Soviets, the Germans have 2 semi-auto options. Also, give them more Sten, less Lanchester! It should stay in for variety, but it shouldn't be the Brit's main SMG
• Give L-E rifles a RAPID bolt cycle rate like IRL (They don't have a semi-auto rifle like the Germans) and increase the range of all rifles from 200m 1HK to 250 or 300m 1HK, this will help a lot of people not feel cheated out of kills when they hit a target 201m away on the new very open, long sight line maps. Currently, if you hit someone with a bolt action once, they quickly zig-zag to cover, use a bandage and then continue on their merry way, zigzagging again making it impossible to hit them even once, let alone twice!
• Add a bipod to Bren and increase 1-Hit-Kill to 200m (or just 150 because you can aim it without a bipod deployed?) like rifles and other MGs, it fires a full-size caliber like them. Also, do this to FG42 (this will actually give us a reason to use an FG42 instead of the STG, as currently, it is inferior in every way: Sights, Recoil, Mag Size, Ammo carried) and BAR, but not STG44, it should stay 100m 1HK as it fires a much smaller caliber than Rifles, LMGs, and Auto Rifles! I, personally, would also love to see German MG get the option of an FG42 loadout, like the US has the BAR, but that's just me!
• Give the default Brits' ASSAULT loadout a DRUM mag Thompson, and a Sten for the Saboteur ASSAULT loadout, the Bren makes no sense with the Satchel! It's a very heavy, very wrong gun to run up to a tank with or storm an enemy compound and blow it up! The Bren should be an option for the AUTOMATIC RIFLEMAN and the MG, we don't need up to 3 Brens per 6-man Squad! This should also be done with the STG44 loadout for Germans, a satchel + most versatile gun in the game + grenade + 2 smokes makes no sense! Give German ASSAULT with a satchel the FG42, and move the STG44 to the other loadout!
• Add the Universal Bren Carrier for the British instead of the M2 halftrack, yes it has less troop capacity than the other ones, but no, that will not be a problem as nobody uses them as troop transports! Also, giving us a single halftrack instead of (or with) the standard transport truck @ one of the HQs at the start of each game would be really great, helping both teams establish a presence at the front immediately, if they use it correctly! Maybe even a jeep at one HQ at the start of the game, for the commander to use! They don't need to respawn like all the other starting vehicles, just let us use them at the start of each game, even if we have to spawn them in ourselves!
• Remove STG44 and FG42 (maybe even replace the G43 with a slower, 2x clip-reloading G41?) from maps that shouldn't have them! (El Alamein, Kharkov, Kursk, Stalingrad), especially as the Soviets & Brits have no equivalent (except for the SVT-40 on the Soviet side)!
• Give MG42 (and MG34) a realistic DRUM mag size of 50 (or 75 double drum for MG34) rounds instead of 250, as you did to the DP27 and Lewis, just 47 rounds in the PAN mag. Yes, Lewis also had a 97-round mag... This will have the added benefit of making the MG34 PART OF THE META, and not just an inferior MG 42 in every way, as it will use up that little drum of ammo much slower! MG mains (me) WILL complain, fuck, I will be really sad too, but it has to be done! The current system makes ZERO sense, realism for the bad LMGs, fantasy for the MG42? Also, a more realistic amount of ammo carried (6 drums of 50 instead of 250) by MG players would necessitate actually coordinating with the squads' Support or Riflemen for ammo more often, which is ALWAYS a good thing!
• The MG role could also choose between a drum fed and belt fed loadout, and if the belt fed is chosen, he could not hip fire the MG on the move, he would have to stop, drop a box of belt ammo, deploy the bipod, load in a belt and then AND ONLY THEN be able to fire! That way MGs on Omaha retain their 250 round belts without it being overpowered! If he wants to move position, he has to take out the belt, remove the bipod, pickup the belt ammo box and then he can move off to another spot! The British could get the Vickers K for this, the Soviets maybe the DShK or the Maxim?

Ok, now for the MOVEMENT:
A soldier who passed basic training could easily run MUCH FASTER than the current in-game speed (or than the average speed of a top marathon runner at the time), even with essential combat gear (which was not that much, between 15-25lbs or 7-11kg), for 100-500m, or in other words: 1/420th (NICE!) to 1/84th of a marathon-length, which is 42km! ALL HLL maps are just 2x1km!
Could he ADS so fast coming out of that run? NO! Would his aim sway a lot before he would catch his breath? YES! Could he change direction or "zigzag" with ZERO loss of speed? NO! Could he start and stop a sprint instantly, on the spot? NO! Could he dolphin dive and get back up to start running again instantly? NO! Could he maintain that speed up an almost vertical hill? NO! (Example)
These are all problems that need addressing (even if the old run comes back!), but the speed at which we run in the game is neither unrealistic, nor a major problem for gameplay if all these other problems are solved! Maybe the tanks should get a 10% boost too, I'm not sure about that, I don't tank enough to have an educated opinion on it, so I would love a tankers input!
I like that we are finally able to run and dive to cover, it feels like my soldier ACTUALLY CARES FOR HIS LIFE NOW AND IS SCARED OF BEING SHOT (That's why I will defend both the new speed and the dive to prone to death!), but you shouldn't be able to chain these moves to glide across the ground! I wouldn't be opposed to lowering the speed just a bit, back to 110% of what it was (or the new speed could work just for the first 100-200m after which the old one kicks in, and you have to stop and wait or walk before your quick sprint recharges, encouraging moving tactically, cover to cover and then checking the surroundings and planning the next move), but the old speed should definitely not come back!
P.S. Where's the Crusader tank at El Alamein?

May was a busy, busy month for me with a number of pressing obligations both personally and professionally. It was so busy, in fact, that I pretty much had to abandon the PC as a gaming platform altogether. Oh sure, there's one PC game on the list this month, but that's a 6 hour game that took me two weeks to finish, and I'd started it in April. Once that was done, PC gaming went away for me entirely, and to be honest I'm not exactly sure how quickly it can come back. There are a lot of moving pieces with this, such that while last month I was eagerly anticipating my next big AAA adventure on the platform, now I've got my sights set on another very small title just to have a shot of knocking something out.
That said, I was my usual productive self elsewhere, such that I still have 7 games to report for the month of May. I anticipate June to be lighter than this for multiple reasons, but I should still be able to hit my self-imposed floor of three titles without too much trouble, and I often surprise myself by clearing more anyhow, so we'll see!
(Games are presented in chronological completion order; the numerical indicator represents the YTD count.)
​
#30 - Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer featuring The Legend of Zelda - Switch - 7/10 (Good)
Like, come on. We don't need that many words in the title, do we? Especially because - bewilderingly - you don't even really get to play as Cadence in this game! After the tutorial you're asked to help either Link or Zelda, which I figured was like a kind of "you have to do two quests so pick which one to do first," but actually it was "choose which character to play as for the whole game," so there I am in a game called Cadence of Hyrule featuring Cadence on the cover, playing beginning to end as Princess Zelda. You can technically unlock everyone eventually, but it takes a lot of time. What a bizarre decision.
Beyond that, I have to say the game surprised me. I bounced off Crypt of the NecroDancer after only a few hours. As much as I wanted to like it I just couldn't get the hang of the game's core mechanics. Cadence of Hyrule by contrast is far more accessible, largely because it doesn't toss you straight into a confined dungeon. The bulk of the game has you just exploring Hyrule from screen to screen, NES style, finding permanent treasures and upgrades. It's a very low pressure learning environment and by the time you do go into a real dungeon you're equipped to the gills with plenty of extra health and a weapon you feel comfortable using: it was the long-reaching spear for me that finally made everything click and I never went back to anything else.
The rhythm-based gameplay is fine, aided by the fact that the soundtrack is really strong. I mean, of course it's strong: it's Zelda music! That said, I think the roguelite nature of the gameplay just doesn't work at all. It's there basically to provide a stronger tie to the NecroDancer name, but with so many save/spawn points all over the map and so many permanent items, all death really does is set your keys and rupees back to zero, forcing you to pointlessly grind for several minutes and pick up where you left off. Better to strip that idea out entirely and just let players retry from the last checkpoint upon death. Still, it's a reasonably good time overall and worth playing on the cheap.
​
#31 - Elden Ring - PS5 - 9.5/10 (Superlative)
Here are the three things I didn't like about Elden Ring:

1. The quests are still too obtuse - sometimes to an absurd, guide-only degree.
2. I thought the ending was really unsatisfying and anticlimactic. That's true for all the endings, by the way, because I looked up the other ones I didn't choose. They're universally just disappointing notes to end on.
3. Runebears.

Here's what I liked about Elden Ring:

• Absolutely everything else.

This game is an astonishing achievement of scale combined with intentionality. Elden Ring feels like the first game since Breath of the Wild to really share its DNA, and it succeeds in that regard masterfully. Every gorgeous vista is traversable. Every minor etching on the map has something surprising to discover. Every region has its own personality and feel, but none of it feels arbitrary. And through it all are tightly crafted dungeons of various sizes, providing a nearly endless amount of high quality classic Souls design as well.
Frankly, the game is staggering when you look at it in totality, but Elden Ring's greatest accomplishment is that it doesn't buckle under its own massive weight. The map, for example, scales with the player's own ambition. At the outset it feels like there's no shortage of places to explore, but each time you push the boundaries of the visible map you'll find that it expands to accommodate you, always revealing yet more to do. But by populating this enormous world with carefully crafted encounters and discoveries, the developers ensure that there's no typical open world "dead time." I was dozens of hours into the game before the true size of it really began to dawn on me, and even then I underestimated it. Yet that wasn't a problem, because through it all burned a driving desire to just see. I put just over 100 hours into Horizon Forbidden West and it felt twice as long as the 139 I put into Elden Ring.
And of course, the core gameplay itself is strong, a further refinement of the tried and true Souls formula with extensive options for any kind of character build you might want to make, as well as a friendly respec system that gives you the flexibility to completely change your mind along the way. Finally, though the endings didn't really do anything for me, I felt the story threads themselves were the best of the "Soulsborne" meta-franchise to date. There's a running theme through the game that would spoil it to describe, but it builds within you a prevailing sense of purpose beyond simply "beat the final boss to say I beat it," and that extra motivation really helped propel me through the last stages of the game. Elden Ring isn't quite a perfect game, but all its accolades are completely merited. It's a masterpiece through and through.
​
#32 - Jotun - PC - 2.5/10 (Baffling)
Jotun features pretty good art design, using stylistic hand-drawn art for all its backgrounds and sprites. While some areas are nicer to look at than others - you're wandering through a handful of the Norse nine realms and they're not all thematically attractive - all the art is well made and the game is crafted in such a way that it really allows you to appreciate it.
Everything else about this game is straight donkey balls. Your character is the slowest protagonist I've ever seen, and Jotun is an action game focused on boss battles. Moving like you're perpetually stuck in a swamp isn't a great match for the genre! You get a weak attack that takes ten minutes to come out, a strong attack that takes ten years, and most everything is immune to your weak attack anyway. Between bosses you spend agonizing, interminable amounts of time wandering mostly empty stages with the camera zoomed in so close you can't get a sense of where to go, and a map that doesn't actually show your location on it. You do this to unlock powers, which suck, and to collect runes that grant access to boss fights. During these boss fights you spam your atrocious attacks to shave pixels off giant health bars while unavoidable, randomized hazards slowly kill you. You have a dodge roll, but it has no invincibility properties and doesn't even move you any further than just walking would.
In summary, Jotun feels like some untalented designer went, "I should make a Souls game!" without ever actually playing a Souls game or understanding the first thing about what makes Souls games - or any games - fun to play. I even hate the voiceovers. It's a total disaster. But, you know...a disaster with some pretty good artwork.
​
#33 - Mega Man ZX Advent - DS - 4/10 (Unsatisfying)
ZX Advent's core problem is pretty simple to diagnose: it's a sequel to Mega Man ZX, and that game is straight dog booty. Once again this game features a whole bunch of awful, tedious quests with mostly awful, insulting rewards. But sometimes the quest has a really important reward, and there's no rhyme or reason to which is which, so you're stuck doing them all. And the fast travel system continues to be maddening, a series of one way warps that you have to pay to use, conveniently placing you near where you want to go, but forcing you to retread entire stages to be able to warp back. It's asinine.
To Advent's credit, it scraps the failed Metroidvania concept of ZX even as it provides the player with a functional map (which is to say, any map at all). Boss powers are significantly more interesting and far less limited. It's also a pretty big game, with 13 major bosses to clear before you even start the final gauntlet, and the levels are slightly better designed than the last title - a brutal first hour and idiotic penultimate stage notwithstanding. But you can't ever really appreciate the levels for what they are because everything's mired in these stupid quest and travel systems, and it's all presented with quite possibly the worst combination of writing and voice acting I've ever seen. So yes, it's better than ZX by a hair. But please, don't try to find out for yourself.
​
#34 - Resident Evil 3 (2020) - PS4 - 7/10 (Good)
This was the first time I'd ever played Resident Evil 3 in any form, but while I may not be able to gauge RE3's remake against its original release, I can gauge it against the Resident Evil 2 remake a year earlier. Frankly, it's hard not to: RE3 is clearly built upon the bones of RE2 to the point that it almost feels like a DLC campaign for that game. It's a fun prequel that never quite feels like a full package, much of its content like a lesser copy of what came before. Downtown Raccoon City isn't a bad locale per se, but it's nothing like the magic of the police station from RE2. I guess Capcom felt the same way because there's an entire mission in RE3 that sends you back to that same police station, identical assets and all, exploring a gated segment of it as if to say "remember how good this was last year?" The other locations you visit are even less memorable. Then of course I've got to call out Nemesis, who opens the game feeling absolutely terrifying but gets less and less impactful even as he continues to come back bigger and stronger. After the first couple hours there's no "Oh no!" feeling like Tyrant gave you in spades in RE2...just a limp sort of "This guy again? Really?" response.
Yet it's a testament to how successful the RE2 remake was that even its pale imitation ends up being a pretty good time. The mechanics are so solid that there's very little to complain about in that regard, especially because RE3 seems more generous than ever with giving the player powerful armaments with plenty of ammunition and even more healing. There are also new enemy types, some more interesting than others, but all keeping RE3 just novel enough to want to stick with. And of course, the game looks great, is reasonably well acted, and has an interesting story to tell (as far as the classic Resident Evil story goes, at any rate). So, while I can easily understand why this game was criticized and quickly forgotten by the masses, I would argue that it's not even close to being bad. It's simply not special, and hey: maybe that's OK.
​
#35 - Darksiders III - PS4 - 5.5/10 (Semi-Competent)
If you're on your third game of a series and you still haven't figured out what you want your core gameplay experience to be, that might be a sign that you need to throw in the towel. The first Darksiders wasn't perfect but it had a pretty clear design philosophy: take Devil May Cry and Ocarina of Time and blend them together with an apocalyptic, Heaven vs. Hell vs. Horsemen story. It was pretty good, all things considered, and carried a lot of promise for the future. Then for whatever reason Darksiders II went "What if instead of Zelda we mixed DMC with World of Warcraft?" and the results were predictably disappointing. I had hoped that this third installment would right the wrongs of the past and return the series to its roots.
Instead they just made Lazy Dark Souls. Everyone wants to make Soulslike games and think they can recapture that secret sauce. Then they all fall short because they all get it wrong: the real driving force behind the Souls games isn't the combat but the level design. It's the impeccable planning that goes into every room, corridor, and general location. So while it might not seem like a problem that in Darksiders III the combat was dumbed down even further into nearly mindless button mashing, the level design also isn't there, nor any of the other typical trappings that people love about the genre. It's a game that strives to copy the smart kid's homework but in "making it look a little different" loses all the right answers. What I can say in its favor is that the game looks nice, it's got some Metroidvania-lite exploration elements that work better than expected, and the theming of it all is still pretty good. Pretty faint praise.
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#36 - West of Loathing - Switch - 7/10 (Good)
At first blush this was everything I was looking for in a turn-based RPG. For one thing I knew I'd like the humor, having played quite a bit of the preceding browser game Kingdom of Loathing, and seeing as humor is the primary goal of the game, that was important. What worked better than I thought it would was the streamlined combat and leveling system. There are strictly speaking no raw attributes in West of Loathing, just discrete skills with either active or passive effects. Every level gives you one skill point, and the game itself starts by auto-assigning those in a balanced way as you go. So you'll get points in the passive skills that increase your raw numbers, points in the class skills that give you new combat options, and points in secondary skills that open up new non-combat interactions and effects. After the tutorial the game prompts you on whether you want to keep auto-leveling or if you want to manually assign your point each time, and I've got to say I found the auto-level such a revelation of efficiency that I stuck with it, even knowing I was missing out on some min-maxing by doing so. It just feels so good to get a big chunk of XP, suddenly have a new/improved skill, and keep moving on without messing about in a menu.
Unfortunately the back half of the game didn't quite deliver on all its promise, mainly because the story is never an object of focus. At the game's outset the idea seems to be to investigate this dangerous phenomenon and put a stop to it, and along the way you uncover more information about other big threat types of things as well, but none of it ever really gets resolved in a satisfying way. You can beat the mad wizard or seal the evil entity, sure, but you have to really go out of your way to do it, and the rewards are just more gear that at that point you don't need. Even the ending is a very meta cutscene as if to say "this is just a silly game and nothing matters, and you would do well to remember that." And like, sure, that's why I bought it! I like that silliness and the gameplay has been fun, but when you actively design your game to just fizzle out at the end I can't help but feel like something's missing. Still, it's cheap, it's refreshingly brief, and it's got a lot of fun little secrets to find, so as long as you go in knowing that there's absolutely no payoff, it's an easy game to recommend.
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Coming in June:

• I mentioned another attempt at PC gaming was on the way, and what better way to embrace the platform than with a game that's too difficult to play anywhere else? I have no idea if Epistory: Typing Chronicles will be even remotely good, but I like a good typing game from time to time and it's not the kind of game that will take over my life, so why not?
• On the console front I've got a few different AAA games staring at me, but I'm still "recovering" from the grandness of Elden Ring so these small-to-midsize games continue to be the order of the day for at least a little while longer. Alas, though I don't seek them out Soulslikes continue to find me. I didn't realize Darksiders III or Jotun were various flavors of Souls knock-offs until I started them, and now here I am a few hours into Tails of Iron realizing that it's very much in that vein as well. At least this one has some key differences, and I'm optimistic it'll translate into a stronger overall experience than the usual indie genre clone.
• Meanwhile, it's hard to ignore the way Zeldamania has been sweeping over the world. Breath of the Wild is one of my favorite games ever, and every time I boot up my Switch I see one friend or another diving into adventure. So I figured I might as well stop fighting it and grab the next Zelda game they released on Switch myself. Come on down, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (2019)! What, were you expecting something different?
• And more...

← Previous	2023	Next →

Working Glitches

This is the Working Glitches Section! This is always being improved, and if you have any recommendations please let me know in the comments or send me a direct message. If you know a glitch is working on any other platform I haven't included or doesn't work anymore, also let us know. If a glitch is patched then it will be stricken through. If a platform is in italics, it means it is unsure. If a platform is just "Xbox" or "PlayStation", that means that it works with both old gen and new gen versions of the game.
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Money and RP Glitches:

Semi Frozen Money (No Bird, No Save Wizard, No Save) - Xbox One, PS4 - Solo	Facility Car Dupe - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Gold Glitch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Arena RP Glitch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Cayo Double Secondary Loot - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Arena Car Dupe - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
No Save AHK - PC - Solo	Arena Car Dupe - Xbox, Playstation - Semi-Solo	LS Car Meet Rep Glitch - PS4 - Solo
Arena Car Dupe - Xbox, Playstation - Semi-Solo	Semi Frozen Money (Save Wizard) - PS4 - Solo	Gold Glitch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Semi Frozen Money (Fresh Meat) - Xbox One, PS4 - Solo	BEFF - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	5k RP Every 30 Secs - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Non-Solo
Dr Dre Linux Replay Glitch - PC - Solo	100k Every 10 Minutes - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Semi Frozen Money - Xbox One, PS4 - Solo

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Player Based Glitches:

Checkerboard Outfit in Lobby - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Agency God Mode - Xbox, Playstation - Semi-Solo	Account Duplication - Xbox - Solo
OTR God Mode Glitch - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Cashmere Coat with Vest - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Taxi God Mode - Xbox Series, PS5 - Solo
No Ragdoll - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Agency God Mode Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Orange/Purple Joggers and Bulletproof - Xbox Series, Playstation - Semi-Solo
Modded Outfit Transfer - Playstation - Solo	Unlock Checkerboard Cargo - Xbox Series, PS5 - Solo	Freakshop OTR - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Play as Big Rabbit - Xbox, Playstation - Non-Solo	Arena God Mode - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Apartment God Mode - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Candy Cane Weapon - Xbox, Playstation - Non-Solo	Jet Black Duffle - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Bigfoot Beard - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Migration Keep Progress - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Halloween Biker Jacket - Xbox Series, PS5 - Solo	20 Max Armor - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Black Joggers - PS4 - Solo	No Ankles - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Casino God Mode - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Female Joggers - Playstation - Solo	OTR Party Bus - Xbox, Playstation - Semi-Solo	KD Farm - Xbox, Playstation - Non-Solo
Easy God Mode - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Outfit Transfer - Xbox Series, PS5 - Non-Solo	Joggers and Bulletproof Helmets - PC - Solo
Remove Bodysuit Logo - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	IAA Badge - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Gender Swap - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Transfer Duffle - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Tan Joggers - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Motorcycle Texture Glitch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Invisible Arms on Cop Outfit - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Any Shoes with Gorka Pants - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Casino OTR for GCTF - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Casino OTR for GCTF - Xbox Series, PS5 - Solo	Cop Outfit - PS4 - Semi-Solo	Yellow Rebreather - Xbox, Playstation - Semi-Solo
Transfer Glitch - Xbox Series, PS5 - Semi-Solo	Perma Stun Lock - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Semi-Solo	Modded Outfits (No Checkerboard) - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Kill God Mode Players - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Invisible Stomach - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Thermals in Aircraft - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Play as Franklin - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Non-Solo	Ballistic Health Boost and Minigun - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	FIB Necklace - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Gorka Joggers with IAA Belt and Invisible Torso - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Duffle Bags - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Machine Revolver - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Frontier Outfit in 1 Day - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Save CEO Outfits - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	SP-MP Outfit Transfer - PS4 - Semi-Solo
Female No Bra - Xbox One - Solo	Cayo Perico Pouches - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Invisible Torso - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
White Duffle - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Grey Snapback Half Hat - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Merge Special Outfits - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Juggernaut Suit - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Racing Suit Shoulder Pads - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Gruppe, Prison and Paramedic Belts - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Overcoat and Suit Vest - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	No Kick Glitch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Chemical Mask on All Outfits - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Alien Outfit Without Mask - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Topless Female - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	NOOSE Outfit - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Invisible Arms - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Unlock Railgun - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Non-Solo	OTR using Double Garage - Xbox, Playstation - Semi-Solo
Double Garage God Mode - Xbox, Playstation - Semi-Solo	Wear Any Blacklisted Outfit - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Transfer Coloured Chutes Duffle Bags - Xbox, Playstation - Solo

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Miscellaneous:

Infinite Toreador Boost - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Skip Original Heist' Setups - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Creator Mode Online - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Public Solo Session - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Car to Car Merge (No Arena) - Xbox, Playstation - Non-Solo	Modded Acid Lab - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Non-Solo
Vehicle God Mode - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	UDC Finale B2B - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	AFK Modded Jobs - PS4 - Solo
DMO Lite - Playstation - Solo	Casino Online GCTF - PS5 - Non-Solo	Weapons in Facility - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
TP Mugshoot Room - Playstation - Solo	Infinitely Spawn Vehicles - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Clean Your Plates - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Sandy Shores GCTF - Xbox, Playstation - Non-Solo	Sell 27 Cars/Day - Xbox One, PS4 - Solo	Oppressor Mk2 Unlimited Missiles - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Car to Service Car Merge - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Arena War AFK - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Car to Service Car Merge - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Vehicle Magic Slot - Xbox, Playstation - Non-Solo	Skip Dax Cooldown - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Autoshop Car to Service Car Merge - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Facility Merge - Xbox, Playstation - Semi-Solo	Orb Spam - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Glitch Through Walls - PS5 - Solo
TP 50 Car Garage - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Undermap for Acid Lab/Freak Shop - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Cheap Acid Lab Supply - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Brickade Fooliganz Livery Flip - Xbox, Playstation - Semi-Solo	Give Terrorbyte to Friend - Xbox, Playstation - Non-Solo	Car to Car Merge - Xbox, Playstation - Non-Solo
Brickade Merge - Playstation - Solo	Bandito Teleport Glitch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Beach Door Launch - PC - Semi-Solo
GATF - Xbox, Playstation - Non- Solo	BF Wevil Speed Glitch - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Shooting Range Glitch - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Thermal in Story Mode - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Savage God Mode - Xbox, Playstation - Semi-Solo	2 Sparrow at Same Time - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Quickly Fill Nightclub - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	No Cops - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	No AFK Kick - Xbox - Solo
Infinite Company SUV's - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Endless Simeon Test Drive - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Double Damage - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Teleport in LSCM - Playstation - Solo	Get Inside Luxury Autos - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	CoPilot Weapons as Pilot - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Cayo Prep Job TP - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Skywalker - Playstation - Solo	Cop Car Glitch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Non-Solo
Colored Stock Wheels - Xbox, Playstation - Non-Solo	Never Fall Off Bike - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Non-Solo	Director Mode Trailer Online - Playstation - Solo
Launch Glitch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Non-Solo	Car on Cerberus Slot - Xbox, Playstation - Non-Solo	Casino No Timer - Xbox Series, PS5, PC - Non-Solo
No Wanted Level - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Launch Glitch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Drive Invisible Vehicle - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Non-Solo
Sultan Classic Speed Glitch - Xbox Series, PS5 - Non-Solo	Yellow Car Freak Out - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Non-Solo	BMX Launch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Special/Person Vehicle in Sumo - Xbox, Playstation - Semi-Solo	Unlock Trevor at Beginning of Game -PS4 - Solo	Wheel Merge/Transfer - PC - Non-Solo
Chameleon Pearlescent Glitch - Xbox Series, PS5 - Solo	No Cops - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Magic Slot Merge - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Bushole Launch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Extra Consumables - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Out of Bounds - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Semi-Solo
Under the Map Anywhere - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Invisible Aircraft - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Facility GCTF - Xbox, Playstation - Non-Solo
Double Sell Customers Cars - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Merge/Teleport Jobs - Xbox	2 Boys, 1 Hole - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
RC Bandito C4 Throw - PS4 - Solo	Pick Your Bunker Research - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Replay Dr Dre Finale - PC - Solo
Custom BMX Color - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Repeat HSW Time Trials - Xbox Series, PS5 - Solo	Choose Primary Target Cayo - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Autoclub Podium Vehicle - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Launch Glitch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Semi-Solo	Low Grip Tires on Any Car - PC - Solo
High Speed Jet Donuts - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	OOB Glitch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Toreador God Mode - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Wall Breach - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Teleport with Akula - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Hydra with MOC Health - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Walk in the Sky - Xbox, Playstation - Semi-Solo	Freeze Time - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Transparent Jet - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Trevors Car - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Kosatka Speed Glitch - PS4 - Solo	Change Org Name (Free) - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Matte Pearlescent Respray - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Job TP - PC - Solo	God Mode Speedo Van - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Hide Cargo - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Skip Doomsday Setups - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo	Hydra Speed Glitch - Xbox, Playstation, PC - Solo
Car to RC Merge - Xbox, Playstation - Solo	Weapons Inside Arena - Xbox, Playstation - Non-Solo	BEFF Double Garage - Xbox, Playstation - Solo
Bypass Daily Sell Limit - Xbox, Playstation - Solo

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Some Helpful Tips About This Subreddit:
• Please read the rules before you post.
• Please stay civilised, and do not be rude towards others.
• Please do not comment stupid things such as “I didn’t use this glitch”. Seriously, what’s the point?
• Please do NOT post gamer tags anywhere on this subreddit. If you need to tell someone, just PM the person.
• If you see anyone breaking rules, make sure to report the post so we can get on it ASAP!
• If you’re desperate to ask a question, just ask on the weekly questions thread.
• We also have a chat which is quite helpful, and you can ask questions there and get a response.
• There is a very helpful scammer list for B2B Bogdan by YoGamer1044, make sure to check it out here before hosting one for someone.
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Have a Question about a Glitch?:
Ask the poster of the glitch inside the post, rather than this main page. People there created it, found it, or at the very least have been using it recently, and are far more likely to give you the correct answer.
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Have a Glitch That Isn't Linked Here?:
Make/Link a post and send me a PM and I will put the post here. (We appreciate your contribution!)
———————————————————————
Need any help? Message the mod team.
​

Frequently Asked Questions

If you ask about something which can be clearly answered via the information in the FAQ's, your comment will be removed.
------------------------------------------------
Where are the newest glitches?

• Sorting the sub by new is the easiest way to find the most current glitches
• Our Discord server has a section with quite a few working glitches

Are Heist Replay Glitches patched?

• No, and they probably won't be any time soon; if ever.
• Heist replay glitch is still working in the enhanced version.
• Please note that timings might be more difficult than in the past.

How do I do X Heist Replay?

• Cayo Perico
• Casino
• Bogdan

Tips on how to avoid heist reset on consoles.

• Take a break after 2 consecutive attempts
• Try clearing your cache after 2 consecutive attempts
• Try disconnecting after the white transaction loading circle and before the orange loading circle
• Try disconnecting after the "Transaction Pending" disappears at the bottom of the screen

Can you get banned from doing X Glitch?

• Outside of the few admonished outliers such as the strain of Apartment Glitches, you WON'T GET BANNED for doing any glitches. This includes things such as Heist Replays, AFK's, Merges, Dupes (creating/owning/selling Dupes) and etcetera.

Any good RP glitches around?

• This is a new type job, TeamLilac AFK, and should be similar to Peter Griffin AFK. Please feel free to leave feedback on this job since its new

Best money glitch out right now?

• Heist Replays (Bogdan/Cayo Perico), GCTF Dupes and/or Semi-Frozen Money (solo) will always remain as time proven choices. Alongside whatever Dupe Glitch is currently available/working.

Anything pertaining to Dupes?

• Destro's Duping Encyclopedia will most likely have your answers. Start with the Introduction segment which covers the jist of the relevant topics, otherwise flip through to the topic dedicated chapter.

Merge Glitches?

• BEFF/2 Console
• Captain Merge (Non-Solo)

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External Resources:

• Our Discord Server - Highly recommended and it's the best place to help keep you updated with all the working glitches being discovered.
• Alternatively, you can refer to realmoneymitch.com which serves the same purpose

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Se7enSins:

• Glitched Clothing Megathread
• GTA Blacklisted Vehicles

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Looking for a partner in crime?

1. Need People for Duping/Trading - Refer to GTADupe
2. Need People for Heist Replays/JAFK/Misc Jobs - Refer to HeistTeams

Happy glitching! 😉

Heist's Infinite Shards Sorcerer aka "Flying Fortress"
Created 5/31/23
Creator Heist
Class Sorcerer
Link to Build: https://d4builds.gg/builds/53c18548-2bce-4796-ac16-0c0f55ba4c5a/
​
Build Overview:
The idea behind the build is to create an infinite feedback loop for Ice Shards while being near indestructible.
Ice shards Enchantment allows it to be auto cast at frozen enemies. At 5/5 skill points and Enhanced Ice and Greater Ice Shards selected the shards have a 40% chance to ricochet to another enemy and always ricochet off of Frozen enemies. In addition when you have a Barrier (this build has many) casts of Ice shards treat enemies as if they were frozen. Ice shards also do 25% increased damage...
From gear Harlequin Crest Helm adds 4 ranks to all skills boosting shard damage and giving 10 to 20 damage reduction. Everlasting Aspect chest gives 20 to 25% reduced damage from crowd controlled or vulnerable enemies. Aspect of Biting cold gloves allows Freeze a 25 to 35% chance at a 3 sec vulnerable. Iceheart Brais pants allow enemies a 11 to 20% chance to Frost Nova on death.
Aspect of Shared Misery boots has a lucky hit proc of 30 to 50% that will spread crowd control to another unaffected enemy which will work of chill or Frost as they are both CC. Aspect of Piercing Cold weapon allows Ice Shards to pierce 3-4 times dealing 25 to 20% reduced damage per subsequent enemy hit. Shadowguard's Aspect Amulet adds 10 to 15% damage reduction when standing in Blizzard and the Blizzard enchant will cause Blizzard to be auto self cast on you and follow you around every 15 seconds for 6 seconds. Aspect of Control Ring will add 30 to 40% damage to Immobilized, Stunned or Frozen enemies. Glacial Aspect ring will cause blizzard to periodically spawn exploding ice spikes that deal x damage and do 20 to 30% increased damage to Frozen enemies. Lastly the Aspect of Frozen Memories offhand will allow the avalanche passive to apply 1 additional cast.
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Playstyle:
The end result is you will constantly be freezing enemies as blizzard applies chill and has no cooldown and will be spammed liberally when enemies are frozen there are 2 routes to bonus damage through vulnerability proc and cc proc bonus and the innate 25% bonus to Frozen from Ice shards. Immediately shards will then start shooting shards at frozen targets since they are frozen the shards ricochet and because of gear they also pierce when they target blows up they have a chance to proc a frost nova repeating the process as every Frozen enemy is hit automatically there is also a proc that can happen from Aspect of shared misery to spread the Frost to other targets which will then proc the Enchant again and again just from the auto cast from your Enchant not to mention your active skill usage which will also be setting this up.
The fun doesn't stop there however from gear you get (10 to 20) + (20 to 25) + (10 to 15) = (40% to 60%) stackable damage reduction. In skills Ice armor give 45% reduction for 6 seconds and damage against vulnerable will boos that by 50% as will Harlequin which will add 4 more levels of reduction on top. Every time you use 100 mana you get 15% reduction for 5 sec with Mana shield skilled. With Protection skilled, using any cooldown skill gives 30% of your life as a 2 second barrier ( you have 3 cooldown skills one of which is your teleport which gives 30% damage reduction for 5 seconds and cd reduction on enemies hit) You also have a passive stacking buff from Align the elements that goes from3% up to 40% damage reduction vs elites based on the time between you last taking damage. Hoarfrost, Permafrost and Icy Touch add 12% damage vs vulnerable 15% damage vs elites and 9% damage to chilled and 18% vs frozen. Lastly Avalanche which has 2 casts due to the aspect causes frost skills to have a 10% lucky hit to make Ice Shards and Blizzard use no mana and do 40% increased damage and a 20% lucky hit chance if the enemy is vulnerable.
Paragon is chalk full of even more damage reduction with 6 fully activated rare glyphs 7 total and 3 legendary nodes that boost enchantments damage and range and stack on both damage and even more reduction and barriers. As barriers play such a huge role I suggest Diamond gems for Armor, Sapphire on weapons to boost crit during Frozen and chill and skull to boost armor on jewelry.
The end result should theoretically feel like you are a world war 2 Flying Fortress gunning through the hordes of hell while they barely scratch the surface of your Ice Armor.
I will be streaming my runs on these builds starting with my Druid tomorrow @ 4pm pst when servers go live https://www.twitch.tv/heiststreaming
Get more from https://www.reddit.com/DiabloIV_Build_Guides/
I will be posting every class eventually as I level them up through end game In Diablo 4.

When I play games, I sometimes try to make the strongest tools/armobuilds possible out of the cheapest materials possible. This is expecially useful early game, when you want to become very powerful very quickly and you don't have access to more expensive or rarer tools/weapons/armomaterials. This post will teach you how to do that with Tinkers Construct.
Now, there are two versions of Tinkers Construct that I've interacted with: Tinkers Construct 2 and Tinkers Construct 3. I've played lots of 1.12 modpacks, so TiCon 2 is what I'm most familiar with. In contrast, I've only just recently started playing newer modpacks (such as ones for 1.16 and 1.18) so I've only had a small exposure to TiCon 3 and am not as familiar with it. Anyway, let me start with Tinkers Construct 2:
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Tinkers Construct 2 Stone Tips
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Here are 5 powerful tips relating to Stone:
​

• You can mine anything with Stone: You may be thinking, "No you can't! Stone tools can at most mine up to a Block of Iron and that's it." Well, normally that's true, but you can change that. Suppose you've made a Tinkers Pickaxe with a Stone Pickaxe Head. Currently, you only have an Iron Mining Level. But if you combine an Obsidian Sharpening Kit with a piece of Flint in a Tool Station/Tool Forge, you can upgrade your Pickaxe's Mining Level from Iron to Cobalt, which I believe is the highest one possible. This can be easily done from the start of the game.
• Easy repairs: As you can guess, a Stone-headed tool can be repaired with a Stone Sharpening Kit. "Yeah? So what?" Well, we've just made a pickaxe that can mine just about any material in the game. Plus, Tinkers tools don't disappear when broken like vanilla Minecraft tools; when they break, all you have to do it repair it and it works like new. When you combine these three facts together, you can see the whole picture: we have a pickaxe that can mine even Obsidian, that can be repaired whenever it breaks, and can be repaired with Stone or Cobblestone, which are the easiest resources to obtain in bulk in the whole game. And you can craft such a pickaxe early on in the game. Wow, now that's powerful! Anyway, to make repairing even easier, you can carry both a Part Builder and a Sharpening Kit Pattern with you in your inventory as you go mining for easy repairing on the go. I know that you can just make a stack of Stone Sharpening Kits to carry with you in your inventory, but if you're planning on going on extensive mining expeditions, even a stack of Sharpening Kits might not be enough for you (especially with a Stone Pickaxe Head), so you might need to take the whole Part Builder table with you. Anyway, speaking of long mining expeditions, one of the problems you may constantly be dealing with is darkness, because if you're mining for a long time, you may bump into lots of caves, which are usually poorly lit. Luckily, Stone can be used to shed a little light on the situation...
• Stone torches: Normally, Torches are made with a Stick and piece of Coal/Charcoal. But you can make Torches with Cobblestone instead. Firstly, put two Cobblestone pieces in a crafting table, one directly above the other. Now you have 4 Stone Rods. These Stone Rods can be used with Coal/Charcoal in order to make Stone Torches. Stone Torches are like regular Torches, except for their appearance and the recipe required to make them. But why would you want to make Stone Torches? Well, to make regular Torches, you need sticks, which require wood, which requires a tree, which requires you to surface/leave the caves. Now if you're on an extended mining expedition, you are probably too busy to want to stop and go all the way back to the surface just to make Torches. With Stone Torches, you can make Torches with both Stone and Coal - things you can both find in caves - removing the need to return to the surface. Now, having enough light sources to light your way is a must for extended journeys in Minecraft. Another is having enough food to be able to survive the journey in the first place. But how can Stone help us solve this problem?
• Pig Iron lets you eat Stone: Yes, it's true. Well, sort of. Pig Iron is a special alloy that allows you to EAT whatever Tinkers tool has it as one of its components. It's relatively easy to make in the beginning of the game, too. It's an alloy of Iron, Clay and Blood. Blood comes from smelting Rotten Flesh. If you don't have any Rotten Flesh, you can just have a creature walk into your Smeltery and take damage, thus causing it to bleed out a bit right into your Smeltery setup. It could be any creature, like a Pig, Sheep. or even...yourself (but not a Villager though; that just gets you Liquid Emerald, I think). But if you want to jump into your Smeltery and burn yourself alive for a bit, you can at least be safe about it. Firstly, you can have your health at max to be able to survive the damage. Next, you can build your Smeltery to be very shallow. To do this, you first build a 3x3 base. Then you build 4 walls surrounding the outside edge of the base. Each of the walls are 3 blocks long and only 1 block high. With one-block high walls, you can easily jump into/out of the Smeltery at will, to avoid burning yourself alive. Note that there must actually be something in the Smeltery for you to burn yourself with in the first place; you should first burn an Iron Ingot to produce Molten Iron, then jump into the molten metal to be able to be burned by something. Anyway, let me explain how Pig Iron lets you eat Stone. First, you make it so that the Head/main part of your Tinkers tool/weapon is made out of Stone and make one of the other parts out of Pig Iron. Then, whenever you're hold the tool in your main/offhand and lose some of your hunger bar, you begin to automatically start to nibble on your tool until your Hunger bar is topped off. This uses up some durability, of course. But remember, Stone tools are easy to repair. In this manner, you practically have access to infinite food. Now, granted, you only get back 0.5 Hunger per bite (thus allowing you to restore health rather slowly), and this "food" offers no Saturation, but infinite free food is infinite free food, so none of that other stuff matters much (not to me, at least). Now if you TRULY want infinite free food, you can just make a Tinkers tool with 5 Modifiers. This can easily be done by replacing at least some of the tool's parts with Paper to get extra modifiers (or another material that gives extra Modifiers, like Livingwood from the Botania mod). Then you can make the tool Unbreakable, thus allowing you to have ACTUAL free infinite food (because the tool can never be damaged again [Except with some materials like Extra Utilities 2's Magical Wood, which make your tool Magically Brittle], thus preventing it from losing durability whenever it feeds you). {Note: Not all modpacks lets you do this; in some modpacks I've played (can't remember which), once a tool/weapon is made Unbreakable, Pig Iron's Tasty trait stops working for some reason. This is probably done on purpose, because infinite free food is probably seen as too overpowered and needs to be stopped.) One of the Tinkers weapons I like to do this with is the Shuriken. Speaking of the Shuriken, that leads me to my next point.
• Stone lets you create a Meal-Shield-Weapon: "What the heck is a Meal-Shield-Weapon?" Well, it's a term that I just made up. Let me tell you what it means. First of all, the term is sort of self-explanatory; it's an item that operates as a meal, shield and weapon all at once. A Tinkers Shuriken can operate in such a manner. Here's how you build it: Firstly, a Tinkers Shuriken is basically a 4-point ninja star, with each point being a Knife Blade. To make a Shuriken into a Meal-Shield-Weapon, make three of the blades out of Pig Iron, Stone and Wood (the Stone is for easy repairs and the Wood is for auto-repair via the Ecological trait). The fourth blade can be made out of any material you wish, though there are some materials I recommend (but we'll discuss that later). Now, how do this Shuriken work as a Meal-Shield-Weapon? Well, it operates as a Meal because it auto feeds you. It is a Weapon, because, well, it is a weapon and meant primarily to do damage. It is a Shield because it can be held and operated from the offhand and lets you block damage. It doesn't block damage in the traditional way, but it does let you block damage by auto-healing you, thus allowing to restore health. In my opinion, auto-regen and blocking damage with a shield are technically the same thing because they accomplish the same task; both are designed to keep your health from dropping too low (I use the same tactic in other games, like Final Fantasy 5. I don't equip my characters with shields because I like to dual wield weapons. Instead, I equip all my guys with Protect Rings, which give auto-regen). Anyway, I said I was going to tell you what you could make the 4th blade out of, so let me do that: Restonia is a material from Actually Additions mod. This material has the Hearts trait, which lets you do 70% extra damage at full health (and staying at full health is easy due to Pig Iron's Tasty trait. By the way, Pig Iron also has Baconlicious, which makes blocks/enemies sometimes drop Bacon - another way to keep your health up). Bone is good, as it does a lot of damage for such a cheap material. Cactus is a good defensive material, as it helps you attack enemies from a distance via automatic retaliation, this lets you deal with skeletons a bit more easily. End Stone is good, because it helps you fight Enderman via the Enderference trait; this trait allows you to attack Endermen with any weapon (even a projectile weapon, which the Shuriken obviously is), and keeps them from teleporting for a short time. But if you happen to come across a lot of Gold early game (at least 10 ingots worth, or just 5 Gold Ore Blocks which can be transformed in the Smeltery into 10 ingots), then that 4th blade should be made into Paper; this usually gives you 5 Modifiers. All you need now is 5 Blank Gold Casts and 40 Obsidian to make 5 Reinforcement Modifiers and make your Shuriken Unbreakable.

A final tip: When I build early game tools for Tinkers, here's how I like to build them: for my Pick, I like to Make it out of a Stone Pickaxe Head, Wood Tool Binding and Wood Tool Rod. In most modpacks, you Pickaxe starts out with 3 modifiers. What I like to do is use the first two Modifiers to apply the Diamond and Emerald traits. This shoots my durability up from slightly over 100 to just over 1,000. Then I use an Obsidian Sharpening Kit to max out its mining level. Finally, for the last Modifer, I apply Luck and try to get it up to Luck III. For my Shuriken (which is my preferred weapon when playing modded Minecraft, by the way), I also like to apply the Diamond, Emerald and Luck III modifiers (most modpacks I know have Shuriken have 3 Modifiers, but some let it only have 1; in that case, focus mainly on Luck III; Luck III requires a whopping 360 Lapis or 40 Lapis Blocks, but it's worth the effort). The materials I choose are the ones I outlined above: the first three blade are Wood, Stone and Pig Iron. I prefer the fourth one to be either Restonia, Cactus or Bone. You can attach a Nether Star to both your tools if you want, too, to apply the Soulbound trait. This makes them stay in your inventory upon death, and doesn't require a Modifier slot. Getting Nether Stars early game is usually quite difficult, but it depends on your particular modpack and/or your level of skill/bravery.
Another final tip: Obviously this Pickaxe mines relatively slowly, being made out of Stone and all. There are ways to circumvent this, however. For one, you can use Restone to add the Haste trait to your tool (not recommended, as I prefer to use my Modifier slots to add other useful traits to my Pickaxe; slower mining speed doesn't bother me anyway). Alternatively, you can use Veinminer or OreExcavation or FTB Ultimine. These let you mine large amounts of blocks, provided that they're connected and are made from the same material. VeinMiner or its equivalent are available in most modpacks, so if I'm mining Obsidian, I can just hold down the button I assigned to OreExcavation/VeinMineetc., and when I break the Obsidan block, the other Obsdian blocks near it come up as well. this saves a lot of time and makes up for the slow mining speed. That's why when I play most modpacks, having slow mining speed usually doesn't bother me.
Those are all the tips I had for TiCon 2. Now, on to TiCon 3:
​

• First of all, you can forget about the Shuriken. They don't exist anymore. Well, they do, but they've been transformed into cheap throwaway consumable items. You have Flint ones for Knockback and Quartz ones for damage. That's it. They're not regular weapons anymore, and can't be upgraded with Modifiers. This is possibly do to the fact that Shuriken can be OP, so that particular weapon had to be nerfed to the ground.
• Therefore, we need only to focus on the Pickaxe. Obviously, we still make the head out of Stone (well, it's called Rock now). But what about the Tool Handle and Tool Binding?
• Let's start with the Tool Handle. We should make it out of something durable. But what? Three good early options are Wood, Whitestone and Slimewood. Wood no longer allows for auto-heal via Ecological, but instead wood now has the trait Cultivated, which lets you restore 50% more durability whenever you repair it. Or if you have Botania installed, you can spring for Living wood instead of regular wood. Livingwood has the trait called...well, Livingwood. This trait is similar to Cultivated, but repair materials are 75% more effective instead. Whitestone is good, too. It gives your tool the Stoneshield trait: Stoneshield adds a second durability meter, and when you mine Stone, sometimes that Stone is consumed and then added to the Stoneshield meter. Then when you use the tool again, you can randomly use the Stoneshield meter's durability instead of regular durability. Whitestone is made from... well, white stone, AKA End Stone. End Stone can be easily obtained early in some modpacks. But if not, there are alternative ways to make Whitestone: you just pour molten metals onto a Rock tool part in a Casting Table - metals like Tin, Aluminum of Zinc. Slimewood lets you do the same thing with Overslime, which lends you a second slimy durability bar with, I believe, a minimum value of 50 points (or more, depending on the number of tools parts have the Overslime trait. This meter can also have more points based multiplying 50 by the tool's base durability multiplier). Slimewood is made by pouring Slime on a Wood Tool Part. Slimewood also has the Overgrowth ability, which makes your tool slowly regenerate its Overslime meter. So now your tool has THREE ways you can repair it: Rock Repair Kits, Slime Balls, and auto-repair. A good fourth material could be Pig Iron, but I'll discuss that later.
• What about the tool binding? Well, in this version of TiCon, the Tool Binding doesn't affect the stats of the tool in any way, meaning it doesn't affect the tool's durability. It just adds traits instead. So here, you can add relatively low durability materials if you want. You can use any of the materials from above, or you can use a Chain for the Reinforced I Modifier, letting your Pickaxe take 25% less damage.
• Based on the info from above, a cool idea would be to have a Stone Pickaxe Head, a Whitestone/Chain Tool Binding and a Slimewood/Pig Iron Tool Handle.
• Actually, I think I have a better idea: Keep the Rock Pickaxe Head, but make the other two parts into Pig Iron. Pig Iron is different now. Pig Iron tools don't auto-feed you anymore; you have to hold right-click in order to eat them (plus I don't think Baconlicious is a trait anymore, either). But the trade-off is that they heal more. Each level of Tasty restores 1 Hunger and 0.1 Saturation. So with two Pig Iron Tool Parts, we have Tasty II, which restores 2 Hunger per bite and 0.2 Saturation as well. This is the best early game pickaxe possible: it restores a decent amount of Hunger (at least, for an item that's normally not supposed to be edible) and can easily be repaired.
• Oh yeah! I almost forgot about mining levels! Well, the highest mining level now is not Cobalt, but Netherite. To boost out Pick to this mining level, we need to first apply either the Diamond or Emerald Modifiers. I prefer Diamond, if you have to choose; this boosts your mining level to Diamond (which seems to be one below Netherite) and gives us 500+ extra durability (in contrast, Emerald only adds 50% extra durablity and gives us an Iron mining level). Only then can we apply the Netherite Modifier. This requires 1 Netherite Ingot, which isn't really an early game material, unless your particular modpack allows you to get it early for some reason; in that case, you can just add on the Emerald Modifier anyway, instead. Of course, if you can afford it, you should add all three Modifiers to your Pickaxe; you durability will then shoot through the roof.

Note: Here's how I would build my ultimate early game Pickaxe. First, like I said above, I would choose a Stone (sorry, Rock) Pickaxe Head. Then I would make both the Tool Bind and Rod out of Pig Iron. Next, I would maximize my durability; like I said above, I would try to add both Diamond and Emerald Modifiers, if I can get my hands of some Nehterite early somehow. Finally, I would maximize my Luck. All TiCon 3 Tools/Weapons (except for Rose Gold, which has more) have 2-3 Modifier slots (which we just used up), and 1 Ability slot, which we haven't used yet. Luck is considered an Ability, now. Luck still has three levels, but the materials needed are more expensive/rare (you still need some Lapis, but now you need more than that). Luck (1st level) requires, on a tool/weapon (because TiCon 3 has armor too, which has a different recipe for Luck), a blue flower (a Blue Orchid or a Cornflower), 2 Copper Ingots and 2 Lapis Blocks. Luckier (level 2) requires a Golden Carrot, two Gold Ingots and two Ender Pearls. And finally, Luckiest (the third and final level) requires two Rose Gold Ingots, a Diamond, a Name Tag and a Rabbit's foot (it makes sense that a Rabbit's Foot is requires for the highest level of Luck, because you'd have to be extremely Luck to be able to even get one. Ditto for a Name Tag). It's a lot harder to max out Luck in Tinkers Construct 3 than it was in Tinkers Construct 2, but it's still worth the effort.
​
Well, that's it. That's all the ways that I can think of getting really strong in TiCon focusing primarily on Stone. I hope this guide is useful to you all!

u/SpacePaladin15 is so cool and awesome for doing this and the world.
​
Past: https://www.reddit.com/NatureofPredators/comments/13pwssu/against_god_3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Memory Transcript: Nikat, Venlil Prisoner at camp Thessaloniki on Wittenmyer.
We got a TV installed yesterday. For the longest time I had no idea why. The guards already had their own TV, and we were not allowed any kind of media before. Then I realized what was playing…
News. I knew humans could be so torturous, but not even the Arxur would do this to us. Giving us the hint of entertainment only to make us watch bland political news watching our entire interplanetary government fall may have been worse than isolation. Some of the others-mostly the newer ones-couldn’t take the truth being thrown in their face. It didn't bother me much; we were doomed from the start.
I had actually become quite the fan of the two hosts. They were a human who they called Moro and a Yotul named Isra. Why the Yotul was there, I suspect it was to get humans to see them. He was a fine fellow, in part I even found him attractive. The nickname the humans gave them: Pofpof, was pleasantly accurate. It meant puffy. Only thing that made him bad was how deep he was in the predator net.
Thankfully, the show was starting soon..
The two hosts appeared on screen. Moro of course wore his signature striking turquoise shawl, while the little Yotul sat well with what looked like a human style suit, but with some interesting color to benefit his fur.
"A good one to all citizens of the empire! It is a pleasure to bring you the most accurate and straightforward information. Is that not correct Isra?"
Moro turned to his Yotul companion, who gave a most human smile.
"That's right Moro! I must say it is a good batch this time around!"
Moro and Isra turned back to the camera.
"Very correct Isra, all of which relates to the situation within the former Mochrika Enclosure." As he finished speaking, a view was given of a planet.
Moro spoke first: "The homeworld of the Kholshians has officially been liberated from Federation enemies. After a lengthy siege, the planet was brought down."
The camera then switched to a scene on the planet, I suppose, showing a large human in glinting Armour of gold, with a halo surrounding his head. He walked with a great enclave of soldiers , bringing many Khloshian with bags over their heads and held in great chain lines. The surrounding lines were made up of guards and other Kholshian, celebrating as the humans do, slamming their tentacles together.
"Our beloved Leader Mochrika, in all his glory, has visited the planet to himself give the hearings of the captured officials."
Surrounded by guards and lookers, the bound Kholshian were brought to the top of a golden platform. Their top coverings were removed. Many looked almost as scared and confused as I was when first taken into human custody. How quaint.
They were then pushed towards the front, being silently hassled by the lower sort.
A human dressed in golden and purple robes came onto screen. He took a great sceptor, and pointed it towards the prey. He said such words with great passion:
"By the grace of mankind, and our mercy, you may speak."
As though an aura came over them, all their very breaths were heard. One Kholshian was brought forward more clearing his throat:
"We supplicate you, beloved leader Moshrika, in all your infinite mercy, to look kindly on us. For we are merely dumb as fish before your strength. In our haste, we bring ourselves to your feet and beg of you to bring us into your light. O humanity, we apologize with great vehemence to spare us. We in our arrogance and foolishness could not see the perfection of humanity. Your infinite wisdom was so great our egos could not handle it. And to our fellow prey species, we implore you to lay down your weapons and accept mankind willingly. They are the superlative of kindness, beauty, wisdom, intelligence…"
For a moment, the Kholshian looked pleadingly at the crowd. He shivered with such force, but strained to finish.
"...the true peak of evolution."
The golden leader then took up his hand to his chest, and palm facing out, held it all thin like a plank. “Fear not, for all mankind has heard your plea. Corrupted have been your minds, and your souls made wicked by the evil which commands you. We shall look favorably upon you and your race. We shall absolve you of this, and you shall serve your time. Your race shall be spared.”
A great yipping and howling was heard from the crowd below, and thunderous applause with it. Not a moment later, the screen cut back to the two hosts.
Isra was the first to speak. “Beautiful response from the beloved leader. The Feds are lucky he is merciful to them."
"How lucky are we to have our leaders be so kind, even to [phrase untranslatable, direct translation: impurity of creation, eternal poison]." Moro spoke a word that had an entire Sentence with it.
With that the screen began playing some commercials…
I knew that word… not really but I knew how it felt.
Ba'nak. A word that doesn't translate, but I knew what it really meant. Filth, pestilence, disease. That's how the humans saw us. We were a thing to be destroyed, to be washed off. If they couldn't get that, then all our being would be destroyed. Our culture, our language, our food. They’ll turn our own children against us.
To them, I am fifth. I've heard it so much I've begun to believe it. Soon, I will be cleansed.
I won't let them… not today. Not ever. I am not filth. I am not a being to be enslaved or killed. I am real; I am a person.

https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/ember-hex-twitch-drops-available-this-weekend-during-dreamhack-dallas-june-2-4
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The HCS Global Invitational is live this weekend at DreamHack Dallas as the best teams from around the world throw down for $125,000!
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Hello again!
This one took longer to get out, not because it was a harder chapter for me to write or anything like that, but because I forgot to post and was busy writing the main story anyways. Challenge me on that, I dare you.
Nothing else really to say. Join the discord.
Previous/Main/Next/Discord!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fries dragged himself towards the LZs, hoping that someone had somehow waited for him. He could see the area where the dropship had been landed and the troops gathered by the amount of insectoid bodies littering the area. Among them, he could see a shattered CEVA helmet on the ground, the operator or suit nowhere nearby.
He approached slowly, keeping his rifle up and trained on the bodies if they got back up. He went straight for the helmet, picking it up and inspecting it once he reached it. There was a hole in the faceplate and no exit wound, though there was blood, skull fragmentation, and brain matter on both the back of the helmet and faceplate.
“Shit…” Fries muttered, shaking his head as he set the helmet down. He was about to check the area more when his audio sensors picked up hissing in the air.
Fries dove for cover behind the body of one of the insectoids, being sure to cover the breach in his suit. While the mechanical pressurization of the main suit hadn’t been compromised, a blast to the flesh could still prove fatal to the ODST.
He waited for an impact that never came, and instead watched as two Kxa’vara transports flew overhead.
“Well, that ain’t somethin’ we were briefed on…” He mused to himself, standing up and starting to run in the direction he had watched the craft go in. He slung his rifle onto his back and turned up the mechanical assistance in the suit, allowing him to run at an incredible speed for an incredibly long period of time.
He followed in the direction of the craft for what felt like an hour, the suit feeding him nearly pure oxygen to continue at the pace he was at, until he suddenly stopped upon seeing where the two craft were hovering. In the side of a rock face a kilometer or two out that extended around 150 feet into there air, he could make out clay and rock “houses” either carved out of the rock or built up with the clay. He used the suit’s zoom function to scope the place out. Outside of the houses though, Fries couldn’t see anybody or anything. The two ships hovered above it, but there was nothing moving around.
Finally thinking he had enough information, Fries attached a suppressor to his rifle and started moving forward. He had barely gotten four steps forward when he saw more of the insectoid creatures. They were out at the “houses” trying to climb up and reach the dropship. He could make out the tracings of kinetic-plasma fire. He started running towards the “town” before he noticed six or so of the bugs coming towards him.
Without hesitation this time, he raised his rifle and cut them apart, their hard carapaces completely ineffective against the armor-penetrating 4.5x49mm rounds from the ODST’s weapon. He continued forward, reloading his rifle and checking his underbarrel launcher for a round. He wasn’t sure what his plan was, but it involved something with a Kxa’vara ship.
He had run about 100 meters before the next batch of bugs came at him, this time much closer than beforehand. The first one immediately lunged at him and caught his right arm’s utility spike to the skull, going limp as soon as he removed the spike from the skull. The next two creatures caught .388 SP pistol rounds to their heads as they approached, Fries opting to leave his rifle for later engagements. The last one also jumped at him, but was caught by the ODST mid air, slammed onto the ground, and had its head stomped in by a boot.
Fries exhaled sharply while looking at his handiwork before quickly running off in the same direction again, this time at a much faster pace than before. It only took him a few minutes to be within 200 meters of the two craft, which had seemingly not noticed him, despite the ever-growing horde of bugs behind him.
It looked as if there was a closed entrance to the “town”, mainly as there was a large gate surrounded by twenty-foot rock faces. He quickly looked behind him to see where the horde was before he gritted his teeth and jumped, firing his jumpjets as he leapt up. He extended his spike and jammed it into the wall, settling his feet into cracks and divots before pushing off again and firing the jumpjets again. He repeated this process a few times before making it to the top and climbing up to look at the situation.
The two transports were hovering about forty meters away, above the residence area and dumping fire into the bugs below them. He could see right away that Kinetic-Plasma was much less useful against the bugs than his bullets, but they also had infinitely more bullets to fire than he did.
With some semblance of a plan starting to come together in his head, he pulled a disruptor grenade off of his kit and armed it, having the suit start to calculate where he’d have to throw it to hit the first ship. As soon as it was locked in, the suit took complete control over his arm, waiting for Fries’ signal.
He let the suit do its thing and watched as the disruptor grenade flew through the air towards the craft. He regained control of his arm and brought his rifle up, bringing his right arm to the trigger of the underbarrel launcher. As soon as he watched the grenade flash away the enemy’s shields, he fired a 40mm grenade at the gravitational stabilizer he could see. The side of the craft was engulfed in smoke as the HEDP round exploded on contact with the ship’s hull.
Almost immediately, the ship listed to the side, unable to maintain attitude control from the loss of the stabilizer. Fries immediately switched targets and began thinking of what to do for the other transport. His rangefinder gave the range as 43 meters, and Fries’ mind immediately went to a “solution”.
He had another 71 meters per second of fuel left, around eight seconds of hover time in this gravity, or just around enough to get him into the craft.
Taking a deep breath, Fries took a runup before jumping off the ledge he was on and fired the jumpjets, accelerating himself towards the transport. He knew that the energy shields would stop bullets, but they wouldn’t stop him. He extended his utility spike and cranked the arm back, preparing to jam it into the ship’s hull. As soon as he hit the side, he stabbed his arm in, the spike piercing all the way through until his fist hit the craft. He quickly pulled his handgun out and aimed towards the opened door to his right. Surprisingly, nobody came to look at him, as they were too surprised to watch their comrades’ craft go down.
Without warning, the ship tilted over and flew over to support the downed aircraft as insectoid creatures swarmed towards it. Fries sank in closer to the craft as they moved, trying to make sure he was able to stay onboard. It quickly leveled out over the wreck, the gunners at the doors opening up on the approaching horde. The ODST spared no time and crawled along the hull towards the door, the distance seeming an incredibly long 6 feet away. Using his spike and the “hand”holds on the craft, he made it to a point where he could leave his left arm spiked in and still lean into the cabin.
There were two Vakasi on mounted guns firing out of the door opposite him. In the cockpit, a Volaxin and Jokall sat at the sticks, the latter’s scaled, bat-like wings stopping him from seeing further in. He had just drawn his handgun to shoot at the two gunners when he heard one of the pilots yell out, his shields immediately flaring up as a few rounds from the Volaxin’s KP handgun impacted him.
Recognizing the immediate threat, Fries put a bullet into the skull of the pilot. He took note of the bullet tearing its way through his skull and out the glass cockpit as he leaned in further, using the remaining fuel in his jumpjets to give him enough force to remove his left arm from the hull and push into the cabin.
Neither of the two Vakasi had enough time to turn around and raise their weapons before Fries had kicked the first one out, immediately turning on the other one and putting a bullet into his chest/neck carapace. His shields flared again as another round struck him. He quickly whipped around, ducking to the side and raising his pistol towards the cockpit.
The HUD quickly flashed a 46% warning as a few more KP rounds passed nearby the ODST, initiating the shield sensors.
He fired a few rounds at where he assumed the Jokall was, the bullets failing to penetrate the metal wall separating the cabin from the cockpit. Knowing that neither of them could currently shoot each other with the weapons they had out without coming through the door gap, he holstered his pistol and raised his rifle, aiming at the same spot on the metal wall as before. He fired six times into it, knowing he had successfully penetrated the wall when the ship suddenly listed forward. Quickly moving into the cockpit, he pulled the nearest body away from the controls and off their chair, immediately putting himself in control.
Unlike what he was hoping for, it wasn’t controlled by a joystick, but instead a floating sphere. It had holes in it like a bowling ball and glowing lines snaking across it, the ODST able to see no reason for them other than aesthetic purposes.
He grabbed onto the sphere and pulled back, failing to do anything other than partially pull the sphere out of the “gravity track” it was in. He attempted to pull up by rotating the ball towards himself, immediately causing the craft to snap its nose up to almost the exact degree he had just rotated the sphere to at incredible speeds.
He let out a small yelp as he started to rapidly lose altitude, the engines seemingly powered off suddenly.
He rotated the ball again, trying to level the craft out, but wound up tilting too far to the side. The sudden shift caused him to lose grip on the ball and brush one of the lines on it. The craft immediately accelerated towards where the nose was pointing; just below the horizon. He grabbed hold of the ball again, now somewhat having an idea of what to do.
He was about to start angling the craft when the starboard side caught something and threw him out of the seat, twisting the craft out of position and sending it to the ground. Fries had already curled himself into a ball as much as the ECS would allow, the suit’s thick armor keeping him from getting as tight as he wanted to be.
He uncurled and stood before the craft had even come to a stop, trying to find a good standing position to fight from while standing on the side of the glass canopy of the transport. Clearly, the craft had stayed on its side during the crash. He brought his rifle to his shoulder and started moving towards the door.
Almost immediately he could hear the skittering of legs on metal, and two of the smaller insectoids dropped into the cabin. Wasting no time, he brought the rifle up and shot them, moving out of the cockpit and pulling himself out of the cabin and on top of the craft.
He looked around and froze up, immediately seeing that the craft was surrounded by insectoids. In front of him, two large bugs looked at him. They towered above everything else, being an easy 12 feet in height.
While he was trying to think of his next course of action, he realized that the bugs were not advancing on him. They were all holding around 30 meters out from the wreck.
“Well? Come on then!” He yelled out, putting a fresh magazine into his rifle.
Still, the creatures didn’t move. He kept his eyes on the big ones, waiting to see if they would make the first move.
“Computer, recharge shielding. Prepare to use shields to counter direct hand-to-hand impacts.” He whispered in his helmet, using the time they were paused to ready himself for one final engagement.
He almost opened fire as he saw the two big creatures shift. However, they moved off to the side instead of towards him, though none of the smaller ones did anything. He was trying to gauge what they were doing when he noticed a creature, one he would hesitate to call “humanoid” but definitely bipedal, tentatively approaching past the big creatures.
It was still some thirty meters away when the ODST zeroed his rifle onto it. He restrained himself from pulling the trigger, but instead used his suit’s imaging systems to get a better look at the creature.
Surprisingly, it was very familiar in a vague part of his mind. Though he was sure he hadn’t seen one of these before, something told him that it was very familiar.
“Computer… bring up helmetcam footage of March 27th, 23:47…” He muttered, trying to pay attention to both the creatures around him and the HUD footage.
He watched through the footage, still keeping his rifle on the slowly approaching creature. He had nearly given up on finding anything and shutting off the video when he noticed something that again nearly made him shoot the creature.
He watched as he entered Zeta Zero, the ship’s main meltdown runaway room, where four CEVA Marines were guarding the door, two inside and two outside. A scientist and a medical officer were also inside, also wearing EVA suits. In the middle of the room, strapped down to a medical bed with metal clamps, was the empath.
The empath was a bit different from the creature now only 20 meters away, but they were most certainly the same creature.

Nation of beast stat wise is fairly sound. You wont need much too max out recoil direction if you are into that statistic. It has fairly high range if you decide to spec into it and its stability is very nice. Handling is pretty much 100 if you use it with arc 3.0 as well as the reload due to amplify buffs on your player. With its new "Explosive pact" Origin trait, you will gain bonus stability and reload speed depending on how many kills/uses of the grenade.
Here is an example of the build i use on my hunter. The build i use is as follows:

1. Minor Spec on weapon
2. 2x Arc surge mods
3. Lucky Raspbery
4. Any kinetic depending on the content
5. Heavy weapon depending on the content, mostly arc heavy
6. Seasonal artifact: Lightning strikes twice, amped up, authorised mods: Arc, Unstoppable hand cannon

Recommended rolls:

• Dragonfly/Collective action It seems that the dragonfly explosion scales along with the damage boost of collective action. Combined this with a jolted enemy via arc 3.0 interactions, the damage from the new perk and the damage from dragonfly, you can wipe out entire groups of enemies in a single shot. (this one is a personal favourite and is one i roll with most of the time)
  
• Dragonfly/voltshot Much like the above roll, instead you deal less damage but have the ease of use to jolt enemies and wipe out anything nearby.
  
• Discord/Harmony This roll is for the weapon swappers out there. Get a kill with any other weapon (i believe supers work too?) and you have 7 seconds of infinite ammo (as long as you get a kill) and 7 seconds of damge increase.
  
• Discord/Collective action High damage, Infinite rounds