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Tuesday, November 4, 2025

Tales of the Sanctum: Era of the Spellbound - Episode 6: Learned Yet Lost (Updated: November 4, 2025 3 PM EST)



   [Spellbound - Siouxie And The Banshees] 


Do you like enigmatic characters, engrossing story, magic and the ever atemporal weave?

Play Baldur's Gate 3 [On Steam]


Chapters

  1. How To Fix A Chain Smoker
  2. The Rite of Hallow's Night


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I'd like to point out that it was the incredible Gary Sinese Foundation that brought the issue of Veteran's rights to my attention. I've always had little respect for those who'd forget the great contribution made by those who've risked life and limb to defend those values that so many of us espouse. Perhaps the true measure of one's principles are by that for which they'd risk their life.

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In all truth, there's a good chance that thanks to the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herbert George Wells, Jules Verne, Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, Clive Barker and Pierre Burton (for The Secret World Of Og and his ground breaking interview of Bruce Lee) that all of us are literate. Actually that goes back much farther to the Phoenecians and their first 22 character system of symbols. Literacy is important. Really it is. Literally. It allows us to approach our employer at the end of the week (with a big club) and ask: where my money?! Math important too. It help us count our thirteen fingers and toes.


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Brian Joseph Johns


Warning: This episode contains issues related recreational tobacco use and the consumption of alcohol. Reader discretion is advised.

There are numerous health risks associated with tobacco use as outlined by the following professional medical organizations: The Heart and Stroke Foundation, Johns Hopkins and Health Canada.

I myself am a consumer of alcohol an it would be very hypocritical for me to recommend complete abstinence. I consume it on the basis of balanced enjoyment thereof, that is coupled with a healthy diet and lifestyle, combining healthy meals, moderate exercise and even fasting for the purposes of a holistic approach to health. After all, I'm a little bit good, a little bit bad.

If you do as an adult, choose to consume alcohol (or in any case where you've gained access to it otherwise), please do so safely and responsibly.

Tales of the Sanctum: Era of the Spellbound

by Brian Joseph Johns


Episode 6: Learned Yet Lost


How To Fix A Chain Smoker


If there is indeed a god, and I mediate on the fact that there is, despite my having walked my own path for most of my life in terms of religion and belief, because assuming there is, she's going to get an earful when I'm done here. 


Maybe not right away.


The first thing I'll do upon my arrival in the afterlife, is try to figure out how far off my own beliefs were from the reality of the situation I'll find myself within after death. As a neo-new ager that strayed from the more theological paths from an early age, I've not exactly been the apple of god's eye.


Once I've ascertained the real nature of reality and the divine almighty, at that moment, I'll proceed to give her an earful that I suspect could last the best part of a year or two, though I suspect that there will most certainly be a lineup for that undertaking.


I say she, because most women, when there are problems, choose to talk and sometimes even to bond with regard to a solution. The religious record insofar as the male aspect of the almighty is concerned, seems to involve a lot of rules and then the torture or smiting of those who violate such rules as: don't eat this thing on this day, don't do that in bed with your wife or husband. Don't create likenesses of that which is upon the Aerth or within the heavens. Don't create idols that advocate for anyone but me, and so on and so forth. The other rules, the ones like: don't kill, don't lie, well they seem kind of obvious, though I'm certain there are cases that could potentially justify the contradictory.


 I remember reading about a woman who'd been assaulted and abducted. Rendered unconscious and locked in a room. When she'd gained consciousness, her captor opened the door and entered the room with a knife. Given the man's track record with her up until that point, she decided that she wasn't having any more of it, and disarmed him and then took his life, stopping his plans to rape her and kill her. A fate Police later found out that he'd rendered unto three other women previously. It was self defense, in a situation where she'd have certainly died had she not made the decision to deny him the pleasure of her playing the victim. He paid with his life, which if she hadn't, she'd have been the fourth victim. In that case, I'd definitely stand by her over her having broken the don't kill rule. He didn't, but in order to stop him from doing so, she did. The punishment should go to him, and the reward to her for stopping him from doing it again and saving who knows how many other women's lives.


Then, on the other end of the scale in terms of its life and world importance, there was a time I was dating. Actively seeking a man whom I assumed might someday be my husband, and very much going all in on this endeavor, seeing as I'd signed up for an online dating service geared towards professionals of the esoteric variety for lack of better terminology, with myself having been a flourishing tarot card reader insofar as what I can recollect of my former life. A man named Ernest had arrived at my front door to pick me up for said date, and when I opened the door, the first words to come out of his mouth were: Gwendolyn. Let's be serious here. The only thing that dress is attracting is pity.


After I'd sent him home, slamming the door on his face I curled up on the sofa and cried for about ten minutes, and then laughed about what he'd said for twenty, given the fact that it was funny, and that it had in some strange way matched up with the meaning of his name: Ernest as in truth. At least phonetically speaking. 


I'm not so certain that my evening would have gone any differently had I gone on the date, but I feel that situation was a great example of the fact that there are situations where breaking the don't lie rule is and can be more appropriate. I mean, because of that statement, I gave up on dating and found my time better put to things that I'd convinced myself were allowing me to "grow as a woman" or to "nurture my inner sense of peace and sanctity". Idioms that came from other women who'd already long since won the battle against their raging hormones which had wanted them to have a child before they were thirty-three. An age that many women consider themselves to be over the hill.


Now, given the current state of the world in this year of the summer of 2006, to some of you, it might sound like I'm griping. That I'm ignoring the most wonderful gift that I received for free. The fact that I am still alive, and in enough of a good condition that I can gripe about such things, having all the time in the world to thing about these things. However, three years after my having surpassed the age of thirty-three, and having not found a man with whom to share my life's journey, I found myself in a situation where I'd attended a seasonal holiday party, which I believe that host had referred to as a SAPCHoP, with my best friend and tarot mentor, Nathalie. Its just amazing how much has come back since I last committed myself to the exercise of recalling my former life.


You see, at that party, something happened. Something on the scale of a global catastrophe, the nature of which I cannot recall no matter how hard I try. Its like the details are stretched and spaghettified into infinity, though I have a feeling my sudden propensity for using such terminology might be a clue, though I have no idea other than the tarot, of where to turn to find out.


Now, about that catastrophe? You might say it couldn't have been that bad. After all, you're here and still griping apparently, here being somewhere in Shepperton off the Thames in England, rather than my original home in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, where I'd lived before this wonderful SAPCHoP party, and immemorable catastrophe. My circumstances, those concerning the concept of self, have become rather complicated.


I remember when I was a teen, back in the pre-catastrophe world, when I'd watched a Warren Beatty movie called Heaven Can Wait. It was one of my favourites of his, though I really like the one where he was a hairdresser as well but I can't for the life of me recall what it was called.


In Heaven Can Wait, he plays the role of a professional football player who dies suddenly in an automobile accident, but his consciousness or soul is taken from his body prematurely by his guardian angel, played to perfection by Buck Henry. To make it up to Beatty, his soul is inserted into the body of an aging multimillionaire, who with Beatty's characters' mind, then attempts a return to professional football where he falls for an alluring environmentalist.


I guess my point in bringing that movie up is connected to my current situation, though the movie itself is hardly a palpable explanation for my current situation.


What is that you might ask me? Well, to put it lightly, my consciousness, or soul if you'd like, is now a co-inhabitant of someone else's body. Like I'm in the passenger seat, able to see out through the windshield, while they're driving. I can even speak with her, in her head, though most of the time, Gillie and I, we spend mostly just arguing as we don't get along very well. Like having a bad roommate, but taken to the next level. One that you can't escape, because you both essentially inhabit the same body. A body which she has no respect for regardless of the wonder of nature and creation that it truly is.


And so, as you can see, my qualms with god, when I finally meet her face to face, will be an engagement of problem solving and bonding, as most women except Gillie and I, seem to be able to do. Perhaps if the divine masculine isn't off torturing this soul or smiting another, I might have a word with him too.


Griping can be a very powerful coping mechanism, despite the association it has with complaining. For instance, I just used it to circumvent the fact that for the last six hours, Gillie has, since this morning, been smoking cigarette after cigarette, using the previous to light the next, as a tool to punish me for trying to stop her. From smoking I mean.


Despite the fact that I am an unwanted passenger in her body, her smoking causes me pain. The perception thereof. It makes my eyes (her eyes as felt by me) sting. It makes me feel like coughing (with her lungs). It gives me headaches (with her head). Its besides the fact that she seems immune to any of these symptoms.


To top it all off, she won't talk to me anymore.


When she'd returned from acquiring the cigarettes from a local corner store earlier, she sat down with one of her customers (she's also a tarot card reader) and spent forty-five minutes with the woman, who turned out to be the mother of one of the women who attended this SAPCHoP with Nathalie and I. A woman of such immense patience, for she as a non-smoker sat with Gilie for a full forty-five minutes, as Gillie chain smoked through the entire session.


When this poor woman left after her reading, her eyes were as red as a cherry and she surely must have stunk like a chimney, the poor woman.


She however, as I stated, is the mother of Nelony Ardbloem, who at this time is a young woman. A much younger woman than she had been at that same pre-catastrophe party, which had taken place in the holiday season of 2024. Nelony is just a teenager, as would I be too if I could convince Gillie to clean up her act, quit smoking and venture out into the world to enjoy her last few years.


Perhaps I'm being selfish, for my motivations would be for my own self interest, in looking into the whereabouts of Nelony and even myself as a much younger woman.


"Could you just cut it out for a damned minute?!!!" Gillie finally erupted.


"What? I'm just going over the details out loud, with my dear diary!" Gwendolyn explained to Gillie.


"You are purposely driving me bonkers!" Gillie charged Gwendolyn.


"I could accuse you of the same! This isn't exactly easy for me you know!" Gwendolyn countered.


"You are uninvited and in my body! This is a violation of my being of the worst kind! You are a....!!! HUSSIE OF A WOMAN!!!" Gillie's voice peaked, as she raised her voice at Gwendolyn, both of them feeling a sudden sharp pain in the right side of their chest.


"Uuuuughhhh!" Gillie gasped out loud, grasping at her chest and then slumping forward onto the table.


Gwendolyn meanwhile was in severe pain, though she was still roaming consciously and had access to Gillie's senses. Gwendolyn listened carefully, and found that Gillie's breathing was shallow and protracted. She was receding.


Gwendolyn saw her cellular phone laying on the table three inches from the end of Gillie's nose, her hand motionless just beside it as Gillie lay with both her eyes open, unconscious.


Gwendolyn could feel a sudden growing fog coming over her, as if the world were slowing down and fading.


"She's asphyxiating! Her heart's stopped!" Gwendolyn thought out loud, Gillie responding by trying to mouth words, though she only ejected air from her lungs, speeding herself towards her end.


 Gwendolyn at that moment and with all of the willpower she could muster, focused on moving Gillie's hand. Her fingers twitched momentarily, and then her arm gradually slid over to the phone. She'd seen Gillie enter her code a thousand times, through her own eyes, and she knew secrets about her that few ever had in all likelihood.


Gwendolyn managed to get Gillie's hand onto the phone, and was tapping the screen to life. After three tries, she managed to get the right code, and the phone unlocked beside Gillie's lifeless body.


Gwendolyn carefully navigated the phone's interface until she had a dial screen. Instinctively, she began dialing 911. A voice emerged just barely from the phone's speakers:


The number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang-up and try your call again.


"Damn! What's the number in England!" Gwendolyn panicked as she felt her own consciousness slipping away. She suddenly recalled having seen a news clip about England's new emergency phone system, and then recalled the number: 112 which she immediately dialed.


"112. What's the nature of the emergency?" a soft yet sharp British voice emerged from the speakers.


 Gwendolyn could not reply, and so she just waited as her consciousness was slowly constricted by Gillie's lack of respiration.


"Alright. If you can't speak, hit any of the numbers on your phone..." the emergency operator requested of her.


Gwendolyn managed to move Gillie's index finger one last time before the blackness consumed them.


...


Gillie's eyes opened slowly, while the strong scent of cedar, with a distant touch of roses found her senses as she returned from the brink of that which is mortal, and that which lays just beyond.


She felt numb her entire body over and an inexplicable ghost pain in her chest. It felt strange beyond description, like it should hurt, but it didn't. Instead, her body tingled ever so slightly with every breath.


The sky was perfect white and glowing, perhaps even a deja vu: as if she'd already seen it before, maybe just before her birth, while the sensation of floating pervaded her.


"Is this death...?" she asked herself.


Her eyes slowly adjusted to the lights and above as she floated, she started to notice a geometric pattern. Tiles. It wasn't a perfectly white sky. They were ceiling tiles.


She lifted her head slightly in attempt to look at her body, and found that she was covered by a blanket, in a bright and tidy room that she did not recognize, while something pale blue was affixed to her face, just beneath her eyes and over her mouth.


"Gwendolyn?" Gillie checked to see if her passenger was still with her, though after waiting for a time, she found that no response came.


Somewhere away from her field of vision, she heard the sound of a door opening, and subsequently being closed behind the person who'd entered, followed by a series footsteps whose hollow echo announced their approach.


"Good evening. Miss Gilliard Colton? I'm Doctor Maretto. If your throat's too sore to talk, just raise one of your hands slightly," Doctor Maretto requested of Gillie.


Gillie tried to speak, and despite the dryness of her throat, she managed a few words.


"I'm a little dry... Is there any water?" Gillie asked him, her speech groveled and broken.


"A nurse is on her way with water for you, though you can't eat anything I'm sorry to say. Do you recall the last twenty-four hours at all?" Doctor Maretto informed her, then continuing with his diagnostic questions.


"...I was in the kitchen... sorting my cards? I think I felt sleepy or something and then... I woke up here," Gillie replied.


"Very good. How many fingers do you see?"  Doctor Maretto held up two fingers.


"Two," she replied.


"And now?" Doctor Maretto held up two again, though this time they were his pinky and ring finger.


"Two," Gillie replied as the door once again opened and a nurse made her way to the bed with a tray and a solitary cup of water upon it.


"It seems that you've got your faculties, so things are looking pretty good so far. Do you feel any pain in your body? Any odd sensations?" Doctor Maretto asked her as the nurse set the tray down upon a nearby table and then proceeded to the other side of Gillie's bed, from where she removed her oxygen mask.


"Tingling for a bit. An odd pain in my chest that comes and goes," Gillie described her condition to the Doctor.


"Miss Colton, you're in a hospital. Harefield, in the cardiac unit. You've suffered what we call a sudden cardiac arrest. Fortunately, you were able to dial 112 in time and we were able to get someone to you, which probably saved your life, as when the paramedics arrived, your heart had stopped. They were able to revive you thankfully, though your heart stopped twice more on the way to St. Peter's. A decision was made to take you directly here to us at Harefield, where you underwent Coronary angioplasty. To put it mildly, there's a stent: a tiny gadget that's somewhat like a balloon that's been propped inside of one of your main arteries, where it was inflated to keep that artery open. That's probably the source of your chest pain, though we've got you on pain relievers right now. We'll be keeping you overnight and possibly for another few days, though that depends upon your recovery. So far, it seems that you've recovered from this quite remarkably, though given the fact that you're a cigarette smoker, I'm assuming that the worst part is far from over, should you decide to continue smoking that is," Doctor Moretto explained her situation to her, finally, doing his best to urge her to cease her cigarette habit.


The nurse handed her the cup of water from the tray, and Gillie accepted it, carefully leaning up in her bed and drinking from it slowly. She felt an intense sense of relief as the water soothed the dry parts of her throat, leaving a quickly receding stinging sensation and one that faded into the depths of whatever pain reliever the hospital had given her.


She handed the empty cup back to the nurse, who took it from her and placed it on the tray, leaving Gillie with Doctor Moretto.


"May I go for a cigarette? In the smoking room or outside?" asked Gillie urgently.


"This is a hospital Miss Colton. There isn't a smoking room. I just told you that paramedics resuscitated you three times, and the first thing you want after having awoken is the exact thing that probably put you in that condition? Did you hear a thing I said?" Doctor Moretto confirmed with her, frustrated to see their collective efforts thrown to the wind in the form of a cigarette.


"The short answer is, no. You may not have a cigarette for at least another two days, but if you do choose to continue smoking, I can almost certainly guarantee you that we'll see you again shortly, except when that time comes, you might not be so lucky as you were this time. I'll be back to check up on you near the end of my shift, about three hours from now. Please do try to get some rest, and I'll see what I can do about finding you some options that might help you to deal with the symptoms of withdrawal. Until then, please get some rest," Doctor Moretto turned and left Gillie.


"Gillie?" Gwendolyn had found her way from the darkest depths of Gillie's unconscious mind and into her front line consciousness.


"Gwendolyn? I thought you'd..." Gillie began, sounding somewhat relieved that her passenger had made it through the ordeal with her.


"Left you? I would if I could. Especially if that option entailed a return to my own body, even though I'd only be about eighteen years old right now, and somewhere off partying with my friends in Brighton," Gwendolyn said, suddenly enamoured by the opportunity to relive her life from the age of eighteen with the addition of everything she'd already learned.


"I don't remember what happened..." Gillie admitted to Gwendolyn.


"That's because you were already unconscious. I'm assuming that you had a heart attack. By some force of fate, I was still conscious," Gwendolyn informed Gillie of what had befallen her six hours earlier.


"Who called 112 for us?" asked Gillie.


"I did. After you were gone. I managed to move your hand and fingers enough to dial and respond before I too faded from consciousness," Gwendolyn explained what had happened after Gillie's consciousness had almost expired.


"You mean...?" Gillie suddenly realized the folly of her own life, and that which she'd placed her faith upon versus that which she'd chosen to expel from her being.


"Yes. I, the person who scolded you about the danger of your habit, saved your life, or as it might stand, our life. And yet, here you are, giving all of your loyalty to that which nearly killed you. Nearly killed us," Gwendolyn laid it all out for her, plain and simple.


"Worse, you don't even remember, do you? How could anyone forget what we experienced?" Gwendolyn was frustrated beyond comprehension that Gillie had forgotten some aspect of their post death experience.


And with Gwendolyn's words, her post death memories came flooding back to her, and from that moment onward, on the evening of Hallow's Eve, cigarettes, as much so as many trivial things in life did not seem as important as they once had seemed.

However, enlightenment was not as easy an escape from that which pursued her as she might have thought, for she had through even of her own death, become learned and was yet, still lost.


All throughout London and the rest of the Aerth, Hallow's Eve converged upon the night.


The Rite Of Hallow's Night




Glynis leaned forward in her chair as Nelony sat beside her, an awkward silence closing in on them, though awkward silences were familiar territory to Glynis, for those who'd spoken with her and then realized that she had a condition, often found themselves absent of any words, given their understanding of the human condition, though to Nelony it was not awkward at all.


From one of the trees their arose the sound of a bird: kraa!.


Glynis looked to the tree from which the bird had introduced itself and saw a foreboding black silhouette perched upon one of the tree limbs.


"Look!" Glynis pointed to the tree, which from Nelony's perspective, was behind her, though Nelony had known what to expect, for she'd already recognized the call of a familiar friend.


The bird loomed large from its perch, appearing much larger than it actually was. It had recognized Nelony by her form and by the subtle pitch variations of her voice, it knew that she was in good spirits at the moment. It had heard the other human girl seated beside her, and the inflections of her speech directed towards Nelony, indicating familiarity which had told the bird that she too was likely a friend.


Nelony held out her arm, as she'd done a few times before in Mila's backyard, and the bird accepted her invitation, flying the distance from its perch to her limb, then shimmying along her arm up towards her shoulder. As Glynis saw this, her face lit up in amazement, her smile speaking volumes at that moment.


"Glynis, this is my friend Venlig [venn-lee]. Venlig, say hi to Glynis," Nelony introduced Glynis to her avian friend.


"Kraa!" the raven responded to Nelony's request, looking to Glynis sideways with its one of its eyes.


It then looked around the back porch deck, turning once again to Nelony, and then looking through the sliding glass doors into the kitchen where within Mila and Shaela were busy preparing a tray of food.


Neville suddenly arrived at the top step from the basement, with a bottle of wine in hand, then turning towards the kitchen where he deposited the bottle on the counter and then made his way over to Wes.


"How's it going mate?" he asked Wes.


"Just figuring out this backup generator here. Should have it online in a jif," Wes had finally found the menu to cycle the generator warmup.


After he'd activated that option, he navigated to the main menu and enabled the power.


At that moment, the lights about Mila's home that were occupied by people, came on (including those on the back porch deck), the music suddenly bursting from the speakers, and startling Glynis and Nelony. Miraculously, Venlig remained on Nelony's shoulder, only slightly startled as it had other more menacing issues which to relay to his friend.


"Kraa! Krrr... clack... clack... grrrrr cluck cluck Kraa!" the raven spoke to Nelony in its native tongue.


"What's that? There's an intruder?" Nelony confirmed with the raven.


"Krrrraaa! krrrr... cluck... kriiik... clack... cluck cluck Kraa!" the raven added, this time more urgency in its expression.


 At that moment, Neville opened the sliding glass doors and stepped out onto the deck.


"No applause necessary! We were bound to have figured out the issue with the power sooner or later. Really, it was nothing," Neville smiled, pausing in the middle of the deck as if on stage, laying claim to Wes' effort in figuring out the controls to the generator.


At that point Nelony stood from her chair, slowly enough to ensure her not startling Venlig, who remained where it stood on her shoulder.


"There's something afoot. Glynis? I've just got to pop inside for bit and speak with Mila and Shaela. Neville here will keep you company, but don't worry, he's not really that much of a jerk. Most of the time," Nelony said to Glynis, adding a wink as an assurance.


"Alright, but you two have to come back. I've never had a conversation with a raven before and it is on my bucket list you know," Glynis responded, drawing a smile from both Neville and Nelony.


Neville immediately went over to a seat beside Glynis and broke the ice:


"So? What's it like having muscular dystrophy? Is it like a cold or the flu maybe...? I had a really bad flu one time..." Neville asked her, clumsily parading his ignorance despite already having both feet in his mouth.


Nelony stepped into the house, closing the sliding doors behind her.


"What did I say about having strange animals in the house?" Mila turned to face Nelony and Venlig, with whom she was already acquainted.


"Grrrufff!" Happiu~isuka yipped once upon seeing the raven on Nelony's shoulder, his puppy tail wagging back and forth enthusiastically.


"Venlig isn't a stranger at all, and he just told me that there's an intruder about your property," Nelony responded, seemingly not in a mood for jokes.


"Probably just a field mouse you know. Remember, that's a bird you're dealing with. His idea of intruder and ours are two different things," Shaela countered the bird's credibility.


"He didn't say of an animal variety. He specifically said a person, and one that was able to tangle the sparkly air... I'm not quite sure what that meant. It was in raven language so he's trying to describe things from his perspective," Nelony explained to them.


"Tangling sparkly air? Are you sure that he didn't sneak a bit of your drink when you weren't looking?" asked Wes as he arrived from the utility closet where the controls to the backup power generator were installed.


"Tangling sparkly air? I was thinking what that substitute teacher, Mister Norbid was doing when he tried to take Wes from us. Remember?" Nelony looked to Shaela, whose body was suddenly racked with chills at the thought.


Shaela recalled that afternoon in class, when the ceiling had disappeared and her, Nelony and Wes were thrust into a scene from a horror movie. A burning of wytches at a pyre, though the substitute teacher was in this case trying to take Wes from them to burn him alive.


"When I was having nightmares about my parents' death, I remembered there being an old man in a cloak, who was sculpting the air with his hands...  like he was plucking something from the air and then twisting it into shapes and forms that took on a life of their own... like he was weaving the energy from the air...?" Mila tried to describe something she'd recalled from her nightmares that matched the raven's description.


"Like magic?" Wes suggested.


"You mean card tricks or something like that? Why would a bird warn us about something like that?" asked Shaela, who seemed more skeptical than anything, though deep down inside of her, she already suspected some kind of connection between what they'd been experiencing and the paranormal. 


"You refer to him so distastefully," Nelony responded accusingly, folding her arms across her chest.


"Who? Wes?" Shaela confirmed she'd heard her correctly.


"No. My bird friend here, though that's not far removed from how you regard people too. He deserves a little respect you know. He's trying to warn us!" Nelony defended her raven friend.


"How can you even be sure of what that bird is saying to you?" Shaela said to her, looking skeptically to the raven which still sat firmly upon her shoulder.


"I suppose I can't be certain, though I'd trust the sincerity of this bird over that of people any day of the week. He's incapable of lying for one..." Nelony continued her squabble with Shaela while unbeknownst to Mila, Happiu~isuka slipped out through the opening in the sliding doors.


...


Mianamor Selembrosi, in the body of Susan Gardener, made her way around the west side of Mila's large home. Most of that side of her house was covered in trees and shrubs. What Mila had referred to as the wild, for it had no walkway and presented no path for any who'd ventured there, hence it was mostly used by the critters that called the lands around the lake their home.


"This dress is of some importance to me you know?!!!" Susan griped at Miana, as the burrs clung to the side of her skirt, nearly ripping it.


"That's the old you speaking. When I'm done with you, there won't be anymore of her," Miana responded to Susan firmly but quietly as she navigated the rough.


"I suppose you'll just evict me from my own body then?" Susan spoke inside of her own head with a scathing bitterness at the irony of Miana's having taken over her body. 


Miana of course could hear it all, but ignored it. To her, acquiring the dog was of the utmost importance for her and her former employer. Until the time when that dog was in her possession, all other considerations were secondary at best. Including the question of whether Susan Gardener would be allowed to continue existing in her own body.


When Miana had reached the halfway point through the rough, she once again began moving her arms and hands, gathering unto herself bits of darkness from her surroundings and using them to form a black voluminous cloud which surrounded her. As she continued to move through the underbrush, the cloud of blackness clung to her.


...


Happiu~isuka's nose twitched as he silently made his way along the back porch, towards the west side of the house. His tail began wagging as he approached the corner, as there was something vaguely familiar about the smell coming therefrom. 


Neville, who remained seated beside Glynis, much to her polite chagrin, continued the unending monologue of his life, and how it had imbued him with the empathy to relate with people of her ilk, as he'd so worded it.


During his ongoing banter, she'd slowly and ever more increasingly automatically, nodded in all the right places, as his words and ramble slowly faded into the background, her mind suddenly focused on her surroundings.


"Glynis?" Gallea's voice emerged from the silence in her head.


"Gallea! I thought you'd left me for a short stint at the roundabout," Glynis responded silently, inside of her head.


"Listen Glynis. Whatever happens, don't try to run! I won't help you if you do. You see the dog, don't you?" asked Gallea as Glynis noticed from the background that Mila's little pug had somehow slipped out of the house and was now about to round the corner and run off into the brush.


"DON'T say a thing to them," Gallea urged Glynis, who found Gallea's sudden change in behaviour a little strange.


"I can't just let her dog run off? The poor little thing could get snatched up by a wild predator!" Glynis resisted Gallea's plea, but before Glynis had a chance to say anything, Mila suddenly ran out through the sliding doors.


"Happiu?" Mila called the puppy's name, looking towards the table to where Glynis and Neville were seated.


Nelony turned and watched as Mila ran through the open doors, suddenly realizing that she'd left them open when she'd come into the house to tell them about the raven's warning.


"Way to go nature girl!" Shaela said as she abandon her post preparing the food and followed Mila out through the sliding doors, closing them on purpose in Nelony's face.


"Leave them open at least! He might just wander back inside," Nelony said as soon as she opened the doors again.


Happiu~isuka had just rounded the south-west corner of the house and was about to head into the brush when he instead stopped, and began barking and growling as he backed away from whatever he'd encountered there within.


Without first thinking about it, Mila's hands began to move, as she began shaping reality itself. Transforming it in such a way that the space behind Happiu~isuka somehow became artistically twisted, curving back upon itself and through a shortcut that emerged just above the bed, inside of Mila's bedroom, where the door was closed.


Happiu~isuka yelped once as he disappeared into the twisted space, his body elongated by several kilometers, though he did not feel it at all. Instead, from his perspective, everything else seemed to shrink, becoming very compressed and skinny. The depth of his barks suddenly dropped, sounding like someone playing back a recording at a much slower speed, his bark now sounding like an large and old dog of some years. The last of such barks echoed forth from this illusion Mila had woven, before he was plopped onto her bed from just three feet above it.


Nelony immediately slammed the sliding doors shut (unknowingly on Wes' face), looking in awe at what Mila had just done. The illusion shimmered, and then slowly faded, once again replaced with the recognizable version of reality. The one they all knew and with which they were comfortable.


The sliding doors slid open and Wes immediately began ranting at Nelony.


"What'd I do? You could have at least given me a..." Wes suddenly paused as he looked in the direction of Mila and Shaela, both of whom now had their back to the corner from which Mila had rescued Happiu~isuka.


There was no way to describe it other than it being a globular cloud of darkness. Undulating under the LED lighting of the back deck, though very roughly, of a human form.


Without a second's hesitation, the raven flew from Nelony's shoulder, directly at the shadowy form that had emerged from the brush, Mila and Shaela dodging the bird as it flew past them.


"Stand back Wes. I've got business with nature girl! What has gotten into you, sending the bird at us like that?!!!" Shaela's voice pierced the night.


"It wasn't me! Its protecting you!" Nelony pleaded with Shaela as behind her and Mila, the raven fiercely attacked the shadowy form, forcing it back into the brush.


"Glynis! Get upstairs! Find her bedroom! I'll help you. Hurry!" Gallea's voice had once again returned, Glynis now quickly upon her feet as she grabbed her cane and moved deftly to the sliding doors and slipped into Mila's kitchen.


"What has gotten into the lot of you?!!!" Mila, as the host of their impromptu gathering suddenly felt it necessary to take direction of the situation and deal with it rationally despite her having twisted reality by a means that she'd never imagined possible.


"It wasn't me who warped my own dog out of reality!" Nelony responded to Mila, as Glynis disappeared into the house, sliding the doors shut behind her.


The raven suddenly flew out from the brush as if thrown by something fearsome, directly at Neville, who caught it like a softball in his arms, falling over backwards in the deck chair and landing on his back.


"There's something back there! In the brush! The raven was trying to save you all from it!" Wes yelled at them, pointing in the direction of the westernmost corner of Mila's home.


"Well I've got the raven now, which means that whatever had it before is on its way to get us!" Neville struggled to his feet, the raven firmly clasped in his hands through which he could feel both its heavy breath and beating little heart.


Nelony at that moment found herself feeling oddly attracted to Neville, even having entertained a momentary life fantasy involving him in much the same position, with their baby in his arms at some point onward into their life together. Perhaps a backyard barbecue with neighbours, or just a week night in the fray of life. A moment triggered in her simply by his having saved and protected the raven.


"There's nothing back there! Its just the shadows playing tricks..." Shaela turned to face Neville, trying like Mila had to calm her friends and to figure the situation out reasonably rather than anxiously. Before she'd had the rest of her words out, something shadowy reached out and grabbed her from her feet, and pulled her into the shadows in the brush.


Nelony had seen it, or rather its shadowy silhouette. It wasn't human in form, or if it had been, it was no longer. Its tentacles had entwined Shaela and plucked her from where she stood before anyone of them could move to protect her.


Except Wes, who'd charged into the brush of the westernmost side of the house and after Shaela.


"Go protect Glynis!" Mila yelled to Neville, who didn't stop to question her reasoning, but instead did exactly as she instructed. Running past Nelony, who at that point was in shock, and then opening the sliding doors into the kitchen, leaving them open for Nelony after which he ran for the stairs to the second floor and searched each of the bedrooms until he found one of the doors locked.


Nelony suddenly came to her senses, slamming the sliding doors shut. After which she joined Mila, as the two of them ventured into the brush after Shaela and Wes.


...


Shaela felt herself being thrown, then tumbling through the air and sliding to a stop on familiar ground. She immediately recognized the pungent smell of the strange weeds that grew from a centroid just above the soil.


She rolled over onto her front and got to her feet, turning in the direction from whence she'd been thrown to face whatever  nemesis might confront her there. It was as dark as darkness could be, but she recalled the idiom that her secretive guide had used to open her eyes to the shadow realm:

There is only blindness in complete darkness or complete light... 

Contrast she thought.


Upon her realization of this, the world around her split off into two extremes. That which was illuminated and that which was in the shade. As her eyes adjusted, the gradient details of everything between the darkness and light became visible, and the things around her started to take on the shapes of their true dimensionality.


From the dark vortex through which she'd been thrown, emerged a woman adorned in a business skirt and blazer and low rise heels. Her domino hairstyle apparent in her silhouette, her eyes now glowing with an eerie purplish colour.


When the vortex through which both her and Shaela had come into this world had closed, Shaela could see the shape of one of the tentacle beasts behind the woman. It apparently had ventured into Shaela's realm and grabbed her, tossing her into the shadow realm where this woman and that beast could deal with her however they saw fit.


"I never thought I'd see this day. My oh my, just look at you. How old are you? Sixteen? Seventeen?" asked the woman as she slowly and deliberately closed the distance between herself and Shaela, the tentacled beast following her, in sudden, jerky steps.


"Are you the one who told me?" asked Shaela.


"Told you what?" the woman found Shaela's response much more informative than the answer to the question she'd originally asked of the red head.


"I guess not. Look. You'd better not try hurting me. There's something in here protecting me," Shaela backed away from the woman slowly, careful not to trip on any of the floating podgrass.


"There most certainly is. Me. However, if you don't start telling me the answers to what I'm asking of you, my patience will run out, as will your protection. Believe me, there are horrors in here that are beyond your worst imaginings. Things that are beyond fathoming in their darkness and cruelty. I am what keeps them from you," the woman advised Shaela, who continued stepping backwards, nearly tripping over an inverted root.


Shaela noticed something about the woman. She seemed to be following Shaela, though not directly. Her purplish eyes were focused in Shaela's direction, but not exactly at her. At that point, Shaela suddenly realized that the woman had not learned the lesson her guide had shared with her. The woman was essentially blind, but that was no guarantee about the tantacled beast behind her, protecting her.


Shaela began stepping more and more sideways, still leading the woman forward, but more and more at an angle to her actual position. As she suspected, the tentacled beast continued following the woman rather than Shaela, meaning that it was following the woman's exact instructions and not benefiting from its own perception of the evolving situation.


Shaela looked to the ground, and saw one of the pods of the podgrass laying dead, withered tendrils dried to its sides. She carefully and quietly picked it up as the woman continued forward, passing her position more than five meters away, the tentacled beast following closely behind the woman.


Shaela with all of her might, heaved the pod through the air, throwing it away from her and in the direction the woman was walking. If flew through the air and crashed into one of the other pods. That suddenly erupted, tendrils shooting out of it and wrapping around the one she'd thrown. She then realized that the pods were much more dangerous than she initially realized.


The woman however, apparently had little or no experience with them, because when she heard the one Shaela had thrown becoming trapped by the podgrass' tendrils, she began running in the direction as best she could given her heels, the beast behind her picking up pace to keep up, though entirely and instinctively avoiding the podgrass pods with its own tentacle legs.


When the woman accidentally hit one of the pods, it too exploded into a multitude of tendrils, all of which entangled her, stopping her immediately where she stood. She caught herself before falling forward face first into another pod, the beast behind her nearly bumping into her and putting her at risk once again of what she'd previously avoided.


"You're a sneaky one, you are. So different than you're going to be when you're in your late twenties. Bold. Loud. Overbearing. Obnoxious. No, you've clearly learned some new tricks, Shaela Sheowellyn," the woman struggled against the tendrils of the podgrass, finding little give in their grasp upon her.


Despite the temptation to verbally taunt and torment the woman, Shaela resisted. She instead began walking carefully back in the direction of the vortex that had brought her to the shadow realm, avoiding the podgrass every step of the way.


"Krirvirkath!" the woman snarled in a strange language at the tentacled beast. It suddenly turned and began hunting for Shaela, searching in a direction nowhere near where she was headed.


Upon seeing the beast's error, Shaela was further inspired to quicken her pace, however quickly realizing her error when she stumbled over a half-dead pod. The tendrils shot out, however far fewer than there might have been with a healthy pod. She dove to the dirt, just narrowly avoiding becoming entangled by the pod, but that didn't stop the tentacled beast from realizing where she was.


It quickly began lumbering through the pod field, still avoiding the pods with every step, for it was a native of this realm, and had long since adapted to surviving such perils. Shaela was upon her feet once again, jogging at a pace so she could avoid the pods as she spotted them. When she turned to see that the tentacled beast was catching up with her, she broke out into a full and spirited sprint, giving it everything she had, pulling the hem of her skirt up her legs until they were free to move completely.


She passed the last of the pods, now entering into a patch of dry land absent of vegetation. Only the strange inverted trees and their air-bound roots were available for her cover. She dove for one such tree, only to have the beast pursuing her grab hold of her ankle with one of its tentacles, dragging her flailing towards one of its two heads.


She grabbed hold of one of the roots, as the beast tried to pull her free from it, attempting to devour her as one of the heads closed in. She pulled herself against its immense weight with all of her might, but it pulled her back thrice as hard, and she was ripped from the roots and helpless as the beast's head closed in to consume her.


The first of the shadow hunters pounced onto the tentacled beast, digging its claws into the tender abdomen and pressing it to the dirt, almost like squashing a bug. Shaela's head was a meter or two away and she recognized the sleek shape of a feline, but in the form of an undulating shadow. Its eyes glowing red as it examined her, the tentacled beast already skewered by the cat's immense claws.


Shaela fell to the dirt with a thud as the dead beast's clasp upon her weakened. She backed away from the monstrous shadowy feline, bumping into the snout of another. This one much larger than the first. A third, and then a fourth encircled the fallen tentacled beast, for a total of four of these monstrous felines, each of them with large glowing red eyes.


The largest of them turned to Shaela, and opened its mouth. Shaela closed her eyes for she thought she was done. A tasty morsel for a giant cat of all things. However, as she soon learned, that would not be the case, for the feline wasn't trying to bite her (or eat her for that matter). It was getting to know her scent. It was tasting the essence of her being.


When it had ceased as much, which rather than appearing to be smelling her, it was more like it was yawning. As if smelling her with its throat and an ancient organ there within. It stopped for a moment, gazing deep into her with its monstrous red eyes, and then it roared fiercely at her, getting low on its haunches and creeping towards her as if it was ready to pounce.


"Wait! I love cats! Nice kitty! Puss puss puss!" Shaela tried her best to sound friendly. As if she were addressing a domesticated house cat. The kind that might nuzzle up on a Welsh girl's lap, after tea had been served. Timid. Purring. Perhaps sleeping, as it already had for the previous seventeen hours of the day. Shaela sincerely believed herself to be the friend of cats, however, these cats were not of the friendly variety. They'd survived in a harsh world that favoured the harsh and the shrewd and the vicious. This morning (in the plane of the shadow realm), the natural world had favoured them with not just one, but two meals. Enough to feed them for the rest of the day.


The other three felines had already begun gorging themselves on the flesh of the tentacled beast,  ripping pieces of it from its body, and devouring its meat by chewing it fiercely, even stopping to clean the dirt of the bits they'd dropped during the messy process. All of them were eating, except for the largest, who had both eyes firmly upon Shaela, imploring her to flee.


Shaela realized that this would be her last moment. That she'd never live to continue her education. To find a place to fit in as the outcast that she was and perhaps in a place she could for the first time truly call home. Maybe beside a man like Wes, or maybe not. Maybe like a crazy old cat lady by herself, with six of them to feed every day as she slowly gave up her sanity to flights of fantasy between the covers of a book. These were the things that she'd never know, and all because she'd become a meal for the predatorial cats of a much harsher world than her own.


Instead of fleeing however, she stood facing the feline, refusing to close her eyes.


The giant shadow cat looked at her, and then beyond her. At something just behind her, at which point it turned as it tried desperately to flee, but by then it was already too late. Shaela upon realizing that there was something behind her that the giant shadow cat feared, had curled up into a ball on her own haunches, wrapping her arms around her head.


Her death did not come, nor did even the slightest injury to her. Just the sounds of something so hideous and grotesque tearing them all to pieces, that she dared not think about it, or the sounds of its eating, whatever it might have been.


She did not know how long she sat on the ground like that. Only that when she chose to look, that everything, the tentacled beast, the four shadow cats, all of them, were gone. 


There was only herself left, and the woman who had known her name, where she still lay entangled in the tendrils of the podgrass pod.


To be continued...

Credits and attribution:

Special Thanks To Rocket Fuel Lakeshore Blvd West, perhaps the best place in history to get a coffee, circa 2001-2004. Miss you all very much.

Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...

Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, PhotoPea (a great web based Photoshop stand-in if you're on a low budget or in a pinch), Reedsy (an online resource and tool for writers), Borderline Obsession...

DeepSeek AI for suggestions on exercises to improve aspects of describing scene and settings with a more sensory focused grammar and also for the quip Ernest uses when he comments about Gwendolyn's dress before their date.

InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.

Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.

Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.

Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)

Magic (performance, illusion and perhaps the real thing): Magic Week Archive (I'm currently growing this section so stay tuned)

Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.

Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery 
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life

Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery 
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life

Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts

Sensei Rokas: Martial Arts Journey
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history

Seamus O'Dowd
An extensive growing archive Katas, Techniques and Waza (mostly Shotokan)

Iaido: Train For Katana Mastery Like Samurai 
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art

Tapp Brothers Exercise For Better Motion 
Extensive courses for calisthenics and body strength, stamina and flexibility

Special thanks to Canva for inspiring other creators and giving them the tools

Special thanks to Captain Crunch and his wonderful sister!

Special thanks to Bandcamp for giving indie music artists a home under one roof

Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.

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