Category Archives: Stories

May 31, 2023 · 07:42

The Gimmick

Every game needs to have one and during the night I contemplated how much more important it is to have one when you are replaying a game. This was all set in motion when I was replaying an RPG (which one does not matter), as such to enjoy replayability the game is either massive or (I will say AND) it needs a gimmick. Not something that the game has, but a gimmick it can hand to you to make it yours. You see, we all have these recollections whilst playing a game and we sometimes make notes. Yet what happens when the game is intelligent enough to make YOU a notebook whilst in the game? Your journey is set to paper every time you play that game again? Not just text, but drawn illustrations of what YOU saw in the game? One drawing that is added with every day of playing and that text can be saved to a USB in PDF form? Literally no RPG game has this and you can print it at home, n a much better printer in the office or at university or something like that. The font will be some version of Dancing script, Caveat or Pacifico and that too changes every time you replay the game, with make and female versions, small changes that make it unique. As such you and your neighbour would get two very different versions of their notebook. A story that is a journal and is added to the game as you play with you deciding how social you want to be with that journey. No game has it and if Microsoft  or one of its houses copy this idea, you will see what a losers they are (internal LOL added). 

My main thought is why no one considered this. It isn’t a hard thought to have and I feel certain I am not the first to think it, but no one added this to their game (not in all the RPG games I ever played). So is this a fluke and the idea is bad? Consider all the notes you make on games you play. Now you have a journal that keeps track on your progress, and in the game I designed here (title: Generations) that step makes more sense. The added evolution your as a gamer face in the game would benefit even more. As such the next generation (in the game) would start book 2 and you create a chronicle. Even more when we add mapping to the equation. No matter how you see it, one gimmick is nice but not enough. So where is gimmick number two? Well, I have to sleep on that one, but if my mind can evolve one gimmick, it can do so again and as I evolve this game and leave it for designers and programmers to make a new unique RPG for Sony Playstation/Amazon Luna/Logitech G Cloud and optionally Nintendo Switch. Microsoft will then have a new problem. It also supports my setting with Microsoft getting the Wooden spoon for being dead last. Even though I though it would finish behind the Google Stadia, now we have Tencent in the mix and that could spell more disaster for Microsoft. There is nothing like a console and a game pass (which is a good product) to be left on the road as the others have no need for it. For that you need GOOD exclusive games and over the last few years Microsoft didn’t add any and Redfall is apparently seen by a lot (I never played it) as wasted hard-drive space, which would equally apply to cloud space.

I just had another idea, but more about that hopefully tomorrow. I need to mull a few things over for that. You see, I wrote about part of it (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/25/the-stage-of-commerce/) when I wrote ‘The stage of commerce’, but what happens when we have a select group of NPC that we can evolve? We could apply it to all, but the game would become too messy. What if some NPC’s become cogs in the commerce machine? What happens when we enable them to be more by OUR actions? Not just a shop having more cash, but some NPC’s that become more powerful as we enable them to get education or skills? We would enable a larger dynamic in the game. How? That is the part I am mulling over at present. Schooling and buying business (or upgrading it) is merely one side and I think more could be done. Yet the how is in my mind at present. I feel pretty proud. I added several sides to RPG gaming that do not exist at present, as such the new developer could really come to the game with a massive bat to wield. A good stage to be in I believe, but that is what every innovator believes, the believe that self will prevail, I am in that regard no exception. We all have a similar stage to see this.

Enjoy the day (it is almost the middle of the week).

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April 27, 2023 · 01:51

Blocked or deserted?

That is where I felt I am. I have been bending over backwards to get season 4 of Kenos Diastima started or moving. In part is was a new cast to set in motion, in part it is the setting to connect throughout the story two very different parts, but I always go back to the foundation. The end of season 3 was an open ending. I reckon it would be the ending people like Terry Gilliam would reflect on with ‘Nice!’ And in his case nice would be a huge compliment. Still, I tried and I am coming up short. So I was retracing my steps. I avoided the first script, because that is locked at present, things need to happen before I continue. The second script is where I got to and stayed at. The script ‘How to assassinate a politician’ was my answer to certain people offending Islam. So I am putting it here, so that someone at Al Saudiya could do something with it. 

Prologue
In Dammam a man and a woman are sitting in front of the TV. It gives them the news and that a Dutch Politician named Geert Wilders is revived a Prophet Mohammad cartoon competition, both are angry and outraged on the insult to Islam and they talk about it for some time. She is the teacher at the Girls First High School in Dammam, whilst he is a teacher at the Boys Education College. It is the net morning that they have decided to hold a writing competition. They both asked if the news was seen and that starts the essay of the day. In English they have to write an essay on how to punish such an insult to Islam and the students are told that they will be competing against the other school and the two best essays go into the finals. The children start writing.

We hear narrations of children’s voices with parts of their essay. 

The winners are announced at the end of the day and both winners will get personal speech training from their teachers, so that they can present the story as good as possible. The winners are Ibrahim and Saad for the boys, for the girls they are Ayasha and Nura.

Story One, Ibrahim
The mans walks through the street of the Netherlands (set in Amsterdam), he sees the people walk, the cars ride and long boats in the canal. He looks at the street signs and the trees, he is not used to trees and he admires them for a moment. He looks like a prince like the prince in Aladdin with a face like a young Sylvester Stallone, with a large moustache. He walks through the street and sees Geert Wilders. He pulls out a machine gun (like in First blood) and he shots the street, the cars and Geert Wilders. Then with his blinking red eye he looks at the street and it states (0 faithful hurt, from Terminator 2). He walks over to the body of Geert Wilders and states, thou shalt not insult islam infidel. He then walks away, and as he walks away his weapon vanishes, as does his outfit, he suddenly no longer looks like Aladdin, now he looks like Ibrahim and Ibrahim walks straight over to a Turkish kebab shop. He orders a kebab whilst he sees policeman running all over the street looking for a man who no longer exists.

Story Two, Ayasha
We see the view from a person’s point of view, we think it is Ayasha, but we cannot tell. The person walks the streets of Amsterdam, we see him turn right into a smaller street and we watch as Geert Wilders walks out of a door. The person walks and wherever he steps we see grass grow, we see flowers erupt and the chirping of birds. We see Geert Wilders take a long look at what approaches him and he falls to his knees in tears. We hear him state “Forgive me” and the light increases and his head explodes. The person is suddenly gone and whilst policemen are blocking the streets, the people see a street covered in grass and flowers and one person with an exploding head, no one can tell who he was.

Story Three, Saad.
This starts somewhere in Egypt. Saad is watching a pyramid and makes calculations. He measures every part of his journey and at some point he starts digging. He digs for hours and then he stops. He has found a crate. He opens a crate and he finds an ancient oil lamp. He cleans it with alcohol and as he cleans it, the writing becomes clear. The text issues a warning. “Here is imprisoned the Afreet Apep, do not break the seal” the boy opens the seal and a serpent comes out, no larger than a worm. ‘What is thou wish’. The boy clever as he was. ‘The man Geert Wilders, an infidel insults our faith, for your freedom you will kill him, you will never harm any islamic person and this freedom is yours’. The serpent nods and whispers ‘As you wish’ and bites the boy. The serpent continues. The poison will make you sick, but it will not kill you, as you heal you will hear the voices of scorpions and snakes, they will never harm you and now you can keep your family equally safe. He snake slithers away. It made a long journey and in The Hague in a house, Geert Wilders takes his coat of and sits on a sofa. As he sits and reads papers he has no clue that he is surrounded by snakes and scorpions. The scream wakes up the neighbours. When the police walks into his apartment they see it overrun by snakes and scorpions and in the middle of a room, unrecognised with poisons is the body of Geert Wilders.

Story Four, Nura
In the softness of the desert, in a well to the north of Dammam is a secret. Its secret was well hidden by clerics. But her grandfather was a cleric, he was killed in Iraq whilst attending a sermon. His death weight heavily on her and she has never forgotten the pain. She carefully walks into the den that was sealed and she chisels away on the wall. She gets into a room that holds a cage with a despicable creature, after centuries he no longer has a real body. The creature is skin a bones. The creature looks at her and she speaks ‘Can you understand me?’ The creature nods. She continues ‘If you go north past the seas you will get to the old christian places. Do you know them? The creature nods again. Under no condition are you ever to come back. What you do there is your business, but one thing you must achieve. The creature looks at her. In this bag and she hold up the bag is water, some bread, some meat, a map and a photograph. That person resides in a place called Wassenaar a part of The Hague. When you get into that country you can do whatever you need to to regain strength, but this person must be taught never to insult islam again. Humble him, make him your slave, it is up to you. Do you accept. The creature nodded. Nura opens the cage and the creature slowly walks out, and grabs clumsily the bag, he has a sip of water and a bite of food. She then hands the creature a parcel of beef, he accepts and walks a few more steps. He notices that it is dark outside, he climbs the wall of the well avoiding the waters and leaves. Nura leaves the place to go to bed and dream of these people insulting the prophet with a terrible fate. In the meantime the ghoul regains strength and by the time he is in Belgium centuries of captivity are undone, he is again the ghoul he one was and he has no issues getting anywhere. When he gets to the address he casually walks in, Geert notices him and asks him what he is doing in his house. Geert merely hears ‘Never insult the prophet’, the Ghoul grabs his hand and bites it clean off. Geert Wilders screams and dis of blood loss. The ghouls seeks out the nearest cemetery and decides to feast on the corpses of the non-believers. He never believed, he was too old, but the delight of rotten flesh was never forgotten and now it lies fresh in his memory.

Story Five
A man walks through the streets of The Hague, he walks slow with a staff. He is Arabic and he hears how he is called Gandalf and sometimes Saruman. The names mean nothing to him. He walks from Mosque An-Nour into the city. Looking at the streets and the people. Whilst walking he knocks over the boombox of a person and when it falls it breaks. The man is all apologetic, the cleaning man shrugs. ‘These things happen, not to worry’ the man curiously bows to the man and apologises again and walks away. It is later when the man returns holding a box, the cleaning man  looks at the box. ‘For the damage I caused’ the man states, he bows and walks away. The cleaning man opens the box, only to see a new Sony boombox. He smiles. It is much better than the one he has and he slowly walks towards his work. The man cleans in a Dutch government building and he cleans the corridors and offices. It is well paid work and he is happy to do it, he can send more money to his family then he thought and that makes him happy. Whilst he is cleaning he notices a man with white hairs and two security people following him. He sees them every day. The man ignores him and goes into the men’s room. The cleaning man is in an office when suddenly his boombox becomes very loud. It takes him a second to come to the cart and he lowers the volume. He shrugs at the security people. ‘New radio’ he states and the security people smile. He continues his route only to hear shouting a few minutes later. 

Saruman/Gandalf is standing in a room. Across the street from a governmental toilet. His stick and water flask have been transformed into rifle, the angle was perfect, the flask was high powered air and the scope showed him more accurately what he is aiming for. It is a man with white hair in a toilet. He takes aim and he presses a button that maximises the boombox volume, he can even hear that radio and pulls the trigger. Straight in the head, the politician is dead before he realises what hit him and the man quickly disassembles the rifle, the cane is a cane again and he walks out towards the train station. On route he sees a water dispenser, he is about to fill the bottle. He hears ‘Stop!’ He looks around and a policeman takes the water bottle. The man points at the water fountain. ‘Yuck’ he states and signals a man in the shop behind him. The man hands him a bottle of water. The policeman fills the bottle and hands the water to the man. He nods, the policeman takes the few remaining sips from the water bottle and walks away. The man walks off to the strain station.

Epilogue

In a room with two people we see a window, in the background we see Azadi Tower. The first man speaks ‘Are the Dutch blaming the Saudi’s?’ The second person nods and says ‘Just as we expected’ we might not have a school, but we can act against infidels. Both man smile and drink their coffee

The end

I came up with that story in a little over an hour. I had some delays with the fourth story as it was too similar to the third one. The fifth story evolves between the four stories, with the hit happening after the fourth story is finished. I think it is nice to be creative and it was done as until that moment I never knew that making an image of the prophet was a taboo (or unacceptable). We were never told too much about islam in primary school and what we were told about the Crusades were too much of a lie. Anyway, this was my response. I hope you liked it, Geert Wilders might not, but I kind of don’t care about that part.

Have a lovely day, and let’s see what we can do to Microsoft tomorrow.

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April 12, 2023 · 07:13

A weird choice of thoughts

I have them at times, not merely during the daytime, at times the ones at night are even weirder. I was in what I think was a Google location. It was extremely sunny and warm, as such I think I might have been in California. I was in the foyer of a building, it was open and spacious. Almost like a circle, there was a circle in the centre where receptionists were working and assisting people. Around me were windows, they had a lower part and an upper part. The lower part was about 80% of the height of the room, the upper part was about 20%. The upper parts were different, they had stained windows, each window had a Google logo in stained glass style, the logo was surrounded by milky white glass. It had an interesting effect on the foyer, the foyer was bathing in colours. Each logo was adding colours to the room, one part was a little less bright, this logo was not surrounded by milky white glass, but by black glass, it was the Stadia logo. As I looked around the foyer I saw the Drive logo, the YouTube logo, the cloud logo, mail logo, calendar logo and several more. I started looking at the people and they all looked stressed, they looked worried, but I could not see a reason. The circle only had 2 of the 5 computers switched on. I started to walk around and I walked up the staircase. People looked frantic they were talking, but they were also looking though papers. I saw in one hall that only one row of computers was switched on. The conference rooms were empty, TV’s were not switched on, the coffee corner had its coolers switched off, or so it looked. There were people all around but it was a population of less than 10% of what was made room for. 

As I walked around I saw more and more people nervous, some scared but not of each other. It seemed to me that there was a massive shortage of electricity, an energy crises unlike any one I had ever seen. I had seen the energy issues on Crete, but it was a minor issue, this was a lot worse and a lot more intense. I could not feel the het, but everyone around me was sweating. The rooms had a distinct Google feeling like I had seen them in Sydney. I looked outside but I saw no ocean, perhaps the angle was wrong. On the other side I saw high rises nearby, at least a dozen buildings. Not sure where I was and for some reason I could not any of the conversations. It was almost like they were talking alien, or I was not hearing correctly, but there conversations were not meant for me, or I was not part of that side, I was merely there to see, to watch and to observe. People were massively underdressed, dressed like they knew it was a 40C degrees day, thin flimsy and mostly covering their bodies in this both men and women had taken heed of slight covering is better than melting away, and with the obvious lack of cold drinks they were relying on water, or so it seemed to me. This is nearly all I saw, I merely heard the words ‘That’s enough’, the only two words I heard in the entire dream. Was someone showing me what will be? It was only a dream and I have no idea why I saw this. I had seen data all over the place, but is this the setting the US will face in the near future? Places that cannot continue because the energy crises is overwhelming places? I have no idea, for me it was merely a dream, but one that felt uneasy, it lacked the comfort I usually have in a dream. A setting where a government due to inaction needs to find a new path, a new approach to satisfy the need of corporations and they all need energy a setting we saw for years but the greed driven were telling everyone that there would be enough time, there would be options. It seems that this setting has been passed and passed without activity. I wonder what will come next and as I am trying to make a tally, Texas, California and New York will need at least two, two and one nuclear reactor to keep on par with the energy requirements, the alternatives will not roll out in time and these reactors would not be build in time either. Yet as I consider that part, I realise that the EU and UK are in similar settings. They have a lack of energy resources and the shortage gap is merely increasing.

It was a weird choice of thoughts to have, but I think it has been fuelled by the decrease of oil, the numbers and numerous tables and charts I was looking at and I think my subconscious filled in the blanks through a story. And it is about to get worse for these places, summer is coming and that implies millions of AC units draining energy from June onwards. In this Texas and California are the strongest places, but New York is another place. The New York Times gave us 11 hours ago “The high cost of natural gas and electricity is prompting many to prepare for outages and shortages.” Yet personally I feel that it is not only the price of electricity, I feel that there will be an actual shortage and in that setting, for the warmer summer states late July through to mid September will be challenge to say the least. In California and Florida, those with theme parks will have their own set of problems and a lack of electricity will be the smallest of issues. A stage that would come, but now it comes sooner and even my dreams have no answers. In part because I cannot tell when the shortages hit, in part because I know very little of the energy solutions that nations have, it is not my expertise, but I do realise that energy can be seen in what is available and what is used and that is a simple tabular setting and as such I understand the shortages that several will face in a summer state in the northern hemisphere and as such when that happens a lot will happen and it will happen all over Asia too. 

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April 10, 2023 · 16:40

The drifting mind

It happens to me, my mind wanders at times. It happened yesterday as I was watching a Deep Space Nine Episode called ‘Empok Nor’. You see, my mind is still trying to work out Season 4 of Kenos Diastima. It is still up for debate. You see, Kenos Diastima had an open ending at the end of season 3. I was in the mindset to keep it an open ending, but part of me was considering taking a tight turn to the far right on this and make season 4 a espionage approach. It would also require a new cast, a complete new cast (for obvious reasons which I will not mention here). The stage was set to new needs and to new considerations, but it feels a little weird. There was an additional idea to create a new series that connects to Kenos Diastima, so my mind was a little all over the place. It was at that point I started to consider a few things. You see all the star Trek series I know the original, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery and Picard. They all have humans in the lead. But the United Federation of planets had 4 founding races. As such Empok Nor gave me an idea. What if the new series is about the Andorians. The franchise has given us a good grasp, but what happens when they are in charge, it is slightly before the UFP and they had found a damaged human freighter and they kept the engineers as they were short on engineers. This team finds an abandoned Romulan space station, but that station is already more advanced than either Andorians or Humans were used to. They start exploring the station and find all kinds of things, logs and recordings which gives us stories about Romulan life and these episodes will be part in the station and part on what the logs play out, we see as such a multitude of stories play out and it gives 4 stories. The station story, the Romulan log stories (on Romulus and so on), the Andorian stories and the human stories. So you have basically 4 steady locations (Station, Earth, Romulus and Andoria) and several other locations. 

You see, I do not know why, but for the most Paramount seemingly never considered making the alien race the dominant one, or perhaps they did and they rejected it. We also see how the Andorians ‘borrow’ (steal seems too harsh) these ideas they find and patent it to themselves, calling all kind of emotions and considerations into the frame of things. I reckon something like this might have 2-3 seasons, but that is still a nice run. I will admit that part of this is driven by my love of a game I worshipped since 1994 called System Shock. There we find stories as well, but they were short stories and most of them connected to codes and such. Origin systems had a great setting there, the fact that I still think of that series 30 years later is proof of that and the remake is supposed to come to the PS5 this year. But as another Star Trek Franchise it could work as well, but the setting needs to change and the fact that the franchise speaks over the hostilities between Vulcan and Andoria implies that the Romulan find could open other doors in storytelling as well. Optionally even a link between Romulus and Vulcan, but that is merely a simple slither towards the storyline. 

What is interesting is that all this shaped in less than an hour, the shaping of the thoughts was quicker than me typing all this. So even as it did not solve my Kenos Diastima dilemma, it might help me create the foundation of season 4, the way I think it might have the power to contribute, if not, I will not min, the end of season 3 was powerful enough to make minds baffle. And at times that is all the storyteller hopes for, a baffled mind that goes ‘Are you freaking kidding me?’

I can be that simple and that mean at times. Enjoy Easter.

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March 5, 2023 · 05:57

Merely a story

It was 862 AD, in a meadow stands a man, you would think he is in his early 20’s, but this man does not reveal age. He stares over the meadows watching people running at each other. One group seems to be viking, the other guards are local, or at least from the area. He watches as the turmoil of greed goes by wave after wave. It sickens him and it is not hard for him to avoid the people and the turmoil. He could move from place to place, but he is here for a reason. He was given word that a Northern Hawk Owl had been spotted. The setting was almost unbelievable, but he had to check it out. It was a magnificent type of owl and it was one he would love to have. It would be even better if he could both genders, so that they could reproduce in safety. As such He looked for signs but saw none and he carefully moved towards the forest, trying to keep all the animals in some form of observation. He moved along the forest lines and saw that the fight was moving away, then he noticed an arrow in a tree, but the arrow looked weird, like it was not shot from a bow and then he saw it, at the end of the arrow was the Northern Hawk Owl, dead. These stupid muggles, all greed driven and not one was responsible, from servant to king, all too stupid to consider nature. He would never accept muggles in his presence.

It was a decade later when Salazar looked back to the valley, he was very well aware on the valley and it was glorious, yet he considered what was out there and he considered a few items. It was time to set trials, to let the worthy acquire knowledge and that was the exercise. He created the first tower, dark stone, smooth as glass and within the stones were protection spells and rejection spells. No broom could be guided here and the walls could not be scaled. There were steps around the tower that went up a little bit, but he decided to use nature to guide the magic people. The Serpent must be passed on the left, the ermine on the right. As such the steps were either scaled or massive bad luck would hit the person going the wrong way. The two ascendance points were all marked and they all approached the same entrance, one route the right way, the other not. The door was a new puzzle. He had seen the bluntness of muggles and the door was a different kind. All who would hit it, or violently approach it would find themselves on the short list of pain. He looked at the door again and it opened in the simplest manner. A simple Alohamora would do it, the lock was invisible and magical, the smallest spell would work, muggles had no clue and he was in the tower. He tried several ways to see how he was hurt, but it was not intense. The tower worked and he went the right route, with ropes and invisible supports and he got to the next floor. He then applied his want to remove single stones all around the platform and he replaced them with stones now carrying a gem and all had precise applications. From there there were a few more small blockades, blockades that any decent wizard could pass and from there the shrine was created. A blood shrine with one item, the item was carrying magic, specific magic and anyone who did not have that magic would acquire it and they merely had to master the spell and place that spell back into the holder and return the item, a way to make sure that magic would remain and always grow. It was the first tower of accomplishment, a first tower of several that would become the legacy of Salazar Slytherin. 

Yes, this is a simple story and it was Hogwarts Legacy that inspired me to write it. I have no claims here, it was a simple idea and as this is linked to JK Rowling, I consider this now to be her IP. Hogwarts Legacy has its strong and less strong moments, but the largest part is that the sandbox approach allows this game to grow towards the future and the past. Salazar is a pureblood lover, but I wondered how he got to be there. One out of four is weird, but the reasons could be all over the field and our need for greed might be a strong reason. 

The game is out now, but in a year what will come? I reckon that they could build on this and create more, I made that in a previous article, but that was set around the character you played and enabled. The stage could be larger by incorporating lore no one considered. And that is where I found myself. That is apart from the setting that I didn’t want to think of technology today, we all have these moments and I have mine today. That being said, a game like Hogwarts Legacy is opening doors, it is by far the most amazing Potter styled game ever and the hundreds of videos are proving me right. In this I wonder what more I could learn in that game. I am nowhere near done and that makes the game more than one stage, it makes it amazing on several fronts and the game is as a game like that needed to be. And always when a game like that becomes available I will be happy. In that regard more happy feelings are coming my way, Metroid Prime my favourite game on the gamecube was remastered for the Switch, as such this year might be better than I imagined it to be. Happy happy joy joy.

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February 8, 2023 · 22:28

When the pool is too deep

Twi days ago I wrote Brain switch, it was me on a joyride through my brain as I was reengineering  IP over and over and it went faster and faster. I got a handle on it by playing Hogwart Legacy. You see gaming is more than an escape for me. It is a passion that allows me to take my mind away from things and that is at times a good thing. It allowed my subconscious to work on Engonos, the story of the grandson of Hades. Weirdly enough I was inspired by Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Or better stated, he gave me the idea to take a trip to the right. In part I was already doing s in another way, but I suddenly realised that I could enhance one character to get a lot more out of the whole. It is in part a little bit of a drag. You see, I can go memento on that character to keep the story in line and not give away too much, but that too has its advantages and drawbacks. The advantage is that two characters are drawn into the story, one makes sense already, the other one does not on the surface of things, but in Olympian lore it does. As such I tend towards that part of the solution, even though one of them already has a larger role to play and I set that in motion. Now that these roles are staged and partially set, I need to build the background stories for all involved. As such the memento approach, the other one is a historic jump, it seems cleaner, but it opens up too much mesh. A combination has benefits, but at that point I need to be cautious how I approach the matter and I need to script some elements, but that is not a problem. One lesson I learned a long time ago, when a problem is too big, chip it into smaller manageable pieces. That was all good and fine, but that suddenly gave me a few more ideas towards some RPG designs I was entertaining, to be made freely available for exclusive Amazon Luna materials.

I get that this does not make sense, but the reason is simple. Microsoft made valid steps in gaming, we might not like them, but they did what any corporation did, set yourself apart. Yet they did so by buying Bethesda and making parts exclusive to the Xbox. This is a valid, but unappealing approach. This setting changed when Avalanche launched Hogwarts legacy and they set the bar way higher than Skyrim ever was, making it a problem for Microsoft. You see if Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 are on par with Hogwart Legacy, Microsoft loses a lot more than they bargained for. Now if I can add to that pain by giving Amazon Luna developers a sight to more software that is close to on par with Microsoft (not an easy task) they will feel even more pain and that is what I had been after. I expected this to be a lot harder, but Avalanche gave me a trump card, they surpassed Bethesda (what they had up to now), this is not unexpected because Skyrim is 11 years old. Yet it makes my work a little easier. The RPG has storylines, it has a balanced economic system and it has evolution, I only need to set a new stage that has a new kind of nemesis system. Not some copy of Shadow of Mordor, but something new, something we haven’t seen before. I want to counter grinding to some extent. I have one side which is a much larger map, the other side is a new kind of adversarial system and I want to add to that. But it needs to enhance what is, not replace what could be. This is hard to explain for now, but it is in the works, in the meantime, those thoughts are helping me to give larger rise to Engonos, which was what I had in mind all along. Cogs within cogs, not the most elegant of explanations, but it will do for now.

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January 22, 2023 · 10:13

Restoration and scheming – Engonos

As I had returned to Crete, the look was similar. I merely arrived differently. As I glided to the empty street I walked down the street and turned right as I came to a main road. There was the appeal to go back to Rethimno directly, but I decided against that. Nothing wrong where I stayed, but when you come as a returning guest too many people will start to play 20 questions and that I was eager to avoid that part in any trip. I found a hotel and booked in. From that I looked around for a bike rental and saw two close by. There was one upside, the trip this time around would be at least half an hour less, so there was that. I decided to go to my room and mull things over. It was the next morning that I got an early start. Breakfast was not for me today, I got the rental which was the same model as the previous one, but a different colour. This one was olive green. I put on the helmet and drove off. It was a little over an hour later when I returned to the destination of the church. I walked in and investigated for trespass, it all looked good and I portalled my lamp in. I then set the watch to the time it was last time and started to shine the light on the walls ever so slowly. I saw how the stones rejuvenated, the windows repaired themselves and the walls became whole and clean. It took about half an hour and the inside of the church looked the way it did when it was build and it looked pretty nice. I saw the sun was up and my view saw no one in the neighbourhood. It was a good time to restore the outside to some degree and I was able to restore parts of the outside wall as well. I put out the lamp and I decided to walk in. The church was completely restored. I used my mobile to talk to the office, I needed tradesman and builders. The office took all the details and went to work with the people they knew to trust. It was time to build a wall around the church, it would be 4 meters high and it would keep space round the church. I might need space and that would give me the added room I might need. I had no idea if it was required, but I decided to add a fake graveyard to the back of the church. I would let the builders create a place to enter a larger room deeper below the church with one of the graves being the entry. It would take a few months, but that would give me time to plan for the next step. And in the time that gave me, there would now be time to plan the events as they should unfold, yet I needed to be aware of all the elements. This was one hell of a plan and there was no way to tell if this would work out correctly. Yet the main plan had two locations and 7 places where the required items were. They had all forgotten about these places and that would start a whole new era of mankind, but there was time for that. I had to make sure that nothing was forgotten. And that finally got me to the missing part, where on earth was Asclepius? 

I put the lamp away in its safe place and went back to the rental to hand in the bike and after that decided to walk the streets of Iraklion. As I left one coffee house, enjoying the sunshine and coffee I was confronted by two rather annoying German tourists. These man decided that they were the rulers of the world. In reality they were over horny, over eager admirers of raki, but that didn’t matter. I saw the three old man two tables down and I asked them “αυτοί οι Γερμανοί θέλουν να συναντήσουν τον Άδη, να τους βοηθήσουμε” (these Germans want to meet Hades, shall we help them?) The expression was met with sniggering from the old men and one started to sharpen his blade on a stone. As the tourists saw the sniggering and the sharpening of the blade, they sobered up quite a bit and got out fast. I smiled, sometimes being a scoundrel had its benefits and there was no need to hide. I gestured the waiter for 4 raki, I pointed to the men for the other three, I paid the waiter, raised the glass and spoke ‘scholeío’ and down the hatch the raki went, the men raised their glasses and I thought they said ‘Yamas’ and drunk it too. It filled my throat and stomach with a warm sensation. It felt good, I was not sure how my new setting would react to alcohol, I had not had any reason to drink anything but a beer, so this was good, but I was not sure if I could get drunk, but there was no need to find out at present. I got up nodded at the men and walked away. I checked out and went towards the museum. All seemed to be the same, so I waited for darkness to set in, and I went back the same way I came. 

As Tartarus remained the same, I decided to rest on the marble slab which was affeI had the items and I would be able to harvest what I needed, but I needed to plan for a few elements in all this and there would be time to consider a second step. It is not enough for the settings to evolve, there is a need for governments to be banking on the wrong steps and that required another cog. There was a danger here. It needed to be very different or they would all suspect to be under attack and that could make things a lot worse soon there after. There were a few ideas, yet evolving one that suited my needs and suited the structure of the plan would not be easy. There was always one more complication and that was true of almost everything. The more you plan for a perfect stage, the more likely was that this perfection would upset the stage and falter the plan. So there was the idea of letting go of the second run and it made sense to bank on this one stab. I needed a medical research centre to prepare the goods and prepare the elements needed. 

I had decided to set the stages there was preparation, fabrication, implementation and activation. Each part contained and unconnected to the previous or the next part, in addition, if timelines shifted it would not upset the plan as long as each step could be completed. The first two were almost easy enough. It was the latter two that needed focus, because the location was set and as I was contemplating the acts, the second cog came back. If the second cog is more visible there would be a stage of governmental worry, but if that happened after the first part was implemented it would be too late, the second cog would alert everyone, but with the wrong items required, it merely added to the chaos that followed, enhanced it so to speak. A setting that would work well for all concerned, not the mortal population though, but that was on them, they had become too much of a burden to the world they inhabited and there was a price for everything. 

I close my eyes and contemplated and contemplated, it is the one downside if immortality, sleep is lost, dreams fell away and I found out that this loss is a little more profound than I was happy about.

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January 19, 2023 · 20:46

Mirror mirror on the wall

This continues from ‘Me, myself and I make 4’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/01/12/me-myself-and-i-make-4/) a week ago. In the mean time. I decided on a name for this. The series is called ‘Engonos’ which is Greek for grandson. Last week it all ended with a meeting in Athens with Lord Zeus himself and the crazy notion that I left with him. It is time to mull that over. 

Over the next few days I travelled back to France, then to America to the mansion. I had to take these trips to gather my thoughts and moving with a starting point from a place where no one watches you is always better then from a place where everyone seems to notice most of your moves. I still had not teleported for two reasons. One this is something that requires skill and energy and that is easily restored in Tartarus, the second part is that Lord Hades needed an update of all that I had started. It is not something that was done lightly and there were still pawn on the board, or better stated there were pieces that were on the board and I made them pawns because their value were still undetermined. It is not the sam, it is not the best thing to do but it was how my mind worked. There were still a few things to sort out and Asclepius was not the first thing to sort out. There were issues and it was time to take another look at the Lamp of Helios, it was an idea, but I would have to master it a lot better and I know just the place where to test it a bit better. The first thing I did was return to Crete, to the place that could take me to Lord Hades, or grandad for short. I was about to start the arrangements when I noticed a small in the house. It was not a normal smell and it seemed stronger upstairs. I saw the staff looking disinterested, working on whatever they were doing and they were doing it well, the house was spotless. I followed the smell only to see that there was a new door in my room, the door was always there, and this door looked the same, but was not the same. I slowly touched the door with my fingers. The door looked like wood, but had the feel of ironwood. The hinges also looked a lot stronger and heavier. I opened the door, the bathroom was the same with one difference. The mirror on the right wall was new, It was some brass like frame with a slightly larger body sized mirror. It was a little over two meters high, it was around 120 centimetres wide and started about to inches of the floor. The mirror had a brass type shine. It was pretty but nothing I would ever want in a bathroom.  The smell was a little stronger here. I shifted focus and the mirror was not entirely what it seemed. It phased and I saw the makings of a marble room. I fitted my hand into the mirror and let the rest of me follow. I was suddenly in a marble room, I looked out and I recognised the place immediately. It was a room in the palace of Lord Hades. I walked in and summoned my bident. I walked around and soon found the stairs down and into the reception area. A shade bowed to me and gestured towards the left. I gestured Psychofagos away and went there. Lord Hades looked at me. You found the mirror? Yes, thank you lord. I bowed  to him with respect and every fibre of my being bowed in respect to him. I just met with Lord Zeus in Athens. I gave him the entire rundown on the meeting. Lord Hades looked at me. Why would I forgo my biggest source of energy? Because soon there is nothing left and then we end up being in a place that is dead, no life, nothing reborn and nothing restored. Even now we will end with less because so much life is now extinct. Restoring ill not bring them back, but we can return to a better place. Over time Lord Zeus will return most of his powers as his powers is the clean sky. Lord Poseidon will lose the most as so much life is gone from there and much of it cannot be saved. It is too late for that. But you my lord you will gain the most. Even as much of life will be removed, their life source will be yours. And we will return to healthier times and they will also feed you, but we need to act and we need to act larger than before. Can we replicate the machines without Heaphestus? Hades looked at me. Yes, they will be smaller, but they can be made. How many do you need? How many can you make? We need at least 999 more, especially if they are smaller and they need to be added to the system, we have a good engine, but we need a massive tank, the energy of almost 8 billion souls will be added. Even then we need to use a large part to reinvigorate you. You are being recharged, now we need to focus on restoring your younger self my lord.

Hades looked and nodded. You have done well Hades said. There is one more thing. Lord Zeus gave me the power of teleportation, it has been added to my bident. Hades held his hand up and I instantly knew what he meant. I summoned psychofagos and handed it to Hades. He stared at it. You need to practise this thing and be aware, whenever you teleport Zeus will instantly know where you came from and where you go to. I nodded, I was certain that there was a snag and this was it. Anything else? Hades seemed in thought, it seems that your state of mind will be visible to him for a moment. He does not accept duplicity, the mirror will help but if you teleport right after that, whatever you had in mind will be visible to him. I nodded. It changed a few things not too much, but I had to be careful. It also meant that I needed another way to get to Crete. Hades picked up on that. There is another mirror, one in Iraklion in the museum. They hung it as a mirror for the people. It is easy to get in and out of the museum. The other part of that mirror is over there and he pointed to a far wall. The passing is easy and anyone seeing you will instantly forget it, in the sphere of the mirror you are invisible for a short time as you move between realms. It is no more than 5 seconds, so doing this in the evening is the best. There is no camera there and you can go through the small window, you are on the 3rd floor, next to a window, but it is the roof access you need, you can easily get to anywhere from there. 

I bowed and was about to walk away. Engonos, be weary of Asclepius. He will not accept your actions, he will try to stop you or make sure that you fail. I nodded. I had expected this. Asclepius reverence of life was almost legendary millennia ago, even now as people cause the death of so much, he would not act against them, not sure why but I had an alternative to consider. One that wasn’t the easiest, that was until the present of Lord Zeus came by. 

I moved towards my room but then thought against it. It was morning in California, meaning it was  early to mid evening in Greece. I walked to the mirror and stared at it. The museum came into view, it was empty and the window showed a streetlight, implying that the streets were already dark. I walked through the mirror, listening sharply for sounds. I heard clinging of keys, about 15 metres away. I looked around and saw the window, then I looked up and saw nothing. I slowly silently moved into the next room, there was a hatch there but it seemed locked. I moved back and stared, suddenly like the cave in Gladesville an open hatch appeared I jumped through and the ceiling turned back to solid ceiling. I walked silently over the roof, seeing the camera’s. They were all pointing towards the street, the building next to it also had camera’s, but I was out of their view at the moment. I saw a clean path out of their view and I jumped up the attached building. From there I could go anywhere and I slowly glided to the street that was empty and from there I went to the nearest decent Hotel I could find and booked a room. Tomorrow I would o more, now I would lay down on a bed and think things over I needed to make sure that I had all the elements clean and at hand, this was a one way trip and missing too many elements would cause too many other problems. The idea was still shaping, but I suddenly realised that mankind had a delete function, one that I was about to use for my own purpose. I merely had to push the right sanctimonious religious nut and this world had plenty of those, they were almost everywhere.

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January 18, 2023 · 22:08

Step by step, closer it gets

This is a weird story. It is a story, there are no facts, there is no hidden gem. It started last night. In my dream I was introduced to a lovely lady with raven hair, she is mid 30’s I would guess. Khaki shorts, stern boots and a Bordeaux sweater with an image on it. She is the vet, her love of elephants keep her there. She looks after the health of about 2 dozen Indian elephants. All signs point to this being India. I do not know where and I have never seen the lady before. There is also a man, an architect who looks a lot like William Petersen (CSI). He is trying to safe a building. The building is almost 2000 years old and is for now still functional. The building is made of large stones, some well over a ton heavy. The building has paint on the inside, and the building is starting to become too unbalanced to stay standing. The building is an impressive setting of stones, beams and large thick wooden sticks that are the separator between elephants and people. The building has supported both for millennia. The architect is trying to safe the building. He has scanned every inch of the building, every stone. He can see and look at the effect of shoring the walls, and this is done with thick oak pillars. As he investigates the stones he starts seeing patterns, the pattern becomes more and more clear as he resets the stability of two stones. As the stones are resetting to a firmer floor (concrete) some of the stones are suddenly straight lines and the architect is able to move them a little, even the heavier ones are set on stone rails from the larger stones. It takes three weeks for the two stones to be completely reset and now as he cleans the other stones and places them where they should have been, the sides normally against one another reveal texts. It is a story in time as well as a message. As ‘Grissom’ collects the scanned pictures and adds them to every stone in the 3d model on his laptop the story unfolds. More important the message seems to be connected to places and landmarks that are timeless around him. As he completes the story and looking at all the stones the message becomes clear to him, but he does not understand the message at this point. The markers lead to a well just north of the town. They investigate the well, they see nothing, so they go in, under water they find their way around only to resurface in a dark place, but that changes when lights are switched on. It is a temple to Ganesha, the statue of Ganesha is pure gold. His eyes are massive rubies and as he maps the location, they appear to be exactly below the elephant building. He also see what happened. Something gave way and one of the huge pillars sank, causing what was happening above. The statue has a small table with emerald tablets engraved with Vedic Sanskrit. The text is unknown to  me, I cannot say what way on it, but there was a lot of writing on the three tablets. 

Interesting dream. It could set the tone to a new script. There were a few loose thoughts on baby elephants getting stolen, but it seems to erratic to focus on that. What matters is that I was able to think of new IP in an area I never considered thinking, so perhaps this is the making of a new game, or movie or mini series (I was always partial to mini series). 

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January 16, 2023 · 10:01

Creating a nightmare

Yes, we do that at times. I use different ways, but the nightmare that formed in my mind is one that I wasn’t ready for and it shaped in one dream. You see, in intelligence there is a saying. If you want to sell a lie, cover it in truth. This is true for them and it is also true for story writers. Getting the audience invested in the story requires a stage where they can relate to and whatever truths they are given, the ones they an verify will work a lot quicker for the story.

So it started with the second thing I heard, but to each its place. The first thing I saw, source not recalled, mainly because I did not give it any value was “The US and UK are supporting Ukraine to stay in the war, but not enough to win” I cannot say who or why and I do not think it is true, but it stayed in the back of my mind. It was the second part that gave it a swing. The statement comes from a Dutchman named Rob de Wijk. He is the founder of The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS). He stated “Hopefully unfounded wishful thinking about Ukraine’s chances will give way to more realism. This is necessary because the West faces a tremendous dilemma: the worse Ukraine gets, the greater the chance that NATO countries will become increasingly involved in the war. The risk of a direct confrontation with NATO is also increasing. The heavy weapons that the NATO countries will then need limit the possibilities of supplying them to Ukraine now. It is now forcing Western leaders to consider how to end this war quickly.” That started the rollercoaster. You see Russia and its Kremlin people have a new stage. With the oligarchs mostly gone and loads of their fortunes now confiscated, the sugar daddies of the Kremlin are falling away. It leaves these people with whatever they have and that is not much, or it is massively below what they are used to. Their defence is still falling short, their military aren’t hacking it and local problems are increasing. 

So there we have greed driven Kremlinski’s and their need for more money, so how long until some of them strike a much larger deal with the Russian Mafia? The Russian mafia gets all kinds of support, in exchange for money and creation of Chaos all over the America’s and Europe. I reckon we can wait for that ghost to hit the brains of too many people. Now that is not enough, you see we need a plan to strike back and there I remembered a book by John Gardner called Golgotha, it was also released as the last trump around 1980. I believe that is where the scriptwriters from the New Avengers (Steed, Gambit and Purdey) with the second episode being House of Cards. That and Golgotha gives a new approach to sleepers. Added are within the team a seminole, the comm members are seminole. They are mostly outside of the team and their Mikasuki members are un-hackable. Not unlike the Navajo’s in WW2. But the larger setting is that these are 6 teams. One in the US, one in Canada, one in the UK and the other three all over Europe. They are facing Russians who are blackmailing all kinds of industry giants and governmental officials. Housing scams, grifting the rich and connected and blackmailing them in the process. 

A setting where we have a counter, a Cheyenne approach to hit and run, something the Russian mafia has never faced and their orders are simple. Kill all Russians and destroy everything they have. A new lever of John Wick, but a little more realistic and within their actions we see Russian death and mayhem. I reckon that the first studio picking up this idea will have a nice sweet advantage. Anyway there is a little more but not much. I got all these elements in mere hours (whilst I was snoring like a sawmill). 

Consider that nightmare whilst you leave your house untended for the day.

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