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Eloquent Conversationalist
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 Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2016 6:46 pm
all the more reason for businesses to laud the positive customer experiences, if for no better reason than to drown out the negative
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Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2016 9:02 pm
Standing on the top of a wall, he surveyed his surroundings. He wore a tight red suit, but one that was far more utilitarian than superhero. It was what felt right to him. Standing atop this wall, a light breeze blew over him ruffling his short white hair. Narrowed eyes looked over the sea of walls before him. He stood within the heart of a labyrinth. Every turn seemed a dead end, or a loop that took him nowhere. The man had no idea how long he had been there, nor the way out. He was just left to aimlessly wander about the twisting passages. Each wall was too tall to see over, and he had to struggle to climb atop this one. They all were made of the same reddish stone, a rusty color that blended into itself so sometimes one could not even see the openings in the walls, giving the illusion of a neverending path. He sighed softly, breathing in the stale air. It was free of any discernable scent other than dust. He felt as if he had been walking forever through this oppressive maze. He hated enclosed spaces, and this was no different. If the maze had a roof, he might have been too scared to go on. Without much insight, he slid down the wall back into the passageway he was in before. The same passageway he seemed to have been in for far too long. The man began to jog. Without a path, he began to take turns at random. Some turns were 90 degrees, some 45, and some were a slight veer to one side. He had no way of knowing where he went, but the longer he spent in this maze, the more he felt like he was only getting more and more lost.
Tension built and compounded in his heart as the place seemed to mock him. Had he been here before? Was that bit of rubble the same he passed a few minutes ago? He had no clear way to climb up again, so he couldn’t even check. His heart began to race, face and arms became damp with sweat. He was having trouble breathing- but he refused to give in. Something told him to keep going. Keep trying. Eventually, he turned his back and looked behind him only to see a flash of movement. It was only a brief moment- but it was there. The man turned around and ran back to where he saw the movement- and found a solid wall. It wasn’t there a moment ago, he was sure of it! He turned to look forward again, and there was yet another solid wall. He only had one branch to take and he was beginning to feel the walls closing in on him. Air was getting thin- he had to move. He again began to jog despite the stitch in his lungs. Pain told him he was alive, but he still had to keep moving. He couldn’t trust the walls. The walls kept moving! Worse yet was the dawning realization that something was coming. It was buzzing. It was humming. Coming and going, always just out of sight, but he could hear it! Something was hunting him. In desperation, he scooped up a handful of rubble to have something to hold. Something solid. Right. Left, straight. Veer right. Hard right. Lazy left. His speed was increasing into a dead run, and still the buzzing was there. At one intersection, he had to take a hard left, and the wall before him moved . . . right at him. It was falling on him!
He screamed out in fear and surprise as the wall crumbled into an avalanche of stone. Reddish, rusty dust billowing at him as he skidded into the pile. A second later, and he would not have had time to react. Through it all, he heard the buzzing. “WHO ARE YOU?!?” Screaming only made the buzzing louder, it echoed off the walls and seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. Shadows moved in the corner of his eye, and he desperately scanned around him. Heart racing, adrenaline pumping, he was desperate to find this thing that was chasing him. He even tried to backtrack to a different branched path of the maze, only to find walls had appeared to close off his escape. Everything seemed to funnel him forward, and the buzzing continued to fly about. He took off at a dead run and leaped over the rubble pile. He collided with another wall and landed hard on the ground. The buzzing became louder and louder. It sounded like a laugh. A laugh mixed into the sound.
When he opened his eyes, a large wasp hovered over him, it’s vertical mouth parts moving rapidly. Legs fidgeted as it stared at him. He wanted to scream, but was too scared to. The wasp stared into his eyes and he heard a voice in his head. “That was fun- but now you are done.” It reared back it’s stinger, and the man desperately rolled off to the side. He bumped his arms and hip off uneven stone. It hurt, but as he gained his senses, the wasp was recovering from the miss of its stinger. He lobbed his handful of rubble as hard as he could to just above the insect. It was the size of his torso, so he could only hope. Sure enough, stones caught a wing. The flimsy and lightweight wing was very fragile, and stones are quite unforgiving. A wing was torn badly, making the creature crash onto the ground. It’s buzzing was no longer teasing. Now it was mad! With six legs, it began to chase the man, and he ran like hell. He couldn’t outrun it. The beast was large and no longer playing. More than once an antennae batted at his hip. The beast wanted to bite and dismember him! Desperate, he moved to make another turn, and ran up the wall before him instead, and dropped on the top of the beast. The unexpected move caught it off guard, and he was able to slam it to the ground. Winded, tired from running, he was running on pure adrenaline. Laying atop the beast, it began to buck. He placed his feet behind the creature’s neck, and kicked. He put all he had into his legs, and kicked over and over again.
At long last, the head came free, and the body still bucked in frenzy. The head rolled a short distance, and laid on the ground, mouth still gnawing and chewing the air as it stared at the prey that killed it. Still, the body moved without coordination. Scared of what might happen still, the man used the same technique to separate the middle body from the end, and took the writhing body part that was extending and retracting a stinger like a tattooing needle. In an act of defiance, he used that stinger to impale the beast’s head. Over and over the needle stabbed, and he watched the mouth stop moving. It took a while longer for the stinger to stop, but he sat off to the side and watched the whole gruesome ordeal end. Using the rubble from the last wall that crumbled to his advantage, he climbed up on the walls again. This time . . . he did not climb down, and began to make headway through the maze by changing his perspective on how to get through it.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 8:05 pm
I agree, positivity would be a nice breather.
An entertaining writeup. Sorry that I procrastinated on this one for so long. All of my RPing has stalled as of late, so I kept putting off reading the paragraphs. sweatdrop
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Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 8:42 pm
That was perfectly fine, old friend. I worried about you, but nagging wouldn't help. In all honesty, that was posted here because I wanted to save it somewhere and let it be seen. It was a test. In a guild I am trying to get into (assuming it ever starts moving), to be a ranked officer, an additional roleplay sample was required. One to show a person in their mental landscape overcoming a fear of some sort. It was a challenge, and the writeup was interesting and came out well. Would have been a waste to put it somewhere that nobody but one would ever see it.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2016 4:16 pm
I hope the new guild goes well.
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Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2016 6:25 pm
One guild is new, but is stalling before it starts. The other is the one that had so many troubles . . . and is stalling as it tries to be saved.
Haven't role-played in weeks.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2016 3:18 pm
I hope you can get a fix soon.
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Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2016 9:31 pm
I'm working on it . . . but my irons in the fire are taking time.
In the meantime, things are very busy around the house. Got in a fender bender (their fault), need to call about pest control, work is falling apart, planning an overnight drive trip for my younger kid, and money is extraordinarily tight.
Not good times.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:08 pm
i'm sorry you're busy with so many things. I hope the work, and thus financials, improve.
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 9:43 pm
Financially, I have been doing okay- just tight. In the past week, I have had two days where I was worked extrodinarily hard and come home with 70+ and 90+ dollars. My employers have just been growing more and more lax with the concept of paying us on friggin time. It pisses me off to no end, and then my wife starts in on me for the same thing as if I am not trying hard enough to solve the situation.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 7:08 pm
Ah, that's rotten. I hate when management lacks perspective of their workers.
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 7:22 pm
The wife wants me to pursue legal action, but I don't think I have a case yet. Additionally, nobody else is willing to stand up for this. That means if any action is taken, I have to do it alone- and it will be far easier to find a reason to fire me. We cannot afford for me to lose this job.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 7:03 am
Yeah, and legal battles are really rough time-wise & money-wise. Even though employers cannot legally fire in retaliation for legal action by employees (and nothing you sign before or while working their can waive that right), they can always find another reason (and proving it was retaliation is its own court battle). If a significant number of you were to band together, you'd have a really strong case, but no such luck.
Hopefully something changes for the better for you; you deserve it.
Unrelated: Nosgoth, that MMO set _very_ loosely in the LoK/SR universe, will be closed down soon. Unsurprising given how unfaithful it is top the franchise (to say nothing of the overabundance of team-based MMOs these days).
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2016 8:13 pm
Yes, you see the root of the problem here. I cannot stand alone. Doing so would be suicide for my employment. At the moment, we have so many issues that finding solutions is like searching for a raft in the middle of the ocean. Our manager is rumored to be on the verge of giving up. She had a nervous breakdown and was checked into the psychiatric ward of a nearby hospital in November. I do not believe she ever fully recovered. Honestly, I just hope she steps down. She can't handle the job.
As for Nosgoth, yeah, slapping a name on something doesn't work, and honestly I did not even know it was opened. The rumors reached me, development vids, but never an open invite or sale.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 7:59 pm
I'm sorry to hear about your manager. sad
I have heard rumors that Eidos wants to reboot the LoK franchise wholesale. That doesn't mean it will be good, but it would be nice to see, especially w/ the team that did the new Deus Exes & Tomb Raiders.
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