Just started Jedi Fallen Order today.  Having trouble working out the combat.  It feels different from everything else I've ever played, and I'm still trying to adapt to it.

The 'Good Omens' adaptation on Prime Video was amazing. I am one of the myriad of people who read their copy of the book to pieces, and the series did everything that I hoped it would do and then some. 

I have a massive stack of board games over there -points vaguely- that I'm trying to convince people to play.  The one that I have sitting over there that I really want to try is Tokaido.

When I was in college, we had a regular gaming group who would play things like Axis and Allies, Munchkin, Settlers of Catan, and Dominion, as well as classics like Monopoly and Risk.  Our Munchkin games had several house rules that were specifically targeted at me because I was a complete and utter b***ard whenever I managed to draw the Thief class card.  Turns out that you can continually rob people as long as you have a card to discard, and once you reach level 1 from failing your thievery attempts there is nothing that can happen to you.  My friend added a house rule that if you failed a thievery attempt at level 1, you were out of the game.  Considering that he was looking directly at me the entire time, I'm pretty sure that it was addressed at me specifically.  I spent a few games sitting out because of it, but nobody could deny that it made the games far more entertaining.  In that respect, I think the rule was incredibly successful.

Axis and Allies and Risk were played with various hats.  Due to my fixation on the color red, I always wore a Soviet-era military cap when playing Risk.  (For the record, 'never start a land war in Asia' is amazing advice when playing Risk.  Use Asia as a path towards North America or Europe unless you can Zerg rush an entire continent.  [This is possible if you manage to conquer Australia right away.]).  I don't know if it's because I tended to be an unhinged and unpredictable maniac that I ended up with Nazi Germany in Axis and Allies, but there was a hat for that, too.

(Don't read too much into the hats.  There was also a Half-Life head crab that I wore most of the time because reasons.)

For the Dominion people out there, remember this pain: "Draw a card, play a card, draw a card, play a card, draw a card, play a card, draw a card, play a card, draw a card, play a card, draw a card, play a card, draw a card" ad nauseum.

@Cass No edits needed.  Pahl has always occupied a part of my head that I don't often encounter, so he's sometimes just hard to write.  I love the character too much to leave him alone, but he's easily my most difficult character.

This is a live show that I keep going back to recently. 

What is it with you people and nailing feet to floors?



A nail is a single point.  Use staples instead.  They don't pull through flesh as easily.

-points over there- I have a response to the Thunderous Return post in process over there, but I'm having trouble getting into Pahl's headspace again.

Is she encountered in the first seven books?

Brad Williams.

The words had barely left Arlynn's mouth before she realized that they were the wrong words.  The world still did not make any sense.  She felt queasy, the room was spinning around her, and her answer had come from a place that was not connected to her training.  Sluggishly, she cursed her addled mind, though even that lacked any strength.  Great Lord, but the man was strong.  Still...

It took an effort that would have moved mountains, but Arlynn pulled her mind into the present an gave Deathwatch a dazed smile.  "You won't escape, big man," she stuttered, the effort of making words adding to her dizziness.  "We will... always be there.  Waiting."  There was a lead weight settling into her body, a slight coldness creeping through her veins.  It was working.  "You can't stop... the ine... vitable."

There was a moment, an odd moment where the big man's face went empty, as if he was considering something.  It passed quickly, and it was replaced with a coldness that seemed to creep from his grasp around her wrist and throat and into her body.  Slowly, he lowered her from the ceiling, but still held her above the floor.  He held her gaze for a moment, the coldness radiating from him like a bizarre oven.  Then the look changed to something worse.  Deathwatch smiled, and the grip on her throat released completely.  Arlynn dropped from where she was held against the wall, only to bounce against the iron grip held against her wrist.

Her broken wrist.

Agony coursed its way up her arm and exploded in her head like an Illuminator's display.  Deathwatch didn't even react.  "You are a Darkfriend," he said in a voice empty of anything human.  "You probably have allies watching for your return.  By now, they know that you failed.  However..."  During the pause, the coldness in human form lifted on her broken wrist, dragging even more pain out of the limb.  "However, you cannot afford to scream, can you?"

Discipline kept Arlynn silent, but a growing terror pressed down the creeping coldness that was the poison coursing through her body.  "If you scream," Deathwatch continued, his voice still empty of emotion, "you risk drawing attention to yourself, a woman dressed in grays, blacks, and browns meant to hide you from prying eyes."  Her eyes crept up, finding the face of the grave itself staring back at her.  "Anybody who found you would know you for what you are, and your friends who are waiting for you cannot call the alarm, either.  Finding the body of an assassin would bring... unwelcome questions."  As if to prove his point, Deathwatch quickly jerked up on her arm, on the broken wrist.  Another wave of pain coursed down her arm, but she kept her jaw clenched around the scream.  The barest moan was all that escaped her mouth.

Deathwatch smiled icily.  "More, your friends can't say anything to the watch, either.  Doing so would bring too much attention to themselves."  The big man turned suddenly, causing her body to swing back and forth on the broken bones of her wrist.  There was no hiding the intense pain that crossed her face, pain stronger than anything that the poison could overpower.  Deathwatch's free hand reached to the window, and with a pull that caused Arlynn to swing even more from her broken wrist, he pulled the wires away from the catches.  It took him no effort to push the window open.

Arlynn had enough time to realize what was about to happen before Deathwatch shoved her out the window, leaving her dangling three stories above the street by her broken wrist.  "You can't scream," he- no, not he, it- said.  "Your allies can't raise an alarm."  Slowly, he began to swing her by the hand.  In a moment of numb disbelief, Arlynn looked up at her arm, at the point where she was swinging.  A point that was well below her wrist.  It didn't take long for the grinding, stabbing pain to burst in her skull, dragging a keening wail from her.  A wail that she kept clenched tight behind a locked jaw.

The smile that suddenly turned darkly jubilant told Arlynn all that she needed to know.

The rocking only grew it speed and strength, and it was all that Arlynn could do to not scream as bone ground against bone, tore apart muscle and tendon and vein.  She was certain that she could feel her arm stretching out, straining without the structure that should have held it together.  The numbness from the poison was not even noticeable against the grinding, stabbing pain...

And then, at the top of a swing, the iron grip around her wrist released, and Arlynn felt herself flying through the air and down the alley.  Her body was turning, and the pain eased enough for her to focus on the cobblestone that made up the ground.  She had enough time to admire the precision that Deathwatch had used in throwing her before her life ended in a sickening, wet crunch as her skull cracked against the cobbles.

***

Mehrin made sure to smile as coldly and madly as he could down both directions in the alley before he pulled himself back into the room and closed the window and curtains behind him.

Then he collapsed back into the chair, fighting the overpowering need to vomit.

He was not a cruel man.  He did not enjoy causing pain and suffering.  He did not live to bring misery to the world.  But he was a tactician, a strategist, and he knew how to use an advantage that was given to him.

He nearly lost the fight again.

There were hot tears coursing down his face, his breath was coming in gasping sobs.  Even so, the rational part of his mind was telling him that he had done the right thing.  Mehrin Deathwatch had a reputation for violence, for bringing pain and suffering.  If he could make the Darkfriends behind this attack afraid of bringing the Deathwatch down on them, maybe he could eliminate an opponent from a stones board that was becoming increasingly complicated.  The fact that the voice was right did nothing to help.

He was a killer.  He caused pain and death.  But he had never done anything to make it worse.  He had never stepped on a dying man's throat to watch him suffocate, even though he knew several who had.  He had never stabbed more than he had to stab to kill a man.  He had never burned a man to hear him scream, even if he knew others who had.  He killed to survive, and he did not make people suffer, even if they deserved to suffer.

Belatedly, Mehrin became aware that he had an audience.  "I-" he started before another sob stopped him.  Calm, deep breaths.  It's done now.  Nothing to do but move on.  The thought did nothing to calm him.   Another deep breath.

Another.

"Ayrik is back," he managed after a time.  "At least we know who we're dealing with."  His voice was raw, his throat tight.  You would make a horrible Questioner, he thought, trying to ease his tension.  "Go-"  Mehrin cleared his throat.  "Go back to sleep.  I need to think, and the Darkfriends won't dare make a move against us tonight. "

BotRH:

Pahl Ebersol, Corporal- Special Projects

Status: just blew up the mess hall, still tweaking his next post for that

I'm not particularly interested in training Pahl up for WS.  However, I would love to get some interaction-type RPs going.

Is she encountered in T'A'R?

Shot in the dark:

Is she the random serving woman who dreamed herself into T'A'R as the Amyrlin Seat?

Was she met in Ebou Dar?

Is she part of the traveling menagerie?

Is she one of the Sea Folk?

Does she associate primarily with the female lead characters? 

Does she appear in one of the Sanderson books?

Does she only appear once?

Snake.  No question.

Hair on fire or bamboo under fingernails?

Also, thank you.

I'm just here for the beer.  And the Steam bribe.

But mostly for the beer.

(I'm in.)

Watching the play of thoughts and emotions that crossed Eb's entire body- the tension, the uncomfortable nature of the question to her, the play of her thoughts as she forced herself to focus on the question- was almost as intriguing as it was terrifying.  In brief flashes, Mehrin saw moments of vulnerability, something that he had never seen before in her.  Did I go too far?  She had trust issues; Mehrin had known that for quite some time.  Still, seeing it play out in such a way was more than he had expected.  After an interminable period, she finally managed to pull herself together enough to say, "More than most."  The blunt delivery was belied by the tension that was still evident in her stance.

Mehrin chose to barely acknowledge the response.  "I'll take it," he said.  "I've reinforced the window, and I'll make sure that the door does not move.  However, one of us needs to sleep.  We can't keep on with the half-awake watches that we've been doing.  So, here's what you're going to do: sleep."  The shocked reaction was everything that Mehrin had expected.  Raising a hand to forestall any response, he continued, "Get rested.  I'll wake you in six hours, and we'll switch.  Hopefully our stalkers will let us rest through the night."  A smile, both cold and mischievous, crept onto Mehrin's face.  "If they don't, though, here's what is going to happen..."

As Mehrin explained the plan, a similar look slowly worked its way onto Eb's face, as well.

***

It had been five hours since they had put out the candles in the room, and Eb was asleep.  Through half-lidded eyes, Mehrin once again checked the defenses that had been laid out.  Every obvious approach had been accounted for.  Still, the tension was there, the knowledge that something was coming.  Mehrin had learned to trust that tension, the fight-or-flight instinct that most people ignored.  He had always assumed that it was a part of the mind that made connections that the conscious mind could not make, and trusting it had saved his life on several occasions.

But why do you bother?  Mehrin had not allowed himself to ask that question for quite some time.  The same instinct that had him sitting awake tonight was prodding that question with all the insistence of a spear in the belly.  Some part of him wanted to live, yes, but the cold light of reason saw that a part of him had been courting death for quite some time.  Time and time again he had thrown himself into impossible situations, and time and time again he had escaped nearly unscathed.

The cold light of reason also played through many of the events: facing down twenty Seanchan in Tanchico.  Sheer audacity and incompetence from the Seanchan had saved him there.  Incompetence had also saved him in the village with Stromblade.  The first assault had been on horseback, but experience and incompetence had saved him there.  Rowul himself had been laughable compared to that.  The journey back to the Borderlands from Cairhien, an ambush by highwaymen.  He had spotted the scout, and he had prepared for it.  He had ended up cut and bruised, but the guards had prevailed.  However, etched into his mind was the face of a young boy, terrified as a man held a blade to his throat, then horrified as Mehrin reached out with his whip and plucked an eye from the man's head in a move as practiced as if he had done it with his fingers.  Instinct, skill, planning, and improvisation had saved him many times, but his decisions had put him in those life-and-death situations every time.  Was he choosing to die, or choosing to live?

The question was tied to another one.  Mehrin's half-hooded eyes moved from the window to the woman in the bed.  For the first time that he had ever seen, Eb was asleep.  Not the restless half-sleep that was so common for a soldier, but truly asleep.  There was no tossing and turning, no mumbling.  The scowl that was such a permanent part of her was smoothed away, leaving what looked like a completely different person, striking in a way that was all her own.  It was her doing that Mehrin was asking these questions.  She was the one who was making him wonder whether he was fighting to live or trying to die.

Mehrin was uncomfortably aware that there was something else there.  Every duel, every argument, every conversation, there was something off.  A strange intensity, an odd look.  Sometimes it seemed to Mehrin that there was more that was not being said or shown than was obvious.    Something was happening there, under the surface.  As he sat watching Eb through half-closed eyes, Mehrin wondered what went through her head whenever they planned, argued, fought...

Mehrin's eyes slowly closed, his head settling onto his chest.  His breathing slowed.  A quiet thought, quickly silenced, felt as if he was betraying the sleeping form across the room...

***

Arlynn had never seen such dedication in a man to stay awake.  She had lain completely still on the roof, a strange device consisting of two mirrors in a wooden tube held barely past the upper edge of the window.  For hours she had watched the big man in the chair.  His eyes had grown heavier over the course of the night, his breathing deeper.  Finally, after so many hours of silence, the big man was asleep.

During the intervening hours, Arlynn had examined the room.  She had immediately noticed the wedges in the door.  There was no way that she could have come in through there.  The window itself had proven tempting, but there were two small cords, possibly stiff wires, reinforcing the lock there.  Most assassins would have stopped there.

Arlynn was not most assassins.

Arlynn had planned for this possibility.  The window and door were impassible, but the roof...  There was only one thatcher in Whitebridge, and when word had been brought to her that Mehrin Deathwatch had taken a room on the top floor of an inn with a thatched roof, she had begun to prepare.  Arlynn had tested several roofs in Whitebridge.  It was fair to say that Whitebridge's thatcher was a master of their craft, but they used the same basic technique on every roof, and hours of careful testing had given Arlynn the key that she needed to enter the room.

Pulling the spy tube up above the window and onto the roof, Arlynn slowly slithered her way back up towards the peak of the roof, her hands slowly feeling along the rough thatching until- Yes, that's it!  Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Arlynn's fingers worked their way through the woven mass that was the thatched roof of the inn.  Minutes passed like hours, but Arlynn was patient.  Eventually, her patience paid off.  A small section of the roof lifted up with barely a rustle, and Arlynn slipped her tiny form through the narrow gap and dropped soundlessly into the room.

Instantly, Arlynn's eyes focused on the big man in the chair.  Arms crossed, chin on his chest, deep breaths.  Nothing to worry about there.  Her eyes turned towards the woman in the bed.  She was also dead to the world.  Perfect.  From the small of her back, Arlynn drew a small, narrow dagger, its edge coated with a fast poison.  One small nick, and the big man would be relegated to the past tense.

One step, and Arlynn froze.  The big man's head moved slowly upward, his eyes locking on her.  No, his eyes were still closed.  His arms, though, settled onto the small table in front of him.  Eyes still closed, Mehrin Deathwatch smiled a cold smile and said, "Hello."  Before she could react, a hand flicked out precisely... and opened the covers of a shuttered lantern.

Light flared in the room, and Arlynn's arm flew up by reflex, her eyes burning in the sudden light.  She had just enough time to realize that she was in trouble before a hand closed around her entire neck and squeezed tighter than should have been possible.  Instinct tried to drive the dagger in her hand into the unseen force that had seized hold of her, but a hand as hard as iron had wrapped itself around her wrist and twisted.  There was a grinding crunch, and Arlynn had barely enough time to realize that her wrist had been broken before her head bounced off a wall hard enough that sparks flashed behind her eyes.  She had no chance to recover.  The hand around her neck had only closed tighter, and the sparks had barely faded before she felt her head bounce off the wall a second time, a third, a fourth.

Arlynn was surprised that her head had not bounced a fifth time.  Agonizingly, her eyes crept open, and she found herself looking down into the dark eyes of death itself.  There was no expression on the big man's face, only an emptiness that spoke of coming oblivion.  In that moment, Arlynn knew that she was not going to leave that room alive.  "You awake yet, Eb?" Deathwatch said in a voice as cold as midwinter.  "We have a guest."  The tone drove a spike of fear through her chest, and her only working hand palmed a needle out of her sleeve.  A quick jab, and-

Another hand closed around her good wrist, stopping her from doing anything more than nicking her own hand.  At least I didn't fail there, she thought as the spike-haired woman stepped into her sight.

Mehrin's nonchalant attitude lasted until the door closed behind Eb as she made her way downstairs. The click of the handle slipping into place made him slump in his chair like a puppet with cut strings, all the tension that he had been hiding suddenly appearing on his face. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Somebody- maybe one person, maybe more- was moving against them in Whitebridge, and he could not see why! Even if somebody had managed to trace Eb and him to the river, there were countless places where they could have put off. The fact that somebody was waiting for them in Whitebridge spoke of somebody with knowledge of their movements. Somebody knew where they were, and that information was being fed to others. The name 'Ayrik' came to Mehrin's mind immediately, but he set it aside just as quickly. It was not unreasonable to believe that his personal tormentor had returned, but focusing on one person would leave him blind to other possible explanations. The simple fact was that identifying and neutralizing the source of information was a long-term goal. The short-term goal was survival.

With a goal in mind, the next step was figuring out exactly how they were going to survive. Traveling with Eb provided some advantages. There would always be somebody looking out for him. By now, Mehrin knew that if somebody was going to stab him with Eb around, it was probably going to be her doing the stabbing. The problem was that even veterans needed to rest from time to time. Mehrin could still feel the ground moving underneath him, a relic of their time on the Firefly. Eb was probably feeling something similar. Like it or not, they had to stay put tonight. They would have to set a watch, and Mehrin had the feeling that it would be decided by a coin flip or something equally arbitrary.

There was also no hiding the tension from Eb, not in the long term. Mehrin knew that she was just as aware of their uncomfortable situation as he was. His refusal to acknowledge the situation before sending her off to eavesdrop in the common area was not because he didn't trust her; he was hoping to leave her impressions untainted by the idea that things were about to go horribly, horribly wrong.

Again, Mehrin looked around the room. Small, only two visible entry points: the window and the door. Rigging both the window and door with some of the little tricks in his sack would prevent them from admitting anybody uninvited. Glancing up, Mehrin checked the ceiling. They were underneath the peak of the roof, and the thatch looked to be in good condition. Probably just changed. A thought crossed the back of his mind, bringing a small smile to his face that vanished as soon as it appeared.

The smile reappeared again as Mehrin started digging around in his travel sack for a couple of his tricks.

By the time he heard Eb cursing her way back up the outside stairs, Mehrin had rigged the window with two wires to reinforce the lock, as well as a razor snare on the floor under the window. The door would be wedged shut on top and bottom in addition to the lock. He had just lit his shuttered lamp and sat down when he heard, “Mehrin-flaming-Marvohn, you wool-headed, soot-dusted idiot!” Very shortly after, Eb kicked in the door. “You could've bloody-well helped- we're here because of you, after all! Just because you're flaming famous!” That... doesn't sound good, Mehrin thought as Eb threw the two trays of food onto the small table in the corner of the room. Even as she was throwing the trays, the diatribe continued. “No, really, you are. Destroyed an entire troupe of Whitecloaks single-handedly, because you were on the road.” It took a moment for the sheer stupidity of what she had told Mehrin to sink in, though he had no time to comment. She was in true form this evening, it seemed. “Which might've explained why they were looking for you- if it hadn't happened after they took you prisoner.”

Mehrin had his face in his hand before Eb had finished her ranting. It apparently wasn't enough that he was becoming a household name. Now he couldn't even get captured and nearly bloody killed without turning into a flaming hero! Bitterly, he wondered what he could do to make Eb the hero of that story. Not only was that the truth, but maybe she would stop being so bloody angry if she could get a taste of just how outrageous the whole situation was becoming. Defeating an entire troupe of Whitecloaks on his own? A string of profanities that would have shocked Eb roared through Mehrin's mind. Now they would never let him be.

Even through his frustration, Eb's next words were like a bucket of icy water. “Oh, and yes, we've been followed. Two men, at least.” Even as she described the two and continued her thoughts, Mehrin was running through scenarios. Somebody was going to make a hit on them tonight. They had them located and relatively secluded. Not doing anything would be foolish on their part. Mehrin's eyes jumped through everything that he had prepared for this very possibility. He could see nothing more that would prepare them for the inevitable. Even as he came to the conclusion, Eb asked the question as a single word: “Plan?”

Mehrin didn't answer immediately, instead pulling one of the plates of food towards himself and settling into the business of putting something in his belly. Even so, he was considering the next move. He had a plan, but did he risk telling it to her? Part of the plan required her to do something that he was uncertain that she could do if informed, but... Mehrin swallowed the mouthful of potato that he had been chewing and looked up across the room at the woman who had risked everything to pull him out of the middle of a flaming Whitecloak camp. He thought he knew his answer to the same question, but he needed to know hers. Likewise, he thought he knew how she would react to him and his question.

Still, the only way this would work...

A look of deadly seriousness settled over Mehrin's expression as he locked eyes with Eb from the chair where he was seated. “Before I tell you everything, I need to ask you this. I need to ask you this because your part in the plan is going to go against your every instinct.

“Eb... do you trust me?”

Lovecraftian