http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c59/Rubberpenguin/Moon-Psalm/Chapter%202.png CH 2: Part 1 In those days, there were two sorts of druids. The esoteric and secretive covens who weaved much superstition and fear around them as they honored the old pagan gods in sacrificial rituals. And the savage adversaries of all civilized folk who would stray from the beaten path. Both types were regarded as something to be avoided unless you had a very important reason. But after the Torii Wars ended with the closing of the ancient gates, many Ryujin men and women were stranded in Estellon. With no way to return home, they were faced with an ultimatum to save themselves from persecution. Assimilate, and rid themselves of anything that connected them to their past culture, or face the Eugencian courts and be judged unfairly for warcrimes that many of them didn’t even commit. The cultural purge had begun. However, a new way of looking at nature still managed to spread from the Refugees who would flee to Falimore, Valoron, and Nylathnore. And as these philosophies began to mingle with the druidic traditions of the wood elves in Nylathnore, a new kind of druid order would emerge to change the way we think of the wyrd folk from the woods. And they would brandish steel. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  The ringing and clashing of steel filled the grove. But with every strike, the one eyed pooka seemed to grow stronger, overwhelming the young knight, Cliff Bareswilt. Their blades locked, and he felt himself back into a tree. The creature leaned in to assert its dominance by grunting right into the knights face, spraying frothy saliva with the gesture. It was gradually growing even taller than he was. But despite the panic welling in his heart, his knightly training had allowed him to keep his cool. With a flick of his wrist, he turned the blade on the creature, and delivered a false edge cut across the neck, then kicked against it to give him room to breathe. “My treasure! You stole my treasure!” The pooka yelled as gore began to spray from its neck. And then, the grizzled, floppy eared creature dropped. Cliff leaned against the tree, panting and dripping with sweat. But as his gaze inclined above the tree line, he saw it. Hundreds of them. Perhaps thousands. And all of them taller than the trees! Then in unison, they all opened their maws and spoke. “Rouse yourself, Sir Bareswilt. Rouse yourself.” A black mist then seized his lungs. And it became hard to breathe. He was now awake. Objectively, he understood this. But it was still hard to breathe without coughing. Finally though, his copper eyes gleamed with the morning sunlight through the trees. And he could smell the smoke of the fire. “Oh god.” He said, finally shifting out of the path of the smoke. Unfortunately as he rolled to his back, he found himself face to face with another creature whom had haunted in the nightmare prior to the other. And it was none to happy to see him. The dire alpaca’s teeth bared at him as it grunted. “Oh god!” He shrieked as he rolled evasively to avoid a drop of saliva. Though judging from the dampness on his face, it must had gotten him in his sleep. “Oh my, Sir Bareswilt. I haven’t heard anyone praise towards the foster god so passionatly since we bid farewell to the pilgrims. Now that you’ve said your morning grace though, I suppose you’re ready to eat.” A woman’s voice chimed from the direction of the fire. Cliff grumbled as he began to process everything with his face in his palm. “Right. That’s lady Ouring.” She’s traveling with me. He thought as he glanced at the familiar pink haired asmian off to the side. Then after the scent of the stew wafted in his direction, he found the will power to stand. The blood began to pump into his arms and legs as the knight oriented himself, wobbled a step and a half, and arrived at his equipment. Then after donning his gamberson and belt, he approached the fire, accepting the bowl that was handed to him. The bard watched the knight quietly as he began to consume his morning meal. “Looks like you had a rough sleep too.” She concluded s he went to the pot for seconds. “Yeah.” The man sighed honestly. “Was it the pooka for you too?” “Yes. But its only natural. I’ve been told as a squire that this is just the mind’s way of processing trauma.” “Processing trauma?” “When you’re in danger, the mind tends to shut out a lot of the details to focus on what is important. But the parts that get shut out get trapped in the soul until the time the mind is ready to deal with and accept them.” “Huh. So… If I dive back into a traumatic memory with the intent to resolve it, I’ll come out remembering something new about the incident. Interesting.” Cliff paused for a moment, then looked at Cloe. A half cocked smirk gripped the Tamian’s lower lips. “The knight teaching the esmari bard. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?” “Oh, sir Bareswilt. Esmari bards don’t learn in the scholastic colleges. We learn from people who live in the realms we merely dabble in. And warfare and battle psychology is one realm that I’m just starting to dip my toes into for the first time.” She explained as she started to fill her own bowl. “Speaking of which, where did you learn how to wield a blade?” “Indeed. Good question. In society, peasants do the work, nobles do the fighting, and priests do the praying. So they all learn what they can to become better at their duties. Well what, objectively, is a priest’s duty exactly?” “Hmm… Tricky. Are you talking about Esmari priests, or Fosterin?” “I mean any faith’s priests. What do they do for people?” “Even the pagon faiths, huh? Okay, I guess… I guess they provide healing service. And bring spiritual assurance to people in times of turmoil. They make sure that their god’s agenda can be fulfilled by guiding them when they stray too far from virtue. Or whatever it is that your god values.” “Indeed. A priest’s duty is to mediate between mortals and their gods to make sure neither looses faith in the other.” Cliff raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Gods can loose faith?” “Yes. You see, like you said, gods have agendas that they need to accomplish in the mortal world. And to do that, they need mortals who could place their faiths into that agenda. Therefore, a priest is one who studies the very nature of that agenda in order to resonate with the god they serve. These powers allow them to perform miracles and such in order to help people, to show them that the god is not uncaring towards their worldly plights. And should they subscribe to that god’s agenda or teachings, then both parties may benefit from the worship. So…” Cloe paused to slurp some more of her soup. “Since Esmari priests don’t have a god to grant them powers, we draw divine power from the psalms she left us instead. Hence why we perform the second oldest form of magic known to man. Bardic magic. And since I am of the priest class, I must learn all the skills and talents necessary to become a priestess. And since we’re travelers who aren’t bound to temples made from stone, we have to learn how to protect ourselves. So, lady Mistia, the elf who taught the teachings of the golden path, also took time to teach me how to poke dangerous things. That’s right. With the pointy end.” Cliff considered the theology lesson quietly. It made sense. But as with most of the woman’s words, it also kinda felt like she was bending rules and loopholes in the societal structure in order to get more wiggle room. Were all Esmari priests like this? “So what’s the first form of magic?” He finally asked, if only to break the silence. “Oh, that’s the primal magic that was instilled into the world when it was created. Its a mostly forgotten art. But apparently the druids can still tap into it. However, they hoard those secrets to themselves. And they will probably sacrifice you to the worldly pagan deities if you tried to ask them about it.” The Asmian chuckled. “And being an Esmari Bard who does all their learning through their travels, I take it you’ve tried.” Upon noticing two narrowed copper eyes bestowing judgement upon her, Cloe gagged and coughed on her stew, but managed to push it down. She masked her insecurity with an innocent, charming smile. It did nothing to change the knight’s disposition, however. And her shoulders sagged in defeat. She looked back down at her wooden bowl in silence. Turning the bowl to see the droplets of the broth churn with gravity. Then, as something dawned in her mind, she perked back up with an astonished expression. “Oh, hey, I just remembered something! Did you know that the druids despise unnatural materials like metal? They’ll instead use stone sickles and obsidian in their rituals!” ”Wow, wonder how long that one’s been banging around in your soul.” ((Part 2 will come tomorrow.))

Uh, hi. Anime is Japanese animation. There are countless different anime series and movies. Popular anime movies include Akira and Ghost in the Shell. Popular anime series include Dragon Ball Z, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Naruto, and Attack on Titan. While Japanese animation has been exported to other countries since at least the 1960s, the medium has become increasingly popular to western audiences since the 1990s with many different countries holding dozens of different anime conventions annually.

Hey guys, just making a new post along side my normal announcements of when I'm going live with my twitch streams. I go live Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday around 12AM EST. My channel is https://twitch.tv/midasthealchemist And can find me on twitter at @MidasAlchem

I know it’s not a super popular game, considering it hasn’t come out as a full release yet, but is anyone here going to play it? As soon as the founder packs came out I bought it since I’ve been a follower of Maplestory for years, but I don’t know a lot of people playing it.

Definitely a bigger shmup guy but I won't turn down a modern FPS with a decent campaign. Can't say I'm much into the competitive multiplayer scene at least on FPSs.

To be honest I share a love-hate relationship with spoilers. For example, most of the time I hate having spoilers. On the other hand, spoiling the latest Star Wars movie to my sister makes me chuckle heartily. Though tbh if I didn't want spoilers to my anime I'd probably be better off not going on 4chan. :-P Also a big thank you to CAC, a fellow human bean.

Cons are a good start. If you're in college, a lot of schools have anime clubs already or take the bull by the horns and start one yourself if there isn't one. I don't necessarily recommend creeping the manga section at your local comic or bookstore, but I've definitely seen otaku there plenty of times. It's pretty tough to cold turkey approach someone out of the blue in a public place like that. Especially in this whole era of #metoo and some people not wanting to talk to rando people. Just be conscious of that when trying to chat up random strangers.