PART TWO HUNDRED
Friday
I’d never been to a live concert before, and I think going to Clefton’s has spoiled me for every other concert out there. I could really see why people went insane for him and his music. There wasn’t a genre of music he didn’t at least touch on, and four and a half hours in, he didn’t look like he was ever going to slow down, let alone stop. He kept everyone going, leaving us just enough time to catch our breaths before taking us on another ride.
He wasn’t even breaking into a sweat, though since I knew why that was, it was the only thing I wouldn’t give him bonus points for. How he made a cohesive unit out of all those music genres I’ll never know, but it worked. He had steel guitars right beside steel drums and other traditional instruments from all over the world. A few I’d never even seen before, and as they belted out their weird tunes that blended seamlessly, I found myself wondering if a museum somewhere was missing some of their displays. He even used seedpod rattles that would’ve been more at home in an undiscovered jungle tribe somewhere. If I wasn’t there for the concert itself, the education I was getting in musical sounds was mind-blowing.
With less than an hour to go, I suddenly had a thought. A stupid, dumb thought, but one I just couldn’t let go of once it came to me. Clefton had a presence about him that made us all feel he was singing to us directly, but what if…
Glancing at Gerry, I stretched out my leg and pulled out my phone. Flashes were coming from everywhere (not to mention the light show on the stage itself), so no one was going to notice me powering up my phone. I slipped it between my thighs with the top half poking over my legs and turned on the flashlight, pointing it towards the side of my seat.
I was probably completely wasting my time, but I had nothing to lose by trying. Gerry would lose her mind if this worked. The stage was on its way back to us and she was already surging to her feet once more. Clefton had this wave effect going in time with his spinning stage because not everyone could yell and scream and dance for hours without stopping.
As Clefton came back to us, I was the only one not standing at the front row, which I hoped would be enough to gain a moment of his attention. Cupping my hands one on top of the other against my left side as if I had a stitch, I made sure my right hand was covered by my left as I triggered my ring into its full crest. Then I crept both hands forward so that my left still shielded my right from everyone but those on stage.
Clefton was the only one at the front of the stage, which meant he was the only one who may or may not see my ring glinting in the light of my phone. This time around, he was wearing a broad-brimmed cowboy hat and boots with his thumbs hooked into his belt as he danced, which made him appear even more down to earth with his jeans and shirt.
The heavy beat of the previous song was still present, but now the backup dancers behind him were boot-scooting. I had worked out he had three different sets of background dancers, switching out to give them enough time to change. The backup singers were also switched out, but I think that was only to give them a rest. Singing backup for someone like Clefton had to be hell on the vocal cords.
I saw his eyes drop to my face as the stage swung towards us, and with a shy smile, I wriggled my right hand under my left, hoping the different cuts of the crest would catch the light.
He saw something. His eyes widened, his mouth twitched, and for the briefest moment, he lost the beat. I quickly reverted the ring to normal and shook my head, again hoping he would somehow get what I wasn’t saying.
That momentary reaction was the only one I got as he skipped out onto the star points, moving further into the crowd. On a low, deep beat, he faced our section and gave a sideways shimmy-shuffle that brought him back to the main stage. He met my eyes once more, and I deliberately shifted my gaze to Gerry and mouthed ‘birthday’, not knowing if he would care but willing to give it the old college try.
The show went on and the stage continued to turn away from us. I don’t know what I was expecting, and it was stupid of me to expect anything really. He had a full house of paying customers to entertain and finding a new member of the family probably wasn’t as exciting to those already inside the family as it was to those of us who were suddenly catapulted in from the outside.
Not that I was super comfortable with having that last name, but I thought it was worth seeing if maybe he might be willing to do something special for my girl. On the huge overhead screens, I saw him slip between the members of the band, holding his hand over his beige mic to say something quickly to each of them that wouldn’t be heard by the crowd. I turned my phone’s flashlight off and slipped it back into my pocket. It had been worth a try.
As the stage was completely facing away from us, the music paused and Clefton wiped his brow with his wrist; the first time that night. It was literally the first break he’d taken all night. The music continued to play in the background, but not at its usual intense pace.
He began to address the audience, telling them about the craziness that was his life. How it was a whirlwind that he wouldn’t trade for the world. “No, siree. Definitely not complaining at all. But … you know … there comes a time when you have to slow down and remember the little things are just as important. Wave your lights if you’re here with someone special!”
At least half the arena’s phone lighting waved back and forth, ours included.
“See, that’s what I’m talking about. After tonight, this concert is going to be a memory, but God willing, the people that mean the most to you will be with you for a long time to come. But just in case your God has other plans, it’s important to make time for what’s truly important.”
The stage started to swing back towards us, but he stepped off the rotating part and walked the ring that linked the star spikes. He stopped right in front of us and sat down, crossing his legs and focusing all of his attention on Gerry, just like I’d hoped he would. “A little birdy told me it’s your birthday, honey,” he said, oozing the charm that he was so famous for.
Gerry was frozen in her seat with shock, her hand gripping my knee as if I was the only thing keeping her conscious. “So, here’s my birthday gift to you, sweet pea.”
I blinked in surprise. That was what Robbie called the ladies too, and before that, I’d never heard anyone use the term.
Clefton then broke into a solo of ‘Happy Birthday’ that somehow managed to voice both instruments and the song in a cappella style that had the audience spellbound for almost a minute. Then he leaned forward and curled his finger beckoningly at her.
Gerry rose to unsteady feet and went to the edge of the stage, where Clefton leaned forward, kissed her forehead and dropped his cowboy hat onto her head. “Happy birthday, sweet pea.”
My grin was huge as Geraldine stumbled backwards into my arms. I looked up at Clefton and nodded my appreciation. It was just a minute of his time, but it meant everything to Geraldine and me. He nodded to both of us and sprang back onto his feet, and within seconds the concert was back in full swing. One of the cameras stayed on us as Gerry crawled into my lap and took off the hat, cuddling it against her chest as if it was a newborn child. I stroked her hair and pressed my head to hers, and at that moment, I no longer cared about the concert.
At the stroke of midnight, the overhead screens revealed a giant clock face with its hands over the twelve, chiming with the heavy dongs of Big Ben. The music stopped dead and the screens split into two, showing Clefton looking up at the chiming images with a sigh of defeat.
Everyone booed as they realised what it symbolised.
After five and a half hours of the greatest party atmosphere ever, the ball had come to an end.
But then Clefton looked down at the crowd and grinned. “I think we can squeeze in a couple more before we all turn into pumpkins, don’t you?”
The boos turned into roars of delight and the music started up once more. Everyone (including Gerry and me) were on our feet once more, enjoying the last few songs. I barely noticed the double line of security guards that filed out from the alcoves in the corners of the star prongs, indicating that the step down to where the guards had been was also an access point to under the stage. Clefton was brilliant. He kept the crowd so busy I doubted if anyone noticed their arrival. The only reason I did, was because I recognised Nick standing right in front of me. He had the same granite look that he’d had outside, but somehow it felt as if he were looking straight through me.
On the fourth encore, my grip on Gerry’s elbow tightened. People were already starting to surge forward. “Angel, we need to go. I’ve seen how these events end, and we’ll be crushed.”
“Come with me,” Nick said, stepping forward out of the line. The gap was quickly absorbed by the other security guards, but his focus shifted between Gerry and me, and the crowd behind us. “This way,” he said, beckoning us to precede him.
“But it’s not over yet,” Gerry pouted.
“C’mon, Angel. We can watch from the back without being caught up in the stampede.”
“But…”
“Let’s go,” Nick barked, the whip-like command squashing any argument Gerry had. Herding us ahead of him, he moved us down to the corner of the star, where the security guards parted upon our approach.
The alcove was painted black, as were the stairs that he led us down. The guards snapped back into position, and in a very weird way, it reminded me of the old fable of the parting of the seas, and how they came back together afterwards. Dressed in all black, they honestly looked like non-entities on the move.
“Watch the three stairs,” our guide from the rear said, just as Gerry’s right leg found no solid ground and she fell forward. Both Nick and I caught her together: Nick by a fistful of black leather at her back. He released her as soon as he was sure I had her.
I held my hand out to support Gerry and together we went down the three nearly invisible steps. “Follow the hallway,” Nick said from behind us. I felt a large hand take my left hand by the wrist, lifting it to a wall I couldn’t see. “It’s an S-bend. You’ll see light after the first turn.”
I had to take Nick’s word for that because I couldn’t see shit right now. But I could feel Gerry’s heart pounding against my arm as she clung to me, her head twisting in all directions.
“Sam?”
“I’m here, angel,” I said, feeling my way along the wall. As Nick promised, the wall curved into a sharp bend, almost like a doorway that fed back onto itself. There was still no light in this second portion either, but at the far end, I saw a faint glow from around another corner that reminded me of a distant nightlight. I looked back at Nick, who stood probably half a foot shorter than Boyd, but fifty times more intimidating in the shadows.
“Keep going, kids,” he said, jerking his chin towards the next turn. “Just follow the light.”
“But I don’t believe in Heaven,” I said with a light snicker. Why I chose that moment to be funny with myself, I’ll never know. Gerry certainly didn’t appreciate it, but Nick snorted.
“Funny man,” he said, giving the back of my head a light shove.
Since he’d said something other than bark orders, I decided to try once more to break the ice. “Where are you taking us, Nick?” I could hear yet another encore start up over our heads, but as we made the second turn, the light source was a single bulb over the far doorway.
“How do you know my name?” he asked instead.
“See? I told you, Sam,” Gerry squeaked, gripping my arm. “Not everyone likes it when you use their names.”
I still felt differently, and probably always would. “The lady that met us with the headset at the beginning of the concert. She called you by name when she asked you to move the first time.”
“Oh. Well, that’s okay then.”
Nick then moved past us and led the way through the underground corridors that looked like they were part of the original structure. “I appreciate you showing us how to avoid the crowds,” I said, wanting to fill the void with something.
“That wasn’t my call, Sam,” he said, proving he could name drop as well. And, as if to undermine me (I know it wasn’t intentional, circumstances just played things this way) the very next corridor he led us into was packed with people. “Make a hole, people,” Nick barked, and singers, dancers and staff alike suddenly pressed to either side of the hallway, watching us curiously.
Under so much unexpected scrutiny, I suddenly got a sinking feeling about all of this. “Nick, you are taking us out to the parking lot, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Didn’t promise that,” he said, opening a door that led to a large room with stretch lounges and a bar wall. At one end of the room was an Asian guy with jet-black hair and beady, narrow eyes. He was scrolling through something on his oversized tablet but stopped to look up.
“Sam! That’s Riku Nascerdios!” Gerry whispered excitedly. “Clefton’s twin brother!”
Wow? Those two are twins? Unlike Clefton, this guy had strong Asian features, and he definitely didn’t seem happy to see us. “What the fuck, Nick?!” he roared, in very clear English.
Nick closed the door behind him, sealing us all in the room together. “Want to try that again, cuz, while you still have teeth?” he warned ominously.
Wait … Nick is calling Clefton’s twin brother ‘cousin’?
I whirled to take a better look at Nick, specifically his right hand for something I hadn’t noticed if he was wearing before, but Nick was twisted with his left shoulder forward; his right hand hidden from view. His granite carved face now looked positively lethal.
Riku raised a hand in apology. But then he looked at Gerry. “Wait! You! You’re the reason Clefton went off script in the final quarter!”
I don’t know what came over me, but I took a half step forward and tucked Gerry in behind my shoulder, holding one arm out to keep her there. “No one asked him to,” I said, my own tone matching Nick’s. This guy was being a first-class jerk and I didn’t like the way he was talking to my girl while she was so star-struck.
“Careful, Riku. You’re about to get your face rearranged by a fan’s protective boyfriend,” Nick said with a smirk.
“I could care less about him,” Riku sniffed dismissively. He then walked forward and attempted to insert himself between me and Gerry, only Nick and I wouldn’t let him. When he came close enough, I held Gerry close while Nick reached past me and pushed Riku back two paces.
“Back off, Riku.”
The pair glared at each other, but then Riku snorted and lowered his icy glare to Gerry. “You. Girl. Who are you to disrupt an entire concert like that?”
“I-I didn’t mean to. I’m Geraldine Portsmith.”
“It’s been fun people, but as my dad used to say, ‘You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!’ Adios!” I heard Clefton’s voice reverberate through the floor, along with the cheering roar of the crowd.
“That means he’s leaving the stage for good,” Geraldine hissed, her excitement mounting as she gripped my arm and shivered.
Riku was tapping wildly on his tablet. “From Portsmith Electronics?” he asked, ignoring her excitement completely.
Geraldine nodded, her smile growing even wider. “My dad is Tucker Portsmith.”
“That still doesn’t explain our interest in you. Or Clefton’s.” Riku looked across to Nick. “Do you have any idea what’s so special about them?”
Cheering came from outside the door, and seconds later, the man himself walked into the room with a hand towel over one shoulder and an open water bottle in his hand.
“Ahhh, sweet!” Clefton said, taking another mouthful of water before screwing on the lid and tossing the bottle at his twin. Riku juggled it along with his precious tablet, managing to finally capture both safely. “I was hoping you’d grab them before they slipped away.” He slapped Nick in the arm with the back of his hand. “Thanks, cuz.”
Since Clefton had been facing the other way when Nick whisked us under the stage, I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t know for sure what had happened to us. He gestured at the couch behind us. “Take a load off, sweet pea. You look as if you’re about to fall over.”
I helped Geraldine back to the couch, feeling like I needed to sit down too, but for an entirely different reason. Surrounded by Nascerdios as I was, this could go either way and I was no longer in the driver’s seat.
“Sooo,” Clefton drawled, squatting down in front of Geraldine as I slid into the seat beside her. He gave every intention of addressing her … right up until his eyes slid across to me. “What’s your story, slick?”
I looked at all three of them, opening and closing my mouth like a goldfish. Maybe this hadn’t been one of my brightest ideas.
“Why don’t you start with your full name, Sam?” Nick suggested, lowering his arms to his sides so as to not appear so intimidating.
“Umm … I’m … Sam.” I swallowed. “Sam Wilcott.”
Clefton offered me his million-dollar smile as he held out his hand to me. “Well, Sam-Sam Wilcott. I guess it’s a pleasure to finally meet you…” —as I slid my hand into his, his gaze sharpened— “…and you’ve got a fuck-tonne of explaining to do, pally-O. So start singing.”
“Sam?” Geraldine asked, looking across at me as Clefton released my hand.
“Holy shit!” Nick grabbed my hand by the wrist and held it up for Riku to see.
Panicked that he would activate it right in front of Geraldine, I reefed it out of his grip and tucked that hand in between myself and Gerry. “Dude!” I snapped, scowling up at him. “Boundaries!”
“And that takes away any chance of this being a mistake,” Nick added, his hands now on his hips. “He pulled out of my grip on his own.”
“Got him,” Riku said, from further back in the room. He was looking at his tablet. “Only one Caucasian Sam Wilcott between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six on record. Samuel Alexander Wilcott. Born March 27, ninety-six. Mother is Ivy Wilcott. Father is …” he paused, then looked up at me. “Llyr Arnav.”
“That’s not exactly helpful,” Clefton said.
“Oh, yes, it is,” Riku countered. “Especially once I put Arnav through an online translator and it came up as the Sanskrit word for…” he paused for effect, but I could already guess what was coming, given my family’s ties to the open water. “Ocean.”
“Mother-fucker!”
“That cagey bastard went and had another fucking kid…”
“And tried to hide him from us.”
“Tried nothing! Look at him! The prick succeeded!” Nick went to poke me as he spoke, but I batted his hand away, holding one finger up in warning the way Boyd did.
“Don’t touch me, man. I mean it.”
“It says here he’s…”
“Thanks, Riku, but we can take it from here,” Clefton said, and to prove that he rose to his feet and went to Riku’s desk at the back of the room. From there, he took the wheeled office chair in both hands, hoisted it over his head and carried it back to us. Then, positioning it to face both Gerry and I (so as not to exclude her), he dropped his weight into it and then crossed his legs to rest his knees on the chair arms like a giant kid with too much energy. No one would ever suspect from looking at him now that he’d just finished a mammoth five and a half hour, full-on concert.
Nick took up a position to my right between the two chairs, and it wasn’t hard to notice that he was deliberately keeping himself between me and the door. Now that I’d outed myself, I wasn’t disappearing into the woodwork again, no matter how much I wanted to.
Clefton leaned forward, his eyes sparkling with curiosity. “So, Sam-Sam Wilcott, adult son of Llyr who we know nothing about.” With his elbows pressed into his calves, he clapped his hands together and interlocked his fingers, resting his chin on the bridge they created as if he intended to hang from my every word. Much as I had just done for him during the last five and a half hours of his concert. “Where have you been your whole life?”
Looking at all three of them in turn, I didn’t think they were going to settle for the CliffsNotes.
* * *
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PART TWO HUNDRED AND ONE
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Previous Part 199
((All comments welcome))
I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here
For more of my work including previous parts or WPs: Angel466 or indexed here
FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!!

Hey there.
Not native english-speaker and so on, you know the drill. This is another very long one.
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In my now nearly a year running pathfinder 2 group they (the group) have barely any in-game-time to do stuff. It began without the time beeing in their neck but after introducing the 'BBEG' Daralythxl himself they now have a year and a day - for what? Well, they can either put up a fight or Andoran will fall to the 'Sixth King of the five king mountain'. Basically "doomsday" for their country they live in.
So, because everyone expects that his highborn majesty probably grows an army for himself too, they need allies as well. At least they have their blunt-barian (barbarian) that actually got alone some allies for them. They have a HQ at Droskars Crag now known as "Wolves Hall" which has a lot of very unconventional friends/allies living there.
Also: I twist and work around stereotypes and alignments to come up with unique situations to hit my players off-guard. Well, usually I am the one that is always catched of guard on how they handle those situations with "clearly evil beings".
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Situation
An orc messenger came up to the group as they were heading out to find a much quicker way for overland-movement and told them that Kobolds are running them over as they spill out of the mines opening that broke up entrance. A couple of fighters are wounded but none are reportet dead yet.
They needed to make a decision and my evil dm plans worked. Spend time to get a overland-movement option or save the HQ from being overrun by kobolds and have to deal with it with more disadvantage.
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The story unfolding on the (online) game table
DM: "The orc messenger leads the way and you manage to get back to your hq within 6 days all while the sun is laughing, temperatures are rising and birds are chirping happily. As you come to your hq you see medical tents with wounded orcs in them and victor standing at the staircase down to the lower level within a commanders tent.
'Without a name' the shaman of the orcs comes to you and tells you how happy he is that you're here now since they are out of options"
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They listened to 'Without a Name' and then to the report of Victor. They got told that Kobolds basically overran them with numbers as they spilled out of the hole into the mine. A few Kobolds were slain and many orcs were wounded.
In my dm's mind I was smiling because I am always very evil. I heard the group talk about 'killing them off quickly' and I prepared a ton of kobold waves to fight to accomodate their level. The difficulty of this fight? Dangerous. I am not a fool and Kobolds are very intelligent and a force to be reckoned with.
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Group: "Well, we need to go down and see what we can do. We will try to talk first and if that doesn't help we will snuff them out as quick as possible"
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My inner grin grew bigger because I informed myself very well about Kobolds and the group failed for their checks. The champion even got wrong informations since he critically failed his roll. How, you might think, would I use my wisdom about Kobolds? There is one thing that made me chuckle and I wanted to see if I can win the Group with it.
What was it? That: "Kobolds look cute in the eyes of everyone else and they know it. They use this as an advantage to get what they want"
So, as the evil dm I am I searched the whole internet for the most cutest, cuddliest, sweetest and big eyed Kobold fighters I could find. Bazinga! I got two pictures from an extremely good artist and they looked so cute it even warmed my stone-cold-dm-heart. Easy prey.
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The hunter announced to make use of his invisibility through the elven cloth he had with him and scouted out the lower level of 'Wolves Hall' former 'Droskars Crag'.
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DM: "You step down and see a lot of Kobolds, with spears bigger as they are in height and many with short-bows, guarding the entry room. You quickly and silently move around to scout and see that they started to work in the mines. Little Kobold childs running around and laughing. You hear a lot of talking and you count for at least a hundred of them, probably more."
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The hunter comes back and explains the situation that there are at least a hundred Kobolds, probably more and they started to plan to first make contact and asked 'Eron' a lizard wizard companion if they could speak the Kobolds tongue. Which he did and reluctantly aggreed to translate for them.
They go down with the Champion in front, shield up, behind him the sorcerer, ready to cast a flaming sphere if he needs to and then Eron, shaking as he normally avoids combat. Lastly the Hunter.
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DM: "Together you go down the stairs - slowly - and are welcomed by the Kobolds lowering their spears into your general direction. Bows are readied, arrows put on. Chatter grows loud and Eron translates it"
Kobolds (Translated): "Who are they? What do they do? Should we attack? They look funny! Get the commander, quick! You there, stop!"
Sorcerer (Translated): "We are here in peace as you took over our domicile. Our home. We demand to speak with your leader!"
Kobold-Guardsmen (Translated): "Its ours now! You go! We will attack if you don't go. We need this place!"
Sorcerer (Translated): "Why do you need this place? Don't you have another place to go?"
Kobold-Guardsmen (Translated): "No! Stop there, don't move!"
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The group was anxious and thinking about if they should attack until I pulled out my secret weapons. 'Zip' and 'Zap' - Sadly I can't show you the pictures because I am not allowed to but you can search 'kobolds pathfinder cute' and should find a lot of neat pictures.
The two pictures I found were heartmeltingly cute.
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Hunter (Loud): "Oh my god! Look how cute they are! Awwww..."
Others from the Group aggreed.
(Discord from Hunter: Omg, they are super-cute! I need those pictures!)
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DM: "Two Kobolds are guarding another one, dressed in lot of shinies and armaments. He raises his arm and all the Kobolds ease and relax"
Kobold-King (Translated): "This is our place now. We need it and you have no right to be here."
Sorcerer (Translated): "Your highness, we bought this place and it's ours. You can't stay here. Don't you have somewhere else to go?"
Kobold-King (Translated): "No. We fled from the non-living one attacking us in our homes. We took this place and it's ours now. I know exactly how the overworld-humans work. Everything needs to be documented. If you don't have a document, this is ours!"
Sorcerer (Translated): "Well. We actually have a document..."
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It took a while but they aggreed to let the Kobold-King see the document. He actually checked it and looked if it was forged (It was not) and then nodded.
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Kobold-King (Translated): "Well. This document proofes that you're indeed the owners of this. But you can't have it back! We found a new master and will introduce us to him! This is our place now. Talk is over. You have to leave. We can't go back, we stay."
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They tried to talk to the Kobold-King but they outright refused to talk anymore but handed back the document. It was a tense situation because now this unfolded:
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Hunter: "We can't kill them! They are way too cute!"
Champion: "Yes. Indeed, they looked extremely cute... Well. Killing them is off the plate. Wee need a new tactic to get our hq back"
Group: "How can we figure out who their new master is? Is it the red dragon? How does he know we're here?"
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They discussed with Victor some plans to, if anything else fails, to use some form of gas to knock them out or something. They had to get to talk to the Kobold-King again as all of a sudden, with a white-ish flag a Kobold came up the stairwell.
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DM: "A Kobold waving something that looks like a former white rag, now dirty and grey-ish and they look rather frightened. It's Zap and he explains you they found a 'white master' west-south-west from this place and if you want to have a chance with negotiations or even peace you need to talk with him.
He waves friendly and goes back down the stairs."
Group: "The white master? Wait a minute! He was talking about the white dragon! Rewalt mentioned that they invited them to that cave in the west! We have to talk with him!"
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The back and forth route was 6 extra days. Days that they had not so they talked again if they should try to make the Kobolds friendly towards them and find a solution for their 'non living' problem (Undead, Vampire) or to attack them as they barely have time for long journeys.
They actually decided to talk with Elezeatraz the Adventurer, the white dragon that has some interest in Rewalt (Well. His bluntness secured a friendship between the neutral-good aligned dragon and the group) and got some Equipment he adored and wanted to have.
This was a very epic journey for the group because they now have to speak with the white dragon without Rewalt being there (The player had no time at that evening) and the Hunter not liking the dragon because he was killed once by it (Its too much to explain).
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DM: "You find the new lair. The white dragons lair. The cave-sea now frozen and everything down here is now very cold, despite the fact it had summer temperatures outside. You find Elezeatraz resting ontop of a giant pile of silver-coins"
Sorcerer (ahem's): "Excuse us, Elezeatraz, for entering your lair but we need to talk to you"
Elezeatraz (yawning): "You really don't want to let me nap... How comes you short-lived ones are always so hasty about things. What is it that you want and make it quick, I was disturbed a lot in the past months..."
Sorcerer: "Yes, of course. Well, to make it quick: We have Kobolds in our hq and they are digging a tunnel to your lair now to be in your service"
Elezeatraz: "Kobolds you say? Fun. They love to work and much more to be in service to a dragon - be it an evil overlord or a good kin. The live of a Kobold is filled with service and... they enjoy exactly that. But, I am in no need for Kobolds."
Sorcerer: "Well, they said since you will be their new master we have to talk with you. And... once the tunnel is dug it will be probably not very quiet around here anymore. Right?"
Elezeatraz: "Interesting. Well - yes indeed. Don't worry, I think I have the right thing for you to solve your Kobold 'problem'."
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DM: "The white dragon fills out an document and a small shimmering ice-crust protects the now pergament-scroll as he breathes over it, handing it to the sorcerer."
Elezeatraz: "Give this to the Kobold-King. He will be in your service now. Be aware: Kobolds love to work and they will never stop to grow in numbers and will never stop to work. Its their live. This is a huge gift for you."
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After receiving the scroll they quickly made their way and wished the white dragon a good sleep and they will not visit him again until he is ready and awake. The group never looked into the document but handed it directly to the Kobold-King and that's how the group gained a whole Kobold Clan to be their allies.
They live now in 'Wolfs Hall' former Droskars Crag and after a few months build a giant bath-house below with the magma as heating-element and secured the group the much needed architects for their main buildings.
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Without those two extreme cute Kobolds the probability for a fight was very high and I thought they would do it before I had the chance to pull out my secret weapon... But, I managed. My plan worked. Make the Kobolds happy! And they are! Working their (cute) butts off in the mines, filling the storage room to the brim with gold, silver and other valuable ressources as well as planning blue-prints for buildings.
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"Kobolds are cute to most other races and they know it. They use this to their advantage to get what they want"
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I love it! Thank you for reading this story as I have a lot more of unusual situations the party solved extremely creative and it's extremely fun to see their stories unfold before me. I never know how they take on new problems I throw at them and I am very happy to be their dm.
To be honest: Never had a plan of mine worked out. My plans never survived first contact with the group hehe.
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Again. I really don't know which flair to use. If someone would know what would fit I would asap change it. But I don't want to make a mistake. Thank you.
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Stay crunchy.

Found in the ruins of Alexandria, ᛒᛟᛟᚴ ᛟᚠ ᛞᛖᚨᛏᚺ was a series of stories and records from various authors that were grouped together under one name. Multiple questions remains to this day as several mysteries enshrouds it.

1. The records were written in Nordic Runes while the grammar seems to be modern English.
2. Locations and other aspects of the book were not found in the real world. The book however, provides extra details on the creatures appeared within the book that seemingly explained the science behind them in detail that were far beyond the knowledge of the era it was written in.

The following is the Transcript of the first Chapter, written by an unnamed Sailor and Scholar
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The Sea Of Thousand Eyes:
I am old and fragile now. I have seen the things I must see, I have done deeds that shall run horrors in your mind and freeze your blood in silent fears, but I am near the end of my life. I am in danger, Of course I am, a deal with the devils must be paid up with life. Yet before I die, let this record be a warning to those seeking the forbidden knowledge and wealth. Turn back, stop reading this record, and burn it. Else, shall the stories and the records haunt you with the illusions and thirsts for wealth, and knowledge.
I was born in a small northern town, called the Cthu'uhi. (translation note: The pronunciation is "See-Two-U-Hi") People relies on the fishing and hunting for a livelihood. Rarely does anyone get to move to the south and witness the greatness of the Roman Republic. My father was a trader and my mother was a gypsy. Learned of skills on the ocean and much of the Latin literature, I was lucky enough to become one of the Flamen Cerealis Protegees. I was granted access into the great library of Alexandria after the march of Caesar into Egypt.
It was there, that I found the Book. ᛏᚺᛖ ᛋᚲᚱᛟᛚᛚ ᛟᚠ ᛏᚺᛟᚢᛋᚨᚾᛞ ᛖᚤᛖᛋ. It's name must not be spoken, nor shall it's content be known as I have burnt and spread it's ashe into the ocean after I have read it. Do not try to find a second copy, the Book itself was what have drawn me into the dangerous endeavour that doomed me for the rest of my life. The Book told of the story of a great being, how it was chased off the Holy Heaven, and was chased down into a lost city that was forever buried in the vast Ocean of Earth.
A young and ignorant kid I was back then, I was caught on by the story, after doing some extensive research, I realized that the clue to this forbidden city lies in a story that I was told from a young age. A chilling story of a certain King, driven down from the heaven, forced us out from our original village. A song remains to this day:
ᛏᚺᛖ ᛋᛖᚨᛋ ᛚᚨᚤ ᚢᚾᛞᛁᛋᛏᚢᚱᛒᛖᛞ ᛁᚾ ᚨ ᛞᚨᚱᚴᚾᛖᛋᛋ ᛚᛁᚴᛖ ᚾᛟᚾᛖ ᛈᚱᛁᛗᛖᛞ
The seas lay undisturbed in a darkness like none primed
ᚨ ᚲᛟᚾᛋᛏᛖᛚᛚᚨᛏᛁᛟᚾ ᛟᚠ ᚨᚷᛖ ᛟᛚᛞ ᛗᛖᚾ ᛋᛏᛁᛚᛚ ᛈᛚᚨᚤ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛋᛟᚾᚷᛋ ᛟᚠ ᛏᛁᛗᛖ
A constellation of age old men still play the songs of time
ᛖᛪᛈᛚᛟᛞᛁᚾᚷ ᚨᚾᛞ ᚷᚨᛋᛖᛟᚢᛋ, ᚢᚾᛈᛖᚱᛏᚢᚱᛒᛖᛞ ᛒᚤ ᚹᚺᚨᛏ ᛁᛋ ᛞᛖᚨᛞ ᛟᚱ ᚨᛚᛁᚡᛖ
Exploding and gaseous, unperturbed by what is dead or alive
ᚨᚾᛞ ᚺᛖ ᛚᚨᚤᛋ ᚹᚨᛁᛏᛁᚾᚷ, ᛞᚱᛖᚨᛗᛁᚾᚷ ᛁᚾ ᚺᛁᛋ ᚺᛟᚢᛋᛖ ᛟᚠ ᛚᛁᛗᛒᛟ ᚨᚾᛁᛗᚨᛏᛁᛟᚾ
And he lays waiting, dreaming in his house of limbo animation
ᛏᚺᛖ ᚴᛁᚾᚷ ᛟᚠ ᚾᛟᛏ ᚷᛟᛟᛞ ᚾᛟᚱ ᛒᚨᛞ ᛒᚢᛏ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛗᛖᚱᛖ ᛁᛞᛖᚨ ᛟᚠ ᚲᚱᛖᚨᛏᛁᛟᚾ
The king of not good nor bad but the mere idea of creation
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ᛏᚺᛖ ᛁᚾᚠᛁᚾᛁᛏᛖ ᚹᚨᛏᛖᚱ, ᛒᛚᚨᚲᚴ ᚨᛋ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚺᛖᚨᚱᛏ ᛟᚠ ᛖᚨᚱᛏᚺ
The infinite water, black as the heart of earth
ᚺᛟᛚᛞᛋ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛟᛚᛞ ᚷᛟᛞᛋ ᚨᚾᛞ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚲᛟᛚᛟᛋᛋᚨᛚ ᛏᚺᚨᛏ ᛁᛋ ᛏᛟ ᛒᛖ ᛒᛁᚱᛏᚺᛖᛞ
Holds the old gods and the colossal that is to be birthed
ᚺᛖ ᚲᚨᚾᚾᛟᛏ ᛒᛖ ᛋᛁᛗᛈᛚᚤ ᚷᚨᛉᛖᛞ ᚢᛈᛟᚾ ᛟᚱ ᛒᚱᚨᚡᛖᛞ ᛒᚤ ᚡᛁᛟᛚᛖᚾᛏ ᛗᛖᚾ
He cannot be simply gazed upon or braved by violent men
ᚠᛟᚱ ᚺᛖ ᛁᛋ ᚾᛟᛏ ᛏᛁᛗᛖ ᛟᚱ ᛋᛈᚨᚲᛖ ᛟᚱ ᛚᛁᚠᛖ, ᚺᛁᛋ ᛁᛗᚨᚷᛖ ᛁᛋ ᚾᛟᛏ ᛗᚨᛞᛖ ᛋᚨᚾᛖ ᛒᚤ ᛈᛖᚾ
For he is not time or space or life, his image is not made sane by pen
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ᚺᛖ ᚱᛁᛋᛖᛋ ᛏᛟ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛈᛖᚱᚡᛖᚱᛋᛁᛟᚾᛋ ᛟᚠ ᛗᚨᚾ, ᛈᚨᛋᛋᛖᛞ ᛏᛟ ᚲᚢᛚᛏᛁᛋᛏᛋ ᚤᛟᚢᚾᚷ ᚨᛏ ᛈᛚᚨᚤ
He rises to the perversions of man, passed to cultists young at play
ᚨᚾᛞ ᚹᚺᛖᚾ ᛚᚢᛋᛏ ᚠᛟᚱ ᛒᛚᛟᛟᛞ ᛒᚢᚱᚾᛋ ᛁᚾ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛖᚤᛖᛋ ᛟᚾ ᚺᛁᛋ ᛁᛗᚨᚷᛖ ᛟᚠ ᚲᛚᚨᚤ
And when lust for blood burns in the eyes on his image of clay
ᛞᚨᚾᚲᛁᚾᚷ ᚠᛁᛏᛋ, ᛏᚱᛖᛗᛒᛚᛁᚾᚷ ᛏᚱᛖᛗᛟᚱᛋ ᚨᚾᛞ ᛖᚤᛖᛋ ᛚᛟᛋᛏ ᛏᛟ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛋᚴᚤ ᛟᚠ ᚹᚺᛁᛏᛖ
Dancing fits, trembling tremors and eyes lost to the sky of white
ᚺᛁᛋ ᚹᛁᛚᛚ ᛈᛚᚨᚤᛋ ᛒᛟᚢᚾᛞᛚᛖᛋᛋ ᛏᚺᚱᛟᚢᚷᚺ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛞᚱᛖᚨᛗᛋ ᛟᚠ ᛈᛟᛖᛏᛋ ᚹᚺᛟ ᚲᚱᚤ ᚨᛏ ᚾᛁᚷᚺᛏ
His will plays boundless through the dreams of poets who cry at night
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ᛋᛟ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚨᚷᛖ ᚹᛁᛚᛚ ᛖᚱᚢᛈᛏ ᚨᚾᛞ ᚺᛖᛖᛞ ᛏᚺᛖᛋᛖ ᛈᚱᛟᛈᚺᛖᛏᛁᚲ ᚹᛟᚱᛞᛋ
So the age will erupt and heed these prophetic words
ᛒᛖ ᚹᛖᚨᚱᚤ ᛁᚾ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛗᛟᚡᛖᛗᛖᚾᛏ ᛟᚠ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛋᛖᚨᛋ, ᛏᚺᛖ ᚷᚱᛟᚢᚾᛞᛋ ᚨᚾᛞ ᛒᛁᚱᛞᛋ
Be weary in the movement of the seas, the grounds and birds
ᛚᛟᛋᛏ ᚨᛏ ᛟᚾᚲᛖ ᛁᚾ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛒᛚᛁᚾᛞᚾᛖᛋᛋ ᛟᚠ ᚤᛟᚢᚱ ᛁᚷᚾᛟᚱᚨᚾᚲᛖ
Lost at once in the blindness of your ignorance
ᛁᛏ ᛁᛋ ᚹᚺᛖᚾ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚡᛖᛁᛚ ᛁᛋ ᛚᛁᚠᛏᛖᛞ ᚨᚾᛞ ᛋᛏᚱᚨᚾᚷᛖ ᚨᛖᛟᚾᛋ ᚺᚨᚡᛖ ᚨᚱᚱᛁᚡᛖᛞ
It is when the veil is lifted and strange aeons have arrived
ᚹᚺᛖᚾ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚴᛁᚾᚷ ᛋᚢᚱᛖᛚᚤ ᚹᚨᛚᚴᛋ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛖᚨᚱᛏᚺ ᚨᚾᛞ ᛞᛖᚨᛏᚺ ᚺᚨᛋ ᛋᚢᚱᛖᛚᚤ ᛞᛁᛖᛞ
When The King surely walks the earth and death has surely died
(Translator's note: This poem seems surprisingly linked to one of the modern day Cthulhu Poetry creation online. I will link the website here. https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1784356/the-waking-of-cthulhu/ Johan Nel, the author of this poem please contact me if you are concerned with this problem.)
After much consideration and preparation, I determined that this supposed city, must be a place near the village of my birth. I bought a boat, hired some sailors and boys and to the village I go.
Yet before I left Alexandria, the man in black, a man dressed in all black, a cloak that I can't identify of the material, and a mask, that in itself draws fear and cold from my heart appeared to me.
It was a warm, normal day, just like many others before in my days at Alexandria. I was walking toward the Library of Alexandria to continue my research on the Book when the man came up to me. "Good Day, Sir." The man spoke a strange language, yet somehow, I was able to understand it in Latin terms. "I believe you are on your way to the Alexandrian Library, aren't you?" " Well, Yes as a matter of fact." I responded with cold politeness as anyone shall greet a stranger. "Well, I shall have the honor to accompany you on the way as I also happened to be going that way." The stranger pulls me by the shoulder, and wrapped a hand around my entire body and ushered me on toward the library.
"Well well, looks like our scholar found the Book itself haven't you?" As we are walking in the busy markets of Alexandria, the Man whispered. "No, Of course not, what book are you talking about?" I tried to act normally, and panicked. I had never told anyone about the Book I am reading right now, how did this stranger know?
"There is no denial of that fact, Mister. In fact, if it wasn't for the horrible scent of that Book on you, I wouldn't be able to found you at all. Well, admit it, you have been reading the Book." The Man straight looked through my lie. " Yes, Yes. I had been reading that book, but what does that book have to do with you?!" I panicked and sweated as we continued to get closer to the Library.
" Don't worry, I am not part of those crazy Inquisitors though I am not far from it. I am a representative for the Roman Church, and I have a task for you, scholar." The man said silently as we entered the library. He half dragged, half forced me into a reading room. "Now go borrow that book out and act just like how you would do every single day." He threatened. I was dumbfounded, and mystified by his words. Regardless, I went ahead and borrowed the book out and returned along with a set of candles.
"Now, Scholar, tell me where you have been reading up to." I pointed to him the part II, where I have been trying to decipher without luck. "Good, Good. You are making progress, but not enough to the part where it get serious yet. You still have a chance to back out of this foul business. What is your choice?" Being the young, stupid and ignorant fool I was, I didn't take up his offer and instead just stared at him.
"Very well. A brave one indeed. I believe I had found myself a worthy taskrunner. I have a great task for you. It is hard, but it's reward is also great. There is no other choice between death and accepting the task at this point, Shall you take up my offer?" I nodded yes, as of course I do not yet want to die. "Very well, the Roman Church has known about the Book in Alexandria but lacks the strength to do it. As you are our currently most advanced researcher on this, I would like for you to discover this entity, and destroy it if you can. Is there any questions?"
"Well, If the Roman Church have known about it all along, why didn't you do anything about it?" I asked, out of pure shock as I tried to process about the information. "Simple, because we don't have enough power. Yet, you. You right now, holds the key alone. The Book has been read countless time to all the great saints and bishops of the church, yet only one shall be able to read it during a certain period, the other times it disappears from our vault and seeks a new reader. Yet after so many years of conducting research on it, we have a bit of basic information about this entity and the hidden city." He paused, and took a piece of paper out from his cloak pocket. "Here, is the information that the church have gathered. Do you still have a problem?"
Seeing that I am entirely in shock of this, He bowed his head. "I am very sorry to cause such a shock in you Mister. Yet it is now time for me to retire. My message is delivered. My master shall know of this news. I shall now leave you to contend to your own thoughts." Thus he disappeared, just like the wind, it blows away and was gone in a moment.
That night, I sat down alone. I lighted up 2 candles, and sat there reading the paper the Man has given me. It was no use, the voice of the King spoke in my mind. I tried to calm myself and went to sleep, there was no escape from the voice. The voice boomed in a strange, yet understable language :" Come, mortal, Find me, and my eternal knowledge and wealth shall be yours."
Deciding against better Judgement, I went back home along with the sailors I have recruited. I visited my mother, and my family. My old father died at the sea with his bones riding the wave. I shed no tears. Yet, later, When I alone went back to the village, it was gone, it was as if it never existed.
We sailed on, from the coldness of the Nordic Sea into the Greenland, where I was greeted by the Elders. Yet I cannot stay, my task is urgent, and the voice that calls for me gets stronger everyday.
After 7 days and 7 nights of sailing, We ran out of food. My sailors and boys refused to go, so I gave them the ship, used the small one and took some final water and food from the boat and wished them luck on their way back. I rolled on in my own thought and the small boat that I owned.
Looking back now, I see no reason that the great waves of the Nordic Sea shall not crack and finish my small little canoe. Yet it did not, for some reasons that I cannot explain. Perhaps the King wants me to arrive safely? Or is it God's will? I still don't know to this day.
All I know is that by the Midnight of the Second day, I was starved and thirsty. I was unable to keep my eyes open, and I fainted. When I wake up, my small canoe was resting on the dry land. No, not the dry land.
It was stone slabs. Gigantic ones, like those that were used for runes and Egyptian Hieroglyphics in Alexandria. The stone slabs seems to be continuing on a straight line, Just like in a street that stretches out forever. On the side of these "streets", I saw strange buildings, perhaps what could count as "houses", that were entirely sickening green. There is no one, absolutely no one on the street or in the structures.
I am at the end of my hope, my food is gone, water supply is drained, and I have no ways to survive in this strange building, but just as I was about to give up hope, I found a sign. A HUGE, Gigantic Slab, that was straightened up, and with strange language that I somehow understood.
" All You Who Shall Enter, Give Up Thy Reasons, Strength, Hope and Met The Master Of Life."
For the first time in days, I no longer hear the booming voice in my head. The words draws me in, and a magical sensation washes over me. I lost my thoughts and felt a wave of strange feelings over me. I felt suddenly refreshed, no longer hungry and thirsty, and regained my strength.
I began to walk forward, in hope of searching for more evidence that I can think of, and hopes to meet this certain entity.
Yet as I walked forward, I realized something. The ground I walked are no longer cold, or solid. It is now warm and almost slippery. I looked down, and realized in horror that the Stone slabs have turned into Flesh. My feet is bloody as I walks forward. Yet I do not stop, for I know the roads behind me are gone, they have disappeared as I entered the city.
As i continued walking, the voice in my head began to boom again. This time with a more than sinister feeling. "Yes, mortal, you have finally came. Come, keep walking, come find me and I shall grant you immortal life and wealth. Whatever it is you want, you shall get it....." I continued walking forward.
Finally, I saw something different in front of me. The place was an ancient cemetery. So ancient that I trembled at the entrance sign which holds the great layers of dust that signals to us the amount of it's age. It was plagued with rotten grass, downbeat, and almost a sluggish and rotting flesh smell. Yet I wandered in. On the tombstone, there sits a man, a man in the white cloak.
"Ahhh, It's great to meet you, my friend. Great change of setting from the city of flesh, isn't it?" The man looked up and his face brightened up. "What do you want from me, Lucifer Morningstar?" I recognized his face, and darkened my expression. "You know this is the last place you should be, I will not forgive you for the thing you have done to me in Alexandria."
"Woah woah woah, buddy don't be so cranky. You know, that was all a show. BROTHER." Now standing before me, with a childish grin, Lucifer emphasizes on the word Brother through clenched teeth. " Why are you here? I have no wish for you to be here. Leave now, I can't protect you from them." Mystifyingly, I felt as if I was no longer myself, I cannot control what I want to say, what I want to do. Suddenly, I realized in horror. It was that sheet of paper.
"Ah yes, Brother, I did gave your little scholar that sheet of paper. Well well well. I have done a deal with him, haven't I? Do you want your little scholar to die right now?" Lucifer asked with a fake smile, and taunts the spirits who controls me right now. After much consideration, "I" finally said: "Very well, I shall honor the deal. I will exit his body, but remember, your deal must be done." With that, a sudden feeling washed over me as I suddenly felt weak and stumbles.
Lucifer caught me. "Well well, now we are talking. Have you see that square?" I looked. It disgusts and made me puke at first sight. Made of entirely reddish flesh, the square was flooded with blood and black substances that draws up disgust at first sight. "Yes, that square. Don't worry, you will only see those blood right now because you are within my influence. Once you are there, you won't see them at all. However, remember the task I gave you?" I nodded "Well, I want you to go in that place, face him, find an opportunity to put the sheet of paper i gave you on him. If all goes as planned, I will ensure your survival. But at what cost, my little scholar? Tell me your own price so I can decide."
Silence...... It was entirely silent suddenly. I walked out of Lucifer's graveyard. "A soul, if not the soul of myself." was the sound that I can made under my breath. He laughed, and the entire graveyard disappeared. "The crimson king." I sweared under my breath as I apparoched the central square.
"Thus, you have arrived." The grand booming voice sounded throughout the square.
"Yes, the Crimson King. I have arrived as due our deal." I answered with all my force and strength.
"Very well, do you see that table?" Under his guidance, I saw a huge table with buttons in the centre of the square.
"Very good, go there, press the red button, and free me."
Even though Lucifer might be a moron, but at least he knows when to not mess around. I cussed under my breath, walked over to the table, and press the button.
"Good. Mortal, you have now freed me. I have promised you wealth, immortality, and knowledge. I shall now give you them all." the booming voice suddenly appeared in front of me. " I shall now grant you it." I was shocked, unable to realize what I had released from the prison. With a thousands eyes, I felt danger, and it's horrible looks, disgusts me and my sanity far beyond the pool of blood and flesh.
Before I knew it, I ran.
Running like a mad man, I know that the thing, whatever it is, was after me. Fast like an antelope he was catching up to me. I no longer recollects how i can be so fast, yet I did outrun him during that short time.
We ran through the city of flesh, one running for his life, while the other runs for it's first meal.
As I approach the boundary of the flesh and within sight of my small little boat, I began to slow down. I know this is my one chance at this.
"Do you really think I don't know you pressed the blue button?" The voice behind me loomed.
"Of course I know you know about that," I said with a sudden sense of calmness. "But it was only to delay you."
"But mortal, you have no longer the strength to run. Come, you shall have the honor to be the first mortal I devour." The voices booms through the time and space around me.
"But before all that honor, I have a paper for you." I took the rolled up paper ball in my hand, and throwed with all the strength that I can muster at the thousand eye monster.
With a great lightning flash, and the sudden flowing in of water, I quickly lost my senses.
The next thing I know, I was on a boat. The old captain was kind enough to drop me off at greenland and I was greeted with news of my sailors never returning to the port.
My village was destroyed, erased off the surface of earth without a trace.
The library of Alexandria was burnt.
I have nowhere to go.
Finally, I settled down in a small village by the Nordic sea. Just like the one I growed up in.
I burnt the Book, it's ashes and hide them. The ocean is never safe. The Book must never be opened again.
I am at my end, I can see Lucifer coming for me. My end has come, but do not make your end so. Goodbye, and thus, my story ends.
(This the first scroll from the Scroll of Death. Other scrolls are rapidly being translated. Much of the story lacks geographical proof but contains theological ones that can't be disproven. Please take this with a grain of salt. And As usual, Do not search for the City of Flesh.)
EDIT: I, as the Translator have forgotten to put the supposed / estimated timestamp of this first document in. This was expected to written around Roman time, when Egypt was first conquered by Octavius Caesar.

Alternate title: Who the Hell Were These Guys?
I’m trying pretty hard to be as rigorous as I can here, tying everything back to in-game text or the work of other scholars. To that end, I’ve also included explanations for several things which some of the lore-bears among us may not need. I ask you to bear with me, and to offer correction for anything you spot which is incorrect. But, hopefully, that will make this easier for newbies to follow, if they so desire.
I’ve been nurturing a number of interpretations and extrapolations about the Ayleids for a while now. So I’ll be writing a series of essays to help me organize and share my thoughts on the subject. In this one, I’ll be covering what I consider the most foundational, the divine relationship I see at the heart of Ayleid politics, religion, culture, and their nature as an independent race (more on that momentarily): their understanding of the Dragon God and the Missing God.
As a quick note: I’ll be using the terms “Auri-El” and “Lorkhan” for most of this post, but these aren’t going to be the gods of the Altmer. I think the Ayleids had a very different idea of who these gods were than their Altmer cousins, but establishing that difference will require that I use these names, at least until something better arises.
Also, there’s going to be some discussion of the metaphysical reality of these gods beyond their perception or interpretation by an individual culture. For this, I’m going to be using the terms “Dragon God” and “Missing God.”
And if you don’t know who those names refer to, or how a god can be missing, don’t worry! I’ll be explaining everything when it comes up.
All be forewarned, though, this is a long one.
Part 1: They Aren’t High Elves, Damnit!
There are a handful of sources which refer to the Ayleids as “Heartland High Elves.” For quite a while, this was all the relevant information the games gave us about their nature, so it was reasonable to conclude that they were, in fact, Altmer. They were simply High Elves who lived somewhere other than the Summerset Isles, like the Direnni over around the Ada-Mantia.
It is not reasonable any more. The fact that it still gets repeated a lot is actually a pet peeve of mine.
Now we know how the Elves, once unified as the Aldmer, became a plethora of different races. According to Aurbic Enigma 4: The Elden Tree:

The spike of Ada-Mantia, and its Zero Stone, dictated the structure of reality in its Aurbic vicinity, defining for the Earth Bones their story or nature within the unfolding of the Dragon's (timebound) Tale. The Aldmeri or Merethic Elves were singular of purpose only so long as it took them to realize that other Towers, with their own Stones, could tell different stories, each following rules inscribed by Variorum Architects. And so the Mer self-refracted, each to their own creation, the Chimer following Red-Heart, the Bosmer burgeoning Green-Sap, the Altmer erecting Crystal-Like-Law, et alia

Holy Jargon Batman! Let me translate that into English for you.
The Merethic Aldmer—the elves from right after the beginning of Linear Time—saw the way that Ada-Mantia, also called the Adamantine Tower, defined the Earthbones, aedric et’Ada who lost/sacrificed literally everything about themselves to become the laws of reality, poetically the skeleton upon which the flesh of the world hangs, giving everything else shape and support. Because there wasn’t anything for them to use as building materials other than themselves.
This text attributes the orchestration of this to the “Dragon.” This is a pretty obvious reference to the Dragon God of Time. Put a pin in this for now, I’ll be bringing it back in later.
The Merethic Aldmer also thought it would be fun to try that, too. So they made their own Towers, modeled after Ada-Mantia, to try and rewrite the laws of reality as it pleased them. It… kinda worked. There’s no evidence to suggest that any of them managed to overwrite Ada-Mantia, they were still able to change things within the bounds of Ada-Mantia.
…And it’s never been explained what a “Variorum Architect” is, or what “Variorum” even means, but it’s probably just, like, magical Tower-designing people.
What we’re here for is this: the Towers were what made the different groups of elves into different races. The Aldmer of Valenwood created Green-Sap, Falinesti, and became the Bosmer; the Aldmer of Alinor created Crystal-Like-Law, the Crystal Tower, and became the Altmer; the Aldmer who followed Veloth aligned themselves to Red-Heart, the Red Mountain at the heart of Vaardenfell, and became the Chimer.
And guess who else had a Tower. The Aldmer in the heart of Tamriel raised White-Gold, and it remade them into the Ayleids. Their own race. Not Altmer. Never Altmer.
…When I called it a pet peeve, I meant it. It fills me with a sudden and illogical anger.
Anyways, since it was the Tower which defined them as the Ayleids, let’s take a closer look at that Tower, to see if it might show us who the Ayleids actually were.
Part 2: The Tower in the Heart of the World
Dipping back into Aurbic Enigma 4 for a moment, we see that:

Ayleid magic is about Will, and Shall, and Must

Which I take to mean that the Ayleids were largely focused on how magic could allow the user to impose their will upon the world around them, shaping it to their liking. This fits what information we have about their abilities:

• According to Daughter of the Niben they pioneered the field of Alteration, to the point of shapeshifting if 2920, Second Seed) can be trusted (in doubt only because it’s a work of in-universe historical fiction)
  
• According to Magic from the Sky they were able to work Meteoric Iron and Glass, literally pieces of Aetherius which fall to Mundus through the stars, something which no other groups is ever shown to be capable of doing.
  
• According to Before the Ages of Man, they “preserved the magics of the Dawn,” which in the past I’ve taken to refer to the magical processes by which the Ehlnofey gave shape to the world leading up to Convention. Aetherius being that part of the Elder Scrolls Universe which exists on the other side of Oblivion. I have a handy map of the universe to help you picture it. Nirn is the planet Tamriel is on..
  

…Brief tangent: Ehlnofey translates literally to “Earth Bones.”) (just Ctrl+F “Ehlnofey”). In the community, the term “Ehlnofey” is generally used to refer to those spirits who became the Earth Bones… before they did that. Back when they had things like agency and individuality. “Earth Bones,” meanwhile, refers to those spirits after they lost/sacrificed those things, as we have covered. This happened at an event called Convention, which is when the gods finished creating Mundus—see the map for placement. Convention was also where Linear Time started, and Lorkhan’s Heart got ripped out.
Don’t worry, we’ll get to Lorkhan. And his Heart.
Now, you may be thinking, “gamermanzendrelax, you said this section was going to be about the White-Gold Tower.” And that’s right, I did.
Before the Ages of Man tells us that the Ayleids understood the world-shaping magic of the Ehlnofey better than everybody else. Aurbic Enigma 4 tells us that the Towers were how the Aldmer imitated the world-shaping power of creation. From this, you might expect the Ayleids would go all-out with their Tower. And did they ever.
For this next bit, I’m going to be citing The Nu-Mantia Intercept, a text which has never appeared in any of the games. But it’s also where all of this Tower business got started, and the Tower lore which appears in-game seems to be building on top of it. I think it’s a good one, and most people I’ve seen think the same. So:

Though the Ayleids gave theirs a central Spire as the imago of Ada-mantia, the whole of the polydox resembled the Wheel, with eight lesser towers forming a ring around their primus. To dismiss this mythitecture as being a mockery of the Aurbis is to ignore an important point: this same "jest" gave White-Gold Tower a power over creatia unalike any on this plane(t). It was a triumph of sympathetic megafetish, and the Start of the [Threat! To! Empire!] that brings me to this Council.

If nothing else, Michael Kirkbride is the undisputed King of Jargon.
If you’ll look at the map from earlier, you’ll notice that it’s circular. This is standard for depictions of the Elder Scrolls Universe, the proper name of which is the Aurbis. It’s also referred to as “the Wheel.” What this amounts to is that the White-Gold Tower isn’t just the big tall thing at the center; the walls and watchtowers of the Imperial City are also a part of the magical structure. White-Gold is the Tower surrounded by the Wheel; the Wheel governed by the Tower.
This is a big deal. The Ayleid Tower, the thing which defined them as Ayleid, is a model of Ada-Mantia ruling over all of Aurbis, rather than just Mundus. And this symbolism has power. It makes White-Gold the strongest of the Elf-made Towers. This is what defines them, their ambition. Their magic is Will and Shall and Must; the imposition of individual intention and desire over the world around them, and their Tower is the height of this.
But it is an ambition which did not start with them. This is where Lorkhan comes into the story.
The Missing God is an archetype found throughout the mythologies of the different cultures of Nirn, as The Monomyth tells us. For the Nords, he is Shor; for the Redguards out of Yokuda, he is Sep; for the Imperials, he is Shezzar; for the myriad elves, he is Lorkhan.
Why is he called the Missing God? Because he’s basically gone once the creation of the world is finished. Hence, Missing.
The Monomyth recounts the Altmer story of the beginning of the universe, which they generally regard as a bad idea. Specifically, Lorkhan’s bad idea, which he tricked everyone else into participating in. The Yokudans have a similar take on things, and some of Knight-Paladin Gelebor’s dialogue from Dawnguard suggests the Falmer weren’t big fans either.
But none of them are the Ayleids. Especially the Altmer. So what did the Ayleids think of Lorkhan? Well, they seem to have been pretty big fans, actually.
If the creation of Mundus with Ada-Mantia was Lorkhan’s idea, then it says a lot that the Ayleid Tower is that, but bigger.
That’s not all we’ve got, though. If you’ll remember back to Part 1, Aurbic Enigma 4 mentions something called a Stone, which is an essential part of a Tower. So what did the Ayleids choose for their stone? The only real candidate is a rock—making theirs the only Towers, asides from Ada-Mantia (maybe) to use an actual rock as their Stone—called the Chim-El Adabal. I’ve actually taken a stab at translating that into English, and to summarize:

• Adabal means either “God-stone” or “Spirit-Stone”
  
• Chim-El is probably a reference to Lorkhan. This is where the avalanche of crazy that ultimately led to this post started.
  

But what is the Chim-El Adabal? You might know it better as the Red Diamond in the heart of the Amulet of Kings. And I call it the “heart” of the amulet intentionally. Remember how I mentioned Lorkhan’s Heart getting ripped out earlier? Well…
The origins of the Red Diamond are attested to by a number of sources. You may be familiar with its origins in the Pact between Alessia and Akatosh, in which the Red Diamond… is Alessia. Weird, but not the weirdest thing in the lore. More relevant to this thread, that contradicts the idea that it was the Stone of the Ayleid Tower—. Fortunately, we have two powerful sources, both of which refer to the Red Diamond, by its Ayleid name, and stating it was created by the Ayleids:

• The personal notes of Mannimarco, an impartial observer unlikely to plant lies in journals he didn’t expect others to read. He also emphasizes its connection to Akatosh—the Cyrodiilic Dragon God. We’ll come back to this.
  
• A ballad written by very pro-Alessian author, which says it was created by the Ayleids, and then given to Alessia by Akatosh. And this is from ESO, predating the claim the Red Diamond is Alessia, somehow.
  

That second one also gives us a more specific origin:

When Akatosh slew Lorkhan, He ripped his heart right out, Hurled it across Tamriel, And the heart was heard to shout: […] The laughing heart sprayed blood afar, A gout on Cyrond fell, And like a dart shot to its mark Down in an Ayleid Well.

Returning to Magic From the Sky, one of the texts I reference earlier, the Ayleid Wells were constructs of Meteoric Iron, fragments of Aetherius which fell through the stars (which are holes in Oblivion) to Mundus. The Ballad places this as happening while the Heart of Lorkhan was being shot out from Ada-Mantia, to where it would sprout Red Mountain. So, right at the tail-end of Convention. But there shouldn’t have been any Ayleid Wells yet, so what?
Probably, it’s an oversimplification. The stars already existed (we’ll get into that another time), so what probably happened was that some Meteoric Iron fell to Mundus, leaving a crater. The blood then landed in the crater.
Whatever the case, the ballad is suggesting the Chim-El Adabal was made froma combination of Meteoric Iron and blood straight from the Heart of Lorkhan. Which backs up the idea that the Ayleids were big fans of Lorkhan.
But I’m not done. Where did they put the White-Gold Tower, again? The center of Cyrodiil. The center of Tamriel. The Heart of Cyrodiil and Tamriel. Arguably, the Heart of the World. Touching back into the Nu-Mantia Intercept, the Heart of Lorkhan is also referred to as the “Heart of the World.”
In fact, the discussion in this fine thread by u/TheInducer has led to the probable conclusion that “Cyrodiil” is composed of three smaller words—iil meaning “People/Person (of),”od meaning “land,” and Cyr meaning “Heart.” Cyrod, is “Heartland” and Cyrodiil is “People/Person of the Heartland.” So heart symbolism is pretty strong with the Ayleids.
So, the Ayleid Tower’s architecture is the image of Lorkhan’s ambition, with a Stone and location which also reference the Heart. The Lorkhan references have been laid on pretty thick with this thing.
Except I don’t think they called him Lorkhan. You may remember way back in the beginning when I was being super particular about names? This is where that comes in. To make the connection, we have to talk about Auri-El.
Part 3: Akatosh whut?
Auri-El, what? But that’s the Elven name for the Dragon God of Time, who cast Lorkhan’s heart out across Tamriel! What’s he doing here?
Well, yes. Very much so. We saw it earlier in the Altmer story back in Monomyth. But there is one issue: the Amulet of Kings. Sure, there are some sources saying it’s blood from the Heart of Lorkhan, Mannimarco and that Ballad, and wormy-boy knows his stuff. But remember, the King of Worms also referenced a strong connection between Akatosh and the Amulet of Kings.
Akatosh is the Imperial interpretation of the Dragon God, the other of the two archetypes that occur in every known pantheon, alongside the Missing God. Auri-El is the name used by both the Altmer and the pre-Betrayal Falmer, and I’m using it here for the Ayleids. The Yokudans have Ruptga, more often called Tall Papa, and possibly also Satakal as a reference to Alduin’s office of World-Eater. The Kahjiit have, like, a million dragon gods; we’ve known about their Alkosh for ages, but The Wandering Spirits out of ESO’s Dragonhold DLC also gives us Akha and Alkhan. Alkhan is probably Alduin, and Akha… is there.
Back onto the main thrust of the essay, there are more sources which push the Akatosh claim. The Trials of St. Alessia has Akatosh saying to Alessia:

This shall be my token to you, that so long as your blood and oath hold true, yet so shall my blood and oath be true to you. This token shall be the Amulet of Kings, and the Covenant shall be made between us

And then Akatosh also does something similar with the Dragonfires. From The Amulet of Kings, which we mentioned earlier

In token of this Covenant, Akatosh gave to Alessia and her descendants the Amulet of Kings

Those sources could have been influenced by the Marukhati Selective, their dogged pursuit of monotheism in a polytheistic world overwhelming the Missing God in the glorious light of the One.
But then we have the events of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Martin tells us:

The Amulet was given to mortals by Akatosh... it contains His divine power

Following which, he uses the Amulet of Kings to transform into a glowing dragon, and defeat the manifestation of Mehrunes Dagon in the Temple of the One. In this shape, he is called the Avatar of Akatosh. So, the Amulet has a very real, very powerful connection to Akatosh, and there’s quite a bit of material establishing a connection with Lorkhan.
So, who really is the patron of the Amulet and the White-Gold Tower? Akatosh or Lorkhan?
Both. Yeah, it’s Enantiomorph time.
Part 4: AKHAT AE LKHAN
This is one of the more esoteric ideas in the lore community. The Enantiomorph is a pattern which recurs at a few points throughout the lore, a story centering around a set of archetypes: the King, the Rebel, the Observer, and the Catalyst. The King controls the Catalyst, but the Rebel wants it, and tries to take it violently. The Observer decides which of the two emerges victorious, and is maimed in the process, with an apparent preference for blindness. And somewhere in there is a prominent betrayal.
To my knowledge, the only in-game reference is one of Vivec’s sermons, which goes without explanation, and a number of forum threads which involved writers for the Elder Scrolls. The most commonly cited explanation is this comment from Kirkbride (Ctrl+F “enantiomorph).
And now, a brief summary of the beginning of the world, synthesized from the various stories of The Monomyth:
When original spirits participating in creation realized that making a Mundus out of yourself isn’t so good for your health, some of them started to freak out a bit. Magnus, who had hitherto been the architect of the Mundus and right hand of the Missing God, fled to Aetherius, tearing a hole in Oblivion, which we call the sun. An multitude of lesser spirits, known collectively as the Magna-Ge, noped out right behind him, carving the stars as Magnus had carved the sun. With Magnus out of the picture, the Dragon God and a number of the other original spirits held the Convention, where the gods sat in judgement of the Missing God. The Missing God’s Heart was ripped out, the Dragon God fired it on an arrow into the sea, and the Red Mountain rose up where it had landed. The Dragon God of Time becomes the King of the Gods, time becomes linear, The End.
And yes, this is expressing events which happened in a period of non-linear time as a linear narrative. Casting The Missing God’s Heart out on an arrow is the only fixed point, being the conclusion of both the Dawn Era and of Convention. The rest is all jumbled—but the elements all manifest in the Monomyth stories we’re given, as well as the out-of-game, Nordic Shor son of Shor. Fortunately, with that one fixed point at the end, jumbling the rest doesn’t really hurt the enantiomorph, so let's keep things in straight lines for the sake of convenience.
The Catalyst is authority over the Nascent Mundus. It’s what Lorkhan has at the beginning, and it’s what Auri-El takes for himself at the end.
It is generally held that, at the beginning of the world, Auri-El, Lorkhan, and Magnus (time, space, and light/magic) were more-or-less equal to one another. It follows, then, that if Magnus had not abandoned Lorkhan, the two of them could have stood against Auri-El, meaning that in his act of betrayal Magnus decided who would win the conflict. And in the process, he seems to have left something behind—a large, floating, blue ball we see in Skyrim, which mortals call the Eye of Magnus. He decided the winner, and was “blinded” by losing an “eye” in the process—textbook Observer.
Lorkhan is, of course, the King, being the one behind the Mundus project. Auri-El, meanwhile, is the Rebel, who usurps control of Mundus and wrecks Lorkhan, becoming King of the Gods himself.
Which leads us into my whole point for bringing this up.
The enantiomorph concludes with the creation of something new out of the King and the Rebel. In the first iteration, Ald-Anu killed his brother, and was transformed by grief and love into the Godhead, becoming the Aurbis—Elder Scrolls Universe, from Aetherius to Oblivion to, eventually, Mundus. You’ll also see a lot of folks with Arcturian Heresy-heavy interpretations of the birth of Talos describe it as an enantiomorph, featuring Zurin Arctus, Ysmir Wulfharth, and Hjalti Early-Beard (who would come to be known as Tiber Septim later in life). I’ve also seen a few references to the birth of Satakal in the myths of the lost Redguard homeland of Yokuda. In each of these, something new is born of the violent union of King and Rebel. It is generally held that the Observer is the only one capable of discerning between them, hence their title, and Magnus is gone.
Thus also, it follows, with the Dragon God and the Missing God. The resulting figure doesn't get talked about a whole lot, but I like to refer to it as AKHAT AE LKHAN. It’s supposed to be in Ehlnofex, the language of the Ehlnofey. You see, some of the Ehlnofey defined what shapes the all the mortal races we see in-game would take, and became mortals after a fashion… except Argonians. Argonians are weird.
Because of its origins before the Law of Reality were set in place, Ehlnofex is believed to posses bizzare properties, from being the verbal componant of some spells, to being written in glyphs (known to the Ayleids, remember) which constant shift and distort, as per Lady Nerevar's Coments on CHIM from their Translation Dictionary, to PSJJJJ being canonically impossible to pronounce
It’s conventional to spell Ehlnofex words in ALL CAPS, something that also bears out with CHIM, which is also an Ehlnofex word. And a colossal mess, which we won’t be getting into here.
AKHAT and LKHAN are the names of the Dragon God and the Missing God, respectively, used by the Dwemer, by way of Vivec, which I here use as Ehlnofex. He’s one of the few people we meet in the games who we might reasonably expect to actually know both much of Ehlnofex and was around back before the Dwemer vanished. And while he isn’t known for always being entirely honest, his deviations from the truth (as I understand it) usually serve a metaphorical or literary purpose, which is something this would not do.
Furthermore, AKHAT also is described by Terran's Notes, a Moth Priest's notes regarding a vision she was gven by an Elder Scroll, as appearing in said vision. Since Ehlnofex probably has magical properties, it would make the most sense if that was language to appear there.
AKHAT is also one letter off from Akha, one of the new Kahjiiti Dragon Gods I mentioned earlier. A lot of people like to use the term AKA for the primordial Dragon God, but as best as I’ve been able to find, that word is Nedic in origin, not Ehlnofex. Rather, I would say it was descended from AKHAT. But, that's really an issue of semantics, and my point holds whichever of the two you use.
Similarly, there are a few sources, such as Fragmentae Abyssum Hermaeus Moruis, which uses LHKAN instead of LKHAN. I would prefer the latter, but that's just more semantics.
Now then, AE is… weird. AE literally translates from Ehlnofex as “and/is”, which is to say it simultaneously means “and” and “is”. It also refers to the continuity of personal identity—the part of a person, probably in their soul, that makes them who they are, rather than somebody else.
Therefore, AKHAT AE LKHAN refers to the union of the Dragon God and the Missing God into a spirit with a single, cohesive identity—a single body, a single AE, with two faces. Put another way, since the Heart of the Missing God is the Heart of the World, AKA AE LKHAN is a union of Time and of the World, of Space, into a single cohesive Space-Time. Which nicely parallels real-world physics.
But what’s the point? Why did I interrupt a post about the Ayleids to provide information on a super esoteric corner of the lore?
For context. In part, because if we’re talking about how the Ayleids interpreted these two gods, it’s useful to know what actually happened to them. But mostly, it was because I think the Ayleids knew.
Part 5: Auri-El ye Tamri-El
This whole mess—with its Kings and Catalysts, its dead magic languages—explains the dilemma we were having earlier. In Parts 2 & 3, we found that the Ayleid Tower, White-Gold, was rife with Lorkhan connections, but other pieces of lore—including events we see in-game—establish an undeniable connection to Akatosh.
However, all that conflict melts away if we take into account the enantiomorph, the union of the two of them after the creation of the world. The White-Gold Tower—through its stone, the Chim-El Adabal, set into the Amulet of Kings—relates to both Akatosh and Lorkhan because they are simply two faces of one essential spirit. Even if one of them is a bit more active, on account of how one of those faces got their Heart ripped out. That tends to make doing things a bit challenging.
That there is a confluence of both of them in the Red Diamond and the White-Gold Tower is actually one of the main lines of argument in favor of their having been merged into one entity at convention. Another piece is Shor son of Shor, which draws a parallel between Missing God Shor and Dragon God Ald(uin).
This is one of the stranger nuances of the Dawn, which makes it very interesting that it popped up around the Ayleids. The Ayleids were known for having preserved Ehlnofex, the language of the Dawn Era soon-to-be-mortals we were talking about a moment ago, as well as their magic. As evidence, we have Before the Ages of Man:
(I cited this earlier, but it’s been ages, so have a new link!)

Wild Elves, also known as the Heartland High Elves, preserved the Dawn Era magics and language of the Ehlnofey.

“Wild Elves” and “Heartland High Elves” being terms used in some places for the Ayleids—the latter being a misnomer, since, as established earlier, the Ayleids were their own race, damnit.
We also have Ahzidal’s Descent

From the Ayleids, the ancient runes and dawn-magic even the elves had begun to forget.

Hrm. At their height, the Ayleids knew things about the Dawn that, as best as we can tell, nobody else did. And one of the more esoteric aspects of the Dawn and its conclusion rears its head around the stuff they left behind. Makes you wonder if maybe they knew. But if they did, surely we wouldn’t be able to tell—so much has been lost, there must only be fragments.
There might be more than you think.
First of all, we know that both were held in reverence in Ayleid society. I can’t imagine the White-Gold Tower being modeled after Lokhanic principles was an accident, and we’re going to see in a moment that Auri-El was tied closely into very important political events, at least for Aedraphile sects.
In Oblivion, there’s a short line of sidequests surrounding an Elf called Umbacano, who collects rare and valuable Ayleid artefacts, and pays the player handsomely for them. In the last of these, Secrets of the Ayleids, Umbacano hires the player to escort them to the ruin of Nenalata, from which the last king of the Ayleids reigned—who, sidenote, we actually meet in ESO.
Once you bring Umbacano to the throne room, Umbacano reveals himself to not merely be a scholar, but is attempting to restore the Ayleid civilization. He attempts to transform himself through magic, using the following invocation in the Ayleid language:

Av Auri-El ye Tamri-El dellevoy an Arpen Aran tarnabye! […] Av sunna Tam Riel arctavoy an Arpen Aran malaburo!

And isn’t that just lovely. According to the quest’s UESP page, it translates to:

By Auri-El and Tamri-El grant the Noble King passage! […] By blessed Tamriel acknowledge the Noble King [in your] loving vassalage!

It’s in the Notes section. Between the two fragments, he speaks normally.
This appears to be an Ayleid coronation ceremony, stripped of any pomp down to its most essential elements: a magical invocation of the Divine. And I use the singular here deliberately. Let’s look more closely at those first few words.

Auri-El ye Tamri-El

Auri-El is the name of the Dragon God, common to the languages of all the mer who worship them. Ye just means “and.” Now, if we were to translate these two words into Ehlnofex, it would say:

AKHAT AE

Look familiar? Remember, the Heart of Lorkhan is the Heart of the World. And this held especial meaning for the Ayleids, because the built their Tower, the White-Gold, at the geographic center of Tamriel, its heart, which mattered to them so much they named it Cyrod, the Heartland. And, if you’ll recall from the Nu-Mantia Intercept back towards the start of the thread, that made their Tower stronger, because the Heart of Tamriel is the Heart of the World. It follows, then, that Lorkhan—or, perhaps more accurately, the Missing God—is the World, which is Tamriel. From here, if we take Tamri-El from Umbacano’s Invocation to refer to the Missing God, and add that to our translation:

AKHAT AE LKHAN

There we go.
There’s also the usage of Tam Riel in the second line, which is also translated as “Tamriel.” He uses it again after being magically transformed into the King of Nenalata”

Arise, my people! The restoration of Tam Riel begins today!

Which makes the most sense to me if Tam Riel refers to the physical continent, with Tamri-El being reserved for the god, being structured similarly to Auri-El and Anui-El.
And that’s not all I’ve got. Feast your eyes!
This artistic motif is very common at Ayleid ruins in Cyrodiil… because they reused the model a lot. But! Its repetition throughout the world nevertheless suggests that whatever this statue is depicting was very important to the Ayleids. So what are we looking at?
The statue has three parts. On the bottom are stone and roots, at the top is a very large bird, and in the middle, gripped by both bird and ground, is a male figure (ears obscured, but probably an elf) wearing armor, with a bow in one hand and a shield in another.
When I’ve seen this discussed in the past, people have taken a very Altmeri view of things. The figure is Auri-El, they say, rising out of the mire of the material world into the splendor of Aetherius. Which is what the Altmer say Auri-El did. Certainly the bird makes sense as a symbol of Aetherius—Link, just Ctrl+f “eagle”:

For the Altmer, the high-soaring eagle represents their ancestors the Aedra, who came from the heavens and were trapped in physical form by the creation of Nirn.

Dirt/rocks and roots makes sense as a symbol of the material world. Auri-El is strongly associated with Archery, having shot the Heart across Tamriel from his bow, which we find in Dawnguard, along with a shield bearing his name.
But for a god’s triumphant ascension into glory, it looks an awful lot like he’s tangled up in that material world. I can hardly tell the difference between that guy’s legs and the ground he’s supposed to be flying out of. Oblivion may have had more limited graphical quality than I’ve grown used to lately, but I can clearly tell the difference between the bird’s feathers, so I should be able to know where the god ends and the icky ground begins.
Besides, we have an alternative. The ground and the roots are the material world, Tamri-El, the Missing God. But I suspect the “bird” is more accurately a Feathered Dragon, a depiction of the Dragon God stylized with a characteristically Ayleid connection of feathers with the splendor of the Dawn—Already wrote that essay. And where they join is the divine union, Dragon God and Missing God as one. AKHAT AE LKHAN. Auri-El ye Tamri-El.
Continued in the comment

Wicked Bunny Rapid RGB Gaming Mouse In-depth review (bring popcorn)

[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/tLKcpnY.jpg)
***Disclaimer**\*
Before the review I wanted to mention that this mouse was sent out to me for review after contacting Wicked Bunny directly. I will speak honestly about any strengths and weaknesses that I have found while using this mouse.
A Few Quick Things About Me:
My hand size: 19.05 cm x 10.8 cm
Mice owned this year: G-Wolves Skoll, G-Wolves Hati (returned), Logitech G Pro Wireless, Logitech G403, Xtrfy M4 (previous main), Coolermaster MM710 (returned), Logitech G Pro (same shape to the G203 with different cable, LoD, mouse clicks, and sensor)
Current mouse grip/s: Relaxed Fingertip, Fingertip
EDIT: I am revising the description of my grip after more research and talking to more mice enthusiasts. I agree that my main grip should be called Relaxed Fingertip grip rather than Relaxed Claw grip.
Why I HAD To Review This Mouse:
First thing that many players notice (other than just weight and stats) is how the mouse looks. I thought the design and shape of this mouse looked amazing for my play-style. I also really liked the logo a lot (who wouldn't like a cute killer bunny with a carrot scythe?). I think it will be liked by both male and female players. It's genius from a business/marketing standpoint. The representative of Wicked Bunny told me their project manager was the creator of the first generation of ASUS Strix, this intrigued me. Then he told me the lead designer for the company won an A+ Platinum Design Award for his work. After that I was sold. I had to see what they had to offer the mouse community. The cherry-on-top that was equally as intriguing was that they are doing almost everything in-house, including their own molding. Intrigued yet? Let's dive in shall we?
Unboxing:
The packaging here is top notch. I didn't expect the packaging to be this premium. The color scheme this company chose to go with is orange, it's on all of there product packaging and some of the products. This isn't a bad thing as Razor is known for green, and Logitech is known for blue packaging and branding. The box has a magnetic lid to present the mouse inside and also shows you what grips the mouse was designed for on the inside lid. Here I wish the plastic window was a bit bigger so that you could actually put your whole hand on the mouse to try out the shape before purchase (if they ever sell it in Best Buy, Walmart, etc), but it still looks nice nonetheless. The mouse comes sandwiched in-between two REALLY thick pieces of plastic. This is similar to Logitech's packaging, but by adding a second piece of plastic it protects the whole mouse. I would have zero concerns of having this thing shipped to me from over seas. After pulling the mouse out of the box I was surprised to see that the mouse cable was wrapped CORRECTLY! They took another play from Logitech's playbook and wrapped the cord around the protective plastic. This caused the cord to be jank-free right out of the box! This may seem like a small thing, but just ask some of Glorious' early customers to how much proper packaging matters (I'm glad they fixed that by the way). Inside the box you will be greeted with an extra pair of mouse skates, 4 stickers (two are orange and white and two are reflective silver and white), and a really nice card that basically welcomes you to their product family and tells you their company statement. So far, so good.
***The English translation in the instruction booklets and on the packaging is quite good. I never had any problems understanding what they were trying to say. I don't usually see people address this, but it was truly welcome to not spend hours trying to figure out how to program/use the mouse.***
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/tcyMw18.jpg)
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/EvHXCrg.jpg)
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/j53vfoD.jpg?1)
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/PiEXcqx.jpg)
Mouse Shape and Dimensions:
I have grown tired of seeing mice that have "safe" shapes. I know that many reviewers love them because they can recommend them to a wide audience, but they end up being jack-of-all-trades master-of-none type of mice. Good, but not perfect for any grip. This mouse is different. As soon as you put your hand on this mouse it grabs you by the shirt-collar and says, "I'm an FPS mouse, deal with it!". This mouse knows what it is and doesn't try to be anything or everything else ***cough*** G Pro Wireless ***cough***. I will say though that this mouse went to college and majored in claw grip and minored in fingertip grip. I say this because when I fingertip grip this mouse I still have to move my thumb upward to hit Mouse 4 and 5 instead of being able to actuate it with the tip of my thumb. This is not an issue with the claw grip. If you don't use your thumb buttons much or at all than it's just as comfortable as relaxed claw grip to me. This mouse was created for smaller hand sizes in mind, so if you have a shorter hand length than mine I think it will be just find for claw grip. The mouse feels like it has an hour glass shape that tapers inward the more you put your fingers further down the mouse. At first glance this may give someone the illusion that it is an ambidextrous mouse. I would say it is not truly ambidextrous or ergo, it's a bit of both. Ergonomic mice like the G502, G403, and G-Wolves Skoll force your hand to roll to the right (or left for left-handed mice) with a steep slope down one side. This is meant to relieve some strain on your wrists and elbows. When you roll your hands completely inward to type or use a mouse you cross the two bones in your forearm which can cause wrist and elbow pain after prolonged use. This mouse has a VERY slight slope down the right side, I didn't even notice it at first but I was coming from the Xtrfy M4 so it felt flat to me. It has ergonomic elements but keeps your hand and wrist mostly flat (but still relieves just enough stress on the wrist/elbows to avoid strain), this is aided by the top of the mouse being almost flat compared to something like the G403. It is 120 mm L x 64 mm W (at the rear hump) x 39 mm H (tallest point) and roughly 54.5 mm at the center (usually the grip-width but not here). However this doesn't tell the whole story as the grip width can change a lot depending on your grip style. For fingertip the grip-width (if you grip the mouse low towards the bottom) is approximately 58mm and for claw the grip-width is approximately 59.5-60mm. These measurements were taken from where my fingers actually grip the mouse. For someone with wide hands I actually find this mouse to be quite comfortable and it feels like I'm holding a pen which is insanely nice for precision games like FPS. This mouse IS an FPS/RTS specialist.
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/E0iRgx4.jpg) left side flat
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/s4unwH1.jpg) left side front half close-up
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/BqFyJb7.jpg) left side middle close-up
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/OCOJStm.jpg) left side angled
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/cviWPMR.jpg) left side tilted
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/WmTQMNP.jpg) right side
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/b3BNurs.jpg) ride side angled
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/CFyVF4m.jpg) ride side tilted
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/PM2ARyo.jpg) length
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/iiUVGHk.jpg) width (widest part)
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/r9sDdaC.jpg) height
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/hfarSfm.jpg) middle width
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/YHmALpx.jpg) G403, Xtrfy M4 and Rapid RGB Top view
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/P76lCws.jpg) hump
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/vqQu3rv.jpg) Xtrfy M4 and Rapid RGB Left side
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/6E3TQPv.jpg) Xtrfy M4 and Rapid RGB Right side
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/cTGcyST.jpg) Logitech G403 and Rapid RGB Left side
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/o5AQEf4.jpg) Logitech G403 and Rapid RGB Right side
Grip pictures:
Relaxed Fingertip grip (my main grip)
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/oDTcJA6.jpg) left side view
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/dYyvoWT.jpg) bottom view
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/Ixj4lOa.jpg) hand gap view
Fingertip grip
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/1CBGrzd.jpg) left side view
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/xLHoDhI.jpg) bottom view
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/g5D4VZF.jpg) hand gap view
Claw grip
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/0Lp5tKe.jpg) left side view
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/blXQs26.jpg) bottom view
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/kBGqAIL.jpg) hand gap view (more relaxed grip, only the meat of the thumb touches the mouse)
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/EM2mTmw.jpg) hand gap view (more extreme grip with both sides of the rear of the palm touching the mouse)
Mouse Clicks and Side buttons:
Clicks: These are probably the most interesting things about this mouse. The Mouse click switches are German ZF Cherry Switches. They are rated at 60M clicks and are rated for 180-300 APM (Actuations per minute). I can verify this claim as I was able to reach 281 APM in Kovaak's FPS Aim trainer in 1wall9000 targets. These switches are a twitch shooters dream. I'll be honest I didn't like them at first. The reason is because the actuation and bottom out distance is WAY shorter (it feels like half) than any switch I have ever used. The easiest way I can describe this is going from a standard keyboard switch (usually around 2mm actuation) to a speed switch (shortest I've seen is around 1mm actuation) or even a short-throw laptop switch. The clicks bottom out abruptly and it feels very mechanical. When clicking this mouse fast I can't see my finger move out of the corner of my eye while I can with any other mouse. The mouse clicks DO NOT HAVE ANY SIDE-PLAY! I can't say that about ANY other mouse that I have used or watched a review on this year. They do however have an imperceptible amount of post-travel (I can't feel any while in game).
Side Buttons: These are probably the biggest surprise on this mouse (and some may find it the biggest con). These are NOT mechanical switches. They are very quiet but they do have a nice tactile bump, they feel oddly satisfying to press (NOT MUSHY!). My copy has no pre-travel but does have a small amount of post-travel. There is no side-play or wobble here, just like the clicks. They are really easy to push in and I've had no problems so far in game with them actuating or failing to reset.
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/xByfJ35.mp4) side button sounds and speed
Scroll Wheel and Click:
The Mouse wheel has nicely defined steps and scrolls evenly. It isn't syrupy smooth like the Xtrfy M4 but has less bite than the MM710 (however the Rapid RGB takes less effort to scroll). It does get loud when scrolling fast and is even louder when scrolling upward quickly. The Scroll wheel does not sit as low as the one on the Xtrfy M4. It is a similar height to the Logitech G403 which I strongly prefer. The mouse performs much better while gaming than general browsing though, as the sound starts to get to me after fast scrolling more than a few times.
The scroll wheel click is the easiest to actuate on any mouse that I have ever used (I'm looking at you Logitech). It feels more like a side button than many other scroll wheel clicks I've used. This is a welcome surprise as I use my scroll wheel click a lot. I use it for things like tactical grenades in Call of Duty and air dodging in Destiny 2. The scroll wheel button is very satisfying to press and I wouldn't hesitate to use this for a command that you would spam repeatedly since it resets and actuates so fast and effortlessly.
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/cFrnqUL.mp4) scroll wheel click sound (top and side actuation)
Cable (and Strain relief):
It's. Insanely. Good. It is one of the best I've tried this year. The cable is soft with a little bit of space between the wires and the cable sheathing. It has no problems fitting in a mouse bungee (you won't need one). I would put it in 3rd place for best cable contender. MM710 being number 1, G-Wolves Skoll/Hati at number 2 and the Rapid RBG at a very close 3rd. This cable destroys the Xtrfy M4 cable and doesn't need to be changed whatsoever unless for aesthetic reasons.
The strain relief is (thankfully) angled correctly, the cable has no issues with dragging on the mouse pad and it feels of nice quality.
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/3j5LMN1.jpg)
Mouse Feet:
The mouse feet here are not pure PTFE feet, but they are REALLY close at 99% (newly informed by the WB team). Now, before anyone starts to immediately dismiss this mouse because of that hear me out. These are FAST. I don't know how they did it but these mouse feet are faster than any stock G-Wolves mouse feet (even with the extra big mouse feet you can add), faster than the Xtrfy M4's PTFE feet (and I added the skate around the sensor). I don't even think the MM710's feet were this fast (I returned it just before I got this mouse). The mouse feet are oddly similar to the shape and size of the MM710 mouse feet. Since this mouse is bigger and heavier than the MM710 I expected the mouse to be slower because the mouse skates are so small compared to the body... I was SORELY mistaken. They are nicely rounded and not thin like the MM710 mouse feet. I would say they are close to the Xtrfy M4 in thickness. If you love your mouse to feel fast then DON'T change these. For reference I have been using this on the Artisan Raiden XL 3mm thick pad and the Wicked Bunny's own Cordura extended mouse mat (review of that coming soon).
**Two things about the mouse feet** 1) Remember to take off the plastic film before use. 2) These mouse feet DO require a bit of break-in. They feel a bit scratchy and slow at first, but after a few hours on the cordura pad they felt sublime.**
Sensor and Sensor Position:
The Rapid RGB uses the PMW 3389 sensor. Top end optical that is a standard these days. It feels like a slightly more snappy version of the PMW 3360 to me. However I play about the same with both.
The sensor position actually caught me off guard. It is actually forward of center by approximately 9 mm. That doesn't sound like a lot, but in person it is definitely quite noticeable. I have heard fingertip grip mice enthusiasts complain for years about censors needing to be moved forward on fingertip mice. This is the first company that I have seen to actually listen in recent years. I am fairly new to fingertip gripping so I can not tell you what the optimum distance forward of center the sensor should be, but I think that many fingertip grippers will be happy that a company is listening.
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/GtZXjEd.jpg)
RGB/DPI Selector:
The RGB on this mouse is fairly minimal. Only the scroll wheel and the logo light up. The lighting itself changes colors smoothly from color to color. The lighting on the scroll wheel is nice, vibrant and crisp while the logo lighting is more muted in comparison. I think part of this is caused by the RGB lights on the PCB that shine through the logo are further away than the light shown through the scroll wheel, and the other part is the actual plastic they used for the logo (I'll discuss in Aesthetics). This is more apparent during rainbow mode than on static colors. The odd thing about the RGB for the logo is that it has two separate lights providing light for it... which have to be controlled separately. This is a misstep for me as you have to hold the DPI+mouse 1 for one light or press the DPI+mouse 2 for the other. This should have been programmed to have one button control both lights and have the other control the brightness since this mouse has no brightness control what so ever. Other than that the different mouse modes look just fine as RGB goes, you can even turn off the lighting for either the scroll or the logo if you only want lighting on one and not the other. It comes with 6 different modes (7 including off). I would have preferred just a few lighting modes and more intuitive controls like the Xtrfy M4, but these get the job done.
The DPI button is actually the same one that controls the RGB. This I DO like. You quick-tap the top silver button and it will change your dpi. The scroll wheel will change colors briefly to tell you which dpi you are on. The dpi ranges and colors are: 400 (White), 800(Red), 1600 (Orange), 3200 (Yellow), 6400 (Green), 12800 (Blue), and 16000 (Purple). I also feel that this was a misstep as well. I think they should have had more usable DPI steps in there. Something more like this: 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1600, 3200, 6400, 16000 or just get rid of the 6400 and 16000 DPI's and ad in 1400 and 2400. Most players that I know of play between 400-1200 in the FPS genre. I know there are those that play higher than that but NO ONE plays at 16000. It is common knowledge now that gaming sensors far exceed 12,000 DPI but I still wish companies would stop using that as a preset and wasting a programmable slot on a mouse. I play at 800 DPI so I'm not effected here, but still I think that trend needs to stop.
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/tLKcpnY.jpg) (same intro pic from above/amazon)
Software:
NONE. I find this to be a huge pro since I have so much software on my PC already and everything can be set on this mouse without it. However, I have been told that a software suite is in the works.
Polling Rate and Lift Off Distance/Surface Calibration:
The polling rate can be set on this mouse by unplugging the mouse and holding mouse 4 for 500hz or mouse 5 for 1000hz and plugging the mouse back in. Super simple. It comes out of the box at 1000hz (why 500hz is even still an option these days I'll never know)
Lift off distance and surface calibration can also be set here quite easily. While the mouse is unplugged you hold down mouse 1 and 2, and plug the mouse back in. While still holding mouse 1 and 2 you move the mouse in a zigzag pattern across the whole mouse pad to set it. Really easy (unless your computer is far away from you) and simple without software.
Weight/Balance:
I purposefully listed this down low in this review because I did not want people to read the weight early and just say "pass" without reading all the great things about this mouse first. I was one of those ultra-lightweight crazed people not too long ago myself, this mouse changed my mind. This mouse is rated at 88g on the Wicked Bunny website and Amazon. HOWEVER, both copies of this mouse that I have currently weigh in at 81 and 82 grams respectively. Not Ultra-light weight, but definitely in the G Pro Wireless category which is 80g.
The balance of this mouse is fantastic. No matter if I'm using claw or fingertip the mouse always feels planted, no matter how fast I swipe.
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/x5gWCWI.jpg)
**Personal Note on Weight** Every newly released mouse that I have purchased this year has been between 53-74g. (G Pro Wireless I bought on release day last year, the G403 is an older mouse now, and so is the G Pro). Each one I thought was going to be my "endgame" because it was going to be lighter than the last and I was going to be even better, faster and more accurate than before. This proved to be false for me. The worst performing mouse for me happened to be the lightest one here, the MM710. The balance didn't seem right on that mouse for me and the build quality left a lot to be desired. I used it for almost a month before I called it quits. The best two new mice for me happened to be the heaviest of the group, the Xtrfy M4 at 74g (I somehow got a heavy copy of it) and the Rapid RGB at 81 and 82g (I have 2 copies of it). I had broken all my previous records that I set with the MM710 with the Xtrfy M4 and then SHATTERED them with the Rapid RGB. My FPS scores and KD/R starting going up even higher than before and I was much more consistent as well. I understand now that weight isn't everything (to a point). What matters more is shape, balance, how good the mouse skates are and the right mouse pad to pair it with. Before someone posts below that I am just saying this because I got this mouse for free, I will say this, you are dead wrong. I liked this mouse so much that I went out and bought one from Amazon the day they launched so that I could compare the demo copy to a retail copy (FYI the retail copy is more refined) and so that I could have one of my own just in case they wanted me to send the mouse back.
Aesthetics:
I chose to put this category close to the bottom because it is so subjective. I actually quite like the look of this mouse, it definitely has character. Like I mentioned above, I really like the scythe bunny logo. It is simple, and easy to recognize. Every time I look at it I picture the bunny from The Secret Life of Pets holding a scythe, it cracks me up. I like the pop the silver buttons give to a mostly dark shell. The pride and joy of this mouse is by far the bottom. I LOVE the look of the carbon fiber print and the embedded logo here, everything looks sharply molded and shows incredible attention to detail (even though the mouse feet and sensor make it look like a smiley face). The grippy side panels make the mouse look rugged and helps distinguish the mouse in a positive way in my opinion. I also like the 2 finishes that are on the mouse. The grippy side panels have a matte dark grey finish while the rest of the mouse has a...we'll call it a semi-gloss black finish. It's not ultra reflective and shiny but it does reflect a bit of light compared to the matte textured panels. I actually like this look, it is subtle but once I noticed it I thought it broke up the semi-gloss body of the mouse nicely. The RGB lighting is done just right for my tastes. Not too much so it doesn't take away from the focus of your setup (even though I can't help but love the RGB on the Xtrfy M4), and not too little so you forget that it's even there. I will say that I'm not the biggest fan of how the logo on this mouse looks when the lights are off. The plastic that is used here is REALLY white, instead of being translucent like many other mice brands like Logitech and Razor which I also think cheapens the look of the mouse. I also think this is part of the reason that the RGB on the logo looks muted compared to the scroll wheel. I can live without the sharp points on the mouse clicks as well. The biggest let down for me aesthetically are the two slashes just behind the mouse clicks. In pictures mouse 1 and 2 look like they are separated from the shell, which I originally thought was an interesting design take on separating the mouse clicks from the body. But in person you soon find out the mouse clicks are not separated and the slashes are just for aesthetics. This design choice cheapens the look of this mouse in my opinion. The view from the front is ok, I could take or leave the "grill" pattern but since I don't have to look at it often I will let that one slide.
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/8ePxFgI.jpg) front grill pic
Build Quality and Finish:
The Rapid RGB in this regard has some really stellar high points and has a few problems that has plagued many new mice this year.
I'll start with the good. This mice has ZERO rattle at all. The only other new mouse that I've tried this year that has had no rattle is the Xtrfy M4, not even the mouse wheel has even a hint of wobble on this thing. The bottom of the mouse feels like nice, quality, sturdy plastic. The mouse wheel feels of nice quality, the rubber coating on it looks and feels similar to the MM710 (which I did actually like). The cable as I mentioned before is fantastic and is really well made and flexible. I can't help myself but to reiterate how stupidly good the mouse feet are (especially for not being pure PTFE), they feel like they will have no problem lasting for a long while. The clicks and side-buttons not having any side-wobble has been a joy to use since I was coming from a slew of mice that have had it, it was very distracting in game especially while tracking in FPS games. The grippy side panels here are really nice feeling. They are not rubber like you would find on a Logitech G502 or G403, these feel like a rubberized plastic that is molded into the shell. The panels are nice and grippy without irritating the skin like I've heard reported by some on the Logitech mice. I always feel confident and in control of the mouse, that is something I can't say the same about the Xtrfy M4 which has a fairly slick coating. I also prefer this approach to the Steel Series Rival 600 that had those really slick soft touch pads on the sides that had a tendency to fall off easily. The coating on the main body of the mouse is smooth but has good grip to it, my hand doesn't slide all over it like it did with the G Pro Wireless after I washed my hands or played on a cold day. When I squeeze the sides and top of the mouse I don't hear or feel creaking.
Now for the bad. The silver DPI and side buttons that I mentioned liking the look of earlier, feel and sound cheap. The buttons feel like they are made from thin plastic and the coating on these doesn't help. When the buttons are pressed they have a muted hollow sound to them that makes them also sound... you guessed it, cheap. The beautiful quality plastic that I mentioned on the bottom sadly does not carry over to the top of the mouse. The plastic here feels really thin, almost brittle, and tapping the mouse on top it sounds really hollow and doesn't have the same premium feel and sound as the bottom. The coating on the top does show fingerprints fairly easily after a few days, but this effect is muted by the fact that the finish is only semi-gloss (a minor gripe that a little cleaning wipe can fix). The points on the mouse clicks and the rear seam of the mouse that connects to the side panels have a sharp roughness to them, which doesn't help this product feel polished (even though I never touched it while using the mouse). One random issue that I have never seen before is this mouse doesn't wake up until my PC hits the login screen, so you can't use this mouse in the BIOS. Not a huge deal as I usually use a keyboard to navigate my BIOS, but I know some that do. Revisiting that no creaking statement earlier, that is true. When I squeeze the sides and top of the mouse I do not hear or feel creaking. BUT this suffers from two problems, problem 1 many mice suffered from this year and the MM710 suffered from both. It has side wall flex just below the side buttons, no where else, meaning I can actuate them with my thumb without pressing the side buttons. It takes more pressure than the first run MM710 mice did to actuate the side buttons, but less than the revised version (I tried both). The other problem that is unique (as far as I know) to this mouse and the MM710 is that if you press the mouse just below the sensor and just behind the dpi button at the same time you can clearly hear and feel the mouse 1 and 2 buttons click. Neither of these problems happened in game, EVER, but I had to point that out.
Pricing:
This mouse is coming in at $55 US dollars on Amazon right now. Comparable in price to many new mice that have come out this year.
Conclusion:
This is not a perfect mouse... by any stretch. However, I think the pros far outweigh the cons here (ESPECIALLY for a company's first mouse). It has amazing design choices put into it; from the big things like great shape and flexible cord, to the smaller things like an angled strain relief and easy to press/roll scroll wheel. Every highly anticipated mouse that has come out this year has had QC issues at launch, and some that still do. This one has had fewer than most that I've tried and seen. This mouse is a bit rough around the edges, but with the right polishing this mouse could be on many FPS players short list. BUT, as it stands right now would I recommend this mouse? If you are looking for a mouse for games that require precision and speed then ABSOLUTELY, 100% YES! If you are looking for a mouse that is an all rounder that is good for games other than FPS/RTS, browsing, and other general computing tasks...maybe not. The loud scroll wheel may put some people off and for those of you who also play hours upon hours of MMORPGs at a time without a break, this may prove to be uncomfortable for you after an 8-12 hour raid session (not to mention it doesn't have 189 side buttons). As for me, I have acquired many mice this year (to the dismay of my wallet) and this one has definitely earned its place in my collection. This is the first mouse that I have thoroughly enjoyed despite it's flaws, and I will continue to use this mouse long after this review is finished.
Recommendations For a Future Revision:
-Keep the shape the same and maybe release a second mouse with the same shape but make it slightly bigger, similar to what Glorious did with the Model O/O-. Maybe call it the Rapid RGB XL.
-Make the side buttons mechanical. (I personally don't hate the feeling of the side-buttons, but I know some will)
-Reinforce the sidewall below the side buttons and top shell.
-Smooth out the rough edges on the frame and mouse clicks.
-Experiment with different plastics for the top shell so the mouse can feel more premium (including translucent plastic for the logo), but retain a similar weight and balance.
-Lose the slashes behind the mouse clicks, unless there are plans to separate the clicks from the body.
-Make the RGB controls simpler and more intuitive.
-Make the side buttons taller, move them down, or reshape them so that fingertip users can hit the side-buttons without moving their thumb.
-Consider using more accessible mouse feet shapes since these will be hard to replace after they wear out, unless you plan on selling them separately.
-Consider using more usable DPI steps.
-If there is a lighter version of this mouse in the works PLEASE don't put holes in it, that trend has been beaten to death this year.
Future Products to Be Reviewed:
The next products that I have for review are their full-sized keyboard, headset, and mouse pad. Keep a look out for those as they have some cool tricks up their sleeves! I will be releasing them when the products get closer to being posted on Amazon and other online/physical retailers.
Wicked Bunny Future Products:
The Wicked Bunny team has not stopped fine tuning their existing products and developing new ones. I am not able to share a whole lot of information just yet, but I can say that they are working on a few different mouse designs (I hear whispers of several wireless mice) for different grips and hand sizes. They are also developing a new keyboard that will have a much smaller footprint and some really cool features that they are in the process of patenting before it's revealed, along with many other interesting products. This company seems like they are trying to take steps to innovate in a time when so few companies are. I for one can not wait to see what this hidden-gem of a company has to offer up next!
Wicked Bunny Rapid RGB Amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/Wicked-Bunny-Optimized-Ergonomic-Precision/dp/B081CMJLPD/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=wicked+bunny+rapid+rgb&qid=1575521244&sr=8-1
If I missed anything that you would like to see added, or any mistakes that I may have made please let me know in the comments below and I will be glad to add or correct them. Questions, comments and opinions are also welcome.

Background

We're back! It's felt like ages since I last posted here (even though it's only been two weeks.)
A couple of days after the last update, we spontaneously decided to join the Galactic Puzzle Hunt, and we dragged a few friends with us, too. Competing as The C@r@line Syzygy ("Caroline" and "Coraline" are names that have become in-jokes among our gaming groups), we finished in 19th place. It took almost all of our random spare time and brainpower to make it all the way through-- my brain still feels kind of fried from it all.
Other than that, I met with a researcher shortly before Galactic started, and I may have found myself a position working with statistics. It wasn't an interview- there wasn't any talk about being hired or working in the lab at first- but they quickly found a niche that I could fill after I left. This was in no small part due to talking about the Mystery Hunt with her when I was asked about my hobbies. I don't remember every single puzzle that we talked about, but I need to at least thank you all for coming up with Place Settings, Lantern Festival, Caressing, Display Case, Loaded, Quaternary Structure, and Deep Blue.
As you probably can tell, a lot has happened with us in the past couple of weeks, but this is still going strong! I'm optimistic that we can get to a satisfying endpoint here.

Tales from the Galaxy

The Galactic Hunt this week was the first puzzlehunt we've officially competed in. While we weren't officially a two-man team there, in practice, it was more-or-less Syntax and me solving through nearly everything and giving a lot of guidance. I'd credit the other people on our team with 4-5 of the simpler puzzles combined, which was honestly more than I expected-- most of them had never even looked at a puzzlehunt in their life. It was a ride.
It's been weird to see puzzles designed by other people after seeing so much of Setec's work. The biggest takeaway from Galactic was the amount that I learned about puzzle design, honestly-- their philosophy was very, very different. A lot of Mystery Hunt puzzles ended up being relevant, too. Spoilers lurk ahead.

Things I Liked About Galactic

Galactic Trendsetters did a lot of cool things that have so far been sparse or absent in the Mystery Hunt. This might just be my personal ideas on puzzle designs, but I feel like there's a lot to be learned by comparing and contrasting.
This year's Galactic hunt was about decrypting an alien language called puflantu. Teams got more samples of puflantu as they solved more puzzles, and the last meta and final runaround didn't really have English in them at all. I really liked the idea of having a non-puzzle activity that still gave a lot of progress toward finishing the competition. In fact, Syntax did significantly more of the actual puzzle-solving than I did-- at a certain point, I became the team's puflantu specialist.
I also liked the number of interactive puzzles. There are few puzzles with any interactive component on this year's Mystery Hunt-- every time one shows up, we instantly think it's supposed to be really difficult, even though they usually aren't.
It feels like they were also willing to make some very unusual puzzles in the first round. Twitch Plays GPH was a fantastic idea as a starting puzzle, for example. As an aside, I don't actually link new people to Christmas Town when they ask for easy puzzles for practice-- I link them to Halloween instead. It's because having puzzles that are obviously themed around something is generally a lot more exciting to them.
The metas were also very clever-- they felt like puzzles in their own right that conveniently happened to want answers to be plugged into them in the end. It feels like the metas in the Mystery Hunt are designed to be much simpler than the puzzles that feed them. I'm not sure what I like more, though.
They also were much better at writing puzzles that didn't take a lot of background knowledge to solve. There weren't nearly as many puzzles which were solved start-to-finish by Google.

Things I Liked More In The Mystery Hunt

It feels like it might not be a fair comparison-- you all probably had a lot more resources and testing than Galactic-- but it feels like the Mystery Hunt had a lot cleaner of designs. It feels like I can expect the next step in every puzzle here to be logical in hindsight. Meanwhile, there were frequently puzzles in the Galactic hunt that took several "a-ha" moments that were unrelated to each other. The Meta Puzzle and Observatory are the obvious candidates, but even some of the simpler puzzles like Phone Lines and Colors were designed in such a way that teams could easily get stuck multiple times.
You also managed your complexity budget a lot better than Galactic did. As in- your designs usually take less steps and stick more to a single topic, even if they're often more difficult than Galactic's puzzles. This is a good thing- it minimizes the amount we get stuck, and it makes puzzles easier to talk about.
A personal story on that topic: the researcher I met with was very taken by our solve on Caressing-- not only was it a hard puzzle for us, it's obvious to outsiders why it's hard. People can visualize the process it took for us to get our answer. They know why the process of connecting the dots needs to be very precise, and it's obvious that it took a lot of research into a hobby that we didn't know anything about. Meanwhile, the strongly themed puzzles like Deep Blue and Display Case easily got the point across that puzzles are often about finding hidden patterns with some comedic value. "Resolutions" is a good catchphrase for what a New Year's puzzle could be about. Solving wordplay clues to things like "gorlpateehecd" is inherently funny to a lot of people, myself included.
By comparison, I don't think I could have talked about any puzzle on the Galactic hunt for the same effect, even when I really liked it. Take Ministry of Word Searches, for example. It was a randomly generated word search with millions of options, and for some reason, you needed to find all of the prime prime ministers of Canada in it. If you did the math to find the grid with all of the prime prime ministers in the right position, it told you to do math to construct the Graham's numberth grid. It gets the point across that puzzles can be hard-- but that particular puzzle wasn't really that difficult, it just gives people information overload.
In addition to all that, it feels like you had a much more logical unlock order. In general, puzzles referencing past hunts or requiring technical skills were kept far away from the start of the Mystery Hunt this year.
The Mystery Hunt also was good about not covering the same ground multiple times. There were three linguistics-themed puzzles before the linguistics metas even started. If I didn't randomly know a lot about linguistics coming into the hunt, there was zero chance that we would have finished. There were also a lot of puzzles that mostly existed to reference the 2018 hunt, and a few situations where two puzzles hit on the same extremely obscure topic (like increpare's flash games.)
Finally, the importance of flavor text really hit me. It's been used really well here to give general hints that solvers are on the right track. Galactic was very spotty about it, and it generally made the problem of needing a lot of hints worse. Meanwhile, I AM GROOT is the only one of your puzzles where the absence of helpful flavor text is really apparent.

Tales About A Mysterious Event

Here's a story that I thought would be good to tell about a Mystery Hunt puzzle being really relevant in Galactic. There are a few other places where Galactic reminded us about the designs of the Mystery Hunt this year-- the good, the bad, the ugly, and sometimes just even the flavor-- but telling all of them might make this post a bit long.
When trying to prepare ourselves for Galactic, we read through the solution to last year's final clickaround. Our thoughts? "This could give away the trick behind A Mysterious Event really, really fast if we didn't already have it." Apparently, the "Letter is for Word" mysteries are very popular in puzzle-land. This was the first time where we'd found A Mysterious Event to be relevant elsewhere, so it was a nice curiosity.
Needless to say, it was shocking when our Galactic experience came full-circle. If you weren't a part of Galactic this year, the hunt involved A LOT of puflantu translations. The final runaround? Re-enacting an alien Scrabble game where the solvers have to derive the words in the grid first. Knowing what A Mysterious Event was about ended up helping us a lot-- we even got out our physical Scrabble pieces again.
It's strange that our experience started with the flavor of one puzzle this year and ended with the mechanics of the same puzzle, but I guess that's how life works sometimes.

Puzzle-Specific Notes (The Solved Ones)

Just Desserts

If you followed or read through the link, you'd also see that last year's clickaround for Galactic also told us a very important piece of information-- Android phone operating systems were named after desserts. Alphabetically. When I read off the list of OS names, it was 50% sugar and 50% swearing. I made several searches explicitly for alphabetical lists of desserts when I tried to solve this-- figuring the theme out the way I did made me feel incredibly stupid.
The main thing that was tripping us up before- other than not knowing the theme- was the "404" dessert. Syntax and I were both thrown off in different directions by the broken image, to the point where we couldn't have solved this properly even with a lot of the right ideas. Syntax thought the 404's represented blanks for extraction, while I thought that we were supposed to identify what dessert should have gone there. In either case, we assumed they wouldn't map to a single letter, and the exact 50/50 split on the entries containing 404's told us that it was an intentional move to help us solve half the entries before working on the relevant ones. In reality, 404 was one of the only things that was one-to-one with a single letter of the alphabet.
The other part of it was that our list of desserts had its alphabet broken in several places-- debating whether it's just a "sandwich", or if the froyo was actually soft serve, or distinguishing four little cakes from a cupcake all obscured the fact that the desserts were supposed to run in an unbroken line from C to O.
We'd tried solving this as everything from a polyalphabetic cipher using the dessert names to a cryptogram with no vowels before we got this-- I'd be surprised if anyone else had that many problems.
The answer of KLONDIKE finally told us why you didn't need Caroline here-- the left side of the Halloween-Valentine's Day meta was supposed to spell HIJKLMNO.

Joke-O-Lantern

"What personification of de-- SHUT UP YOU STUPID CREEPY CHILD" -my feelings about this puzzle for the last month
The boogeyman is finally down, giving us every solve in Halloween Town. If you're wondering why this was seemingly impossible for us, it was because we did a lot of things that felt logical but just so happened to be incorrect.
Possibly the biggest mistake was us trying to match each clip to an individual letter. Knowing what HA-VA was about honestly crippled our chances of solving this, since we had no way to disprove "eight clips, eight letters" until we realized that this needed to start with L, M, or O.
Even after that, we had some very bad luck. For example, this is what we did with the first clip ("What kind of alien..."):
Intended answers: Mean-o-morph, Zan-o-morph, Scene-o-morph, Keen-o-morph, Teen-o-morph
Our answers: Little Mean Man, Little Green Zan, Little Scene Man, Little Keen Man, Little Teen Man
Yeah, we found a type of alien that correctly made all of the same puns, but it gave us no vowel sounds, so it instantly ruled out what the correct solution was intended to be. I honestly feel like that's no longer our mistake as much as it was a small oversight in testing.
Meanwhile, the mistakes with clips 2 and 3 are definitely on us-- because of clip 1, we assumed that every clip would be swapping around consonants in the same place except one. We didn't want to make three vowel changes and two tolltergeists. In clip 3, after discussing the option of Grim Keeper for the last one, we ended up thinking that the Grim Heaper was more logical. This continues more-or-less entirely down the line.
When I sarcastically asked a lot of Joke-O-Lantern-style questions about a month ago, then asked if I was doing it right, I definitely wasn't doing it right. I just dropped a sound for one of them and never decided to change out vowels. As a non-sarcastic statement: thank you for not letting me know, so we could solve this legitimately in the end.

Poor Richard Goes To Sea

This was a backsolve, but it was so close to being solved anyway that it doesn't feel like it. I'd found the right latitudes for everything, and had all the right years, then went "screw that" when I got to the step about reading nautical almanacs to find the longitude. As a result, I had two islands switched. I used what was more-or-less the correct method of extraction, but since I didn't know that "omoplate" was a word, "omoplate" with mixed-up letters also didn't look like a word, and obviously didn't solve the puzzle.
Then, I realized something. I was just scanning north-to-south through the islands, and I never used the ships' names! SCANWTOE isn't a word, so I had to couple the ships to some outside source. Syntax complained a lot about "last year's Poor Richard puzzle", so this obviously needed me to find quotes from somewhere. And it's written just like Charles Darwin's letters. Hmmmm....
That was legitimately what happened to me. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how the ships could be used with the correspondence of Charles Darwin (which is conveniently available in its entirety online) to no avail, when I should have just realized "scan W to E" was an instruction. Syntax primed me for solving this like a completely unrelated puzzle, and I was helplessly lost.

Cross Campus

This was some of the most difficult research I ever had to do for a puzzle, but that wasn't why this was stuck. I didn't figure out the trick to assembling the grid for an embarrassingly long time. Even though I had the building numbers for almost all of the clips on my spreadsheet, I thought the outdoor clip was specifically there to rule out any possibility of them mattering. Making a 13-by-13 grid wasn't intuitive for a long time, since I kept trying to use the 13-letter entries like they were actual words. I also got clues wrong in a way that wasn't obvious and which didn't disrupt grid symmetry (such as "keychain" and "eggshell" instead of "keys" and "ecru".)
This leaves only two things left in Thanksgiving. I never imagined that we could have such a high solve ratio, even on the early rounds.
Edit: this gave us our fifth star. I'm honestly shocked.
On one hand, It definitely felt star-worthy for the amount I needed to do for this. Identifying all the clips from Minnesota took a lot of creativity in tracking down the right pictures and videos, and Syntax didn't actually do any of that because he'd assumed that we'd never be able to efficiently solve this. (Syntax was responsible for the "a-ha"'s on the crossword mechanics, though.)
Meanwhile, the reason that this feels star-worthy to me, as well as much of the reason that this was difficult at all to us, was completely inapplicable to the actual solvers. The fact that we were able to get a star on an MIT-related puzzle is kind of boggling.
The fact that we've always assumed that Your Wish is My Command was an extremely difficult puzzle for the teams definitely doesn't help my perception here.

Valentine's Day-Arbor Day Meta

Finally, more puzzles!
While I'm embarrassed that this took so long, we were also very unlucky with regards to this meta.
First, when we had 11 solves in Arbor Day, we only had two answers (OBLIVIATE and SUPER JUICE) going back here. The next three solves gave us two more, but we'd already made a lot of incorrect assumptions about this by that point.
We also had tried to solve this in a lot of obviously wrong ways. We tried coupling the names with answers that were the same length while using the Common Flavors tactic to get two letters out of them. I forget what exactly my methodology was, but the next idea we had required LUGIA to be coupled with OWEN TEALE.
Then, we realized that wasn't right at all! We could pull words for love out of a lot of answers. BOXERS obviously was there to make "sex". MICROWAVE had "amore", and OBLIVIATE had "love" itself. POLESTAR (among others) had "eros". Meanwhile, RANSOM OLDS also had some "amor", and ALBERT EINSTEIN was a plant for "liebe". SUPER JUICE also was also about "pursue"-ing someone. The flavor text definitely was about finding which countries these things came from.
We also tried to stuff the numerical answers in here, but that obviously didn't work. At one point, we even tried to take all of the answers that started with an F and put them in here because there were so many of them. ("I don't see that word for "love" in any of these." - Syntax) We also thought that we were supposed to "add" (caesar shift) the initials of our people by the initials of some other things, because those heart carvings always seemed to have a plus sign between the pairs of initials.
SUPER JUICE containing SPRUCE and UJ feels incredibly obvious in hindsight, especially since we were already thinking about the initials mattering. That being said, it still feels weird that we still are missing two answers that have a lot of information for this meta.

True and False²

Since Syntax solved this before we even started our hunt, I decided to put off writing about this until we actually unlocked it. That being said, this wasn't really a complicated puzzle for him, and there isn't a lot for us to write about.
One notable thing is that he only solved the grid for the word "right", which unfortunately was not right. He guessed from the name that there was supposed to be another way to solve this for a different five-letter word, which instantly gave him the correct answer of RIGHT ANGLE. Sometimes, you can skip a lot of steps once you know the gimmick behind these.

Tree Ring Circus

This was another really fast solve-- we looked at this because it definitely would be taking research into a technical topic. Apparently, it was just about finger ring sizes. Very technical.
There aren't many puzzles at all that have been about several unrelated topics like this, but we did enjoy the menagerie of half-and-half creatures we got at the end.
Just like G&S didn't give us a famous person as an answer line, we also are kind of sad that this doesn't feed Arbor Day. For once, we think we know what the meta going back is about, and we have a lot of relevant answers.

He's Out!!

Ah, good old caressing out an answer line. Galactic didn't have us doing much of that, and I've kind of missed learning a ton about something random.
I've started to tackle sports puzzles early. This is because they'll probably take us a bunch of time, but they're usually designed to be possible for people with no sports knowledge. I don't think I've actually been stuck on what the next step in a sports puzzle should be. (Again, a good thing.)
While I knew that position players throwing pitches was both possible and rare in baseball, I'm surprised that there have been so many pro players that have only struck out one other person. It was often hard to find who they struck out, too, even if we had articles about the games where it happened. (For example, any article I found about the game where Desi Relaford pitched was primarily about how awful the Mets' normal pitcher was.) Even so, this was a good design for something that's naturally very research-intensive.

Ore Aft

I forgot that simple and fun pop culture puzzles could exist. We've had so many difficult puzzles open for so long that it's almost foreign for us to find something comprehensible about popular movies. Coming off the tail end of another hunt where all we had remaining was difficult puzzles made this feel even more comforting.
That being said, this solve was fast. We had about half of the movies in the grid when we got the answer, and we only had the M and the K from the middle row. A lot of this puzzle was just blindly guessing movie series with a ton of sequels to see if they were on here-- a process that was more-or-less obligatory to solve the columns or get the answer.
I do have to say, though, it's really good to see that you preferred to use extremely well-known series in the extraction step. This was a concept where if the columns weren't dead obvious, then they would be near-impossible for a lot of teams. I think that erring toward this being an easier puzzle was the correct choice.

Hearing Test

Syntax is really happy that he got a technical puzzle that was exactly in his field of knowledge. We both just waited from the time that we unlocked this for him to go to the lab and find the magnitude of some Fourier transforms. While the Fourier part wasn't strictly required, it was by far the easiest fouriest way for either of us to accomplish this since he already had the software set up to do it.
Even though the process was super obvious to him, and I was already on the right track of what to do without talking to him, I'd imagine that this could be extremely difficult for some teams. This is something where if you don't know exactly what to do within the first 15 minutes, then you're kind of screwed.

Puzzle-Specific Notes (The Unsolved Ones)

Your Wish Is My Command

I'm very, very shocked that I was given the Thanksgiving star before I could come back and talk about this one.
There are two possibilities here. Either I've been ignoring something obvious about the puzzle, or this has the four-letter answer that everyone backsolved from the New Year's meta.
This has been interesting, but it's also been cruel enough to us that I've just assumed it was really hard. While I did look at this earlier today, I'm going to have to look again.

Jukebox Hero

"There can't be any easy puzzles from earlier rounds that are still open any more, right?" - me
The fates must have a sense of humor, because I heard the first few bars of the namesake Foreigner song blaring from the basement right as my question ended. I only am reminded of my father's Foreigner cover band at the most ironic of times.

The Treehouse of Crossed Destinies

I'm surprised that this is the lone survivor. It was fairly obvious that this fed the Halloween meta, and it's been an interesting design about some unusual topics.
That being said, we still don't know much about what the extraction step is, and our work has been a lot of trial-and-error since the last time I've talked about Treehouse.
I've personally been reminded of the Simpsons episode called "Marge Vs. The Monorail" a few times on this, and "monorail" has become almost as problematic of a guess as "Caroline" was for Just Desserts. It would be perfect for this, too-- we still need an M entry in the grid; just not one with two O's.

I AM GROOT

This may be the first time that I've been given the "a-ha" by someone that knew that they could potentially provide an answer to a puzzle.
I've spread the word about "solving eight instances of I AM GROOT, plus another one for the title, and one more for the flavor text" far and wide. Most people think that "I AM GROOT" is the answer. The 1-5-2 split of Groots really don't help. A few people have snarkily guessed "WE ARE GROOT". The most clever ideas that I'd gotten were about translating the Groots and mapping these quotes to actual scenes. I'd been planning to marathon-watch every movie featuring Groot at some point, but that's kind of hard when I don't have a streaming service.
I have a close friend in my Gloomhaven campaign-- let's call her Celeste-- that's always been a really efficient thinker. She's been quite busy lately, and isn't all that interested in puzzlehunts; that being said, it's been kind of difficult to escape puzzle-talk when two of four players on our campaign have been engaged in a massive puzzle-solving project for nearly two months.
The key thing here is that Celeste got sick last week, and decided to watch some movies to pass the time. Of course, one of them was Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and she happened to let the credits roll at the end. She instantly figured out that the names changing into Groots was the thing we needed (and also the reason why there's so much vertical space on the page), and was excited that she might have inadvertently solved a really hard puzzle. She can take a star for this, even if we don't, because she's so far the only person that's unstuck us anywhere on our journey.
That being said, it's easy to see why I wasn't finding the right clips of the movie. Seemingly nobody has actually uploaded videos of the credits scrolling at a normal speed. I've finally identified the names, but I'm still not sure about extraction.
One thing that I will say: the X-values of the names are definitely wrong. I've tried to use that to extract an answer from a couple of screenshots, but anything I've done hasn't given any obvious answer yet. The Y-values also might be wrong, but I feel like that's ambiguous to the point where I'd complain about this being an unfair puzzle.

Running For Office

As it's become incredibly clear that the information for this just isn't out there, we'll probably relax how much I can ask from random people on the Internet at some point.
The line for how much photo identification of MIT is possible to do remotely: more than "what building is this in", but way less than "please read this sign".

Safety Training

"Something's up with Safety Training, and I'm afraid." - Syntax
We found the names from the Gashlycrumb Tinies, added the lengths of the second and third members of the trios, and indexed into the lyrics to Dumb Ways to Die. This gave us a lot of double letters, but we still haven't found any relevance. The fact that you can make the word "killer" for the remaining way to die from it all makes it even more confusing.
It's worrying me that we can dance so much around the right thing to do without actually doing it. This might be the star just because the expectations don't agree with people's instincts.

American Icons

"Why do you just know that's Grace Hopper without seeing the enumeration?" - Syntax
As a whole, Pi Day probably could send our old printer into cardiac arrest.
This feels really different, in a good way, though. It's kind of weird to me how this doesn't seem to fit a defined category of puzzle, and it's clearly about a different topic than anything we've seen.

Compass and Straightedge

Oh, joy. Another MIT puzzle, maybe even a star.
You can probably start playing "how much extra time will this take Songchild to blog about his solve compared to an actual MIT student" in the background. Judging by how difficult Cross Campus was, it could be anywhere between "Chesh, you're actually faster" and "we've only passed through a few more eras of geologic time".

Gone Guys

This is the only thing in this round that I've attempted and not yet finished.
Identifying that this was about the G1 Climax was easy. Figuring out the logic grids is fun, but it's taking me a lot of time. I'm probably going to work little bits on this until it's done.
Just kidding, the floodgates of understanding have opened, and we very much need a 14-letter answer from somewhere to fit the meta going back to Arbor Day. In fact, we need the 14-letter answer more than anything else we're missing. I'll probably spend a few hours finishing this up tomorrow.

Playing A Round

The singing talent on these puzzles is kind of crazy.
We're really confused about what this round could possibly be about, but it'll probably fall fast as soon as we find out.

Polyphony

There hasn't been an obvious candidate for "hardest puzzle in Pi Day" yet, but we both agreed that the process of mapping music notes to coordinates in several dimensions seemed like it could definitely fit the bill. After fidgeting a little bit with it, I'm still not sure how to interact with this one at all. Syntax has so far been treating this like it's an active carrier for the bubonic plague.

Final Notes

You've answered all of my questions, thank you! Just to give a recap for myself and Syntax:

• Were the graphics on Sage Advice ever updated, or was the errata just removed from the page when all of the other errata were cleaned? Typically, the errata were actually corrected on the page, and seeing that there were errata wasn't necessary, but this might be a special case.

Sage Advice is fully solvable in its current form now. The graphics have been updated.

• We used solvent on LUGIA and MANDATORY SENTENCING and learned that neither of them went to Valentine's Day. Do we know more about either of them?

Lugia is used in the Pi Day meta. Mandatory Sentencing is still a mystery.

• I asked about the Halloween solving statistics when we got down to one puzzle remaining, and it was interesting to see which puzzles were supposed to be the hard ones. Does anyone here have the stats for Christmas or Valentine's Day?

The one remaining puzzle (Treehouse) is a little harder than average. We're apparently pretty decent at gauging the difficulty of most things that don't have stars.
Thank you for reading. We're hoping to push out Holi and Bloomsday by next week, so stay tuned!

Scoreboard

Christmas: 6/6, ⭐ (Nobel Laureate)
Halloween: 17/17, ⭐ (Starbucks Lover), proven anomaly (A Killer Party)
Thanksgiving: 14/16 (missing Jukebox Hero and Your Wish is My Command), ⭐️ (Cross Campus)
Valentine's Day: 16/17 (missing The Treehouse of Crossed Destinies), ⭐ (Caressing)
President's Day: 9/12 (missing Running For Office, Safety Training, and State Machine)
New Year's: 10/13 (missing Art Tours and First You Visit Burkina Faso; we also have not submitted anything for Taskmaster yet), ⭐ (Display Case)
Arbor Day: 14/18 (missing Delightful, Flocks, I AM GROOT, and Touring the Nation)
Pi Day: 5/18 (solved Hearing Test, He's Out!!, Ore Aft, Tree Ring Circus, and True And False²)
Path metas: 4/14 (CH-HA, HA-TH, HA-VA, VA-AR)
Other: 1/??? (Reg Day)