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Eeeurgh I just write this out and lost internet connection as I posted so lost the whole post reee.


Anyway, a while ago I read some of William Morris' odd fantasies which are set in presumably some kind of parallel world (the settings are very very vague, like an old fashioned fairy story) in which Christianity is a thing and the protagonists always come from Christendom and have some form of Christian traditions and morality. And it actually feels believable, like a real part of the world. Not the things people believe in but the belief itself and the impact it has on the characters and the world. And I realised that no other fantasy I've read has ever pulled that off - even those set in parallel worlds with some form of parallel Christian theology. I certainly can't think of any entirely fictitious religion which feels like anything other than the author trying to tick a worldbuiliding box.
Any other authors who manage this? Any thoughts on how to do it? Would it break the immersion to have a totally fictitious world with real world religions wadged into it?

Sup peeps, was just hoping someone here would be able to direct to a channel or two with some decent quality P&P RPG content - streamed campaign sessions and shizzle.

Yo yo yo.
So this is fairly old news, and I'm sure many of you have heard about it before. I've heard about it before, but I'd never heard this much of the detail. It is apparently a lot worse than I'd imagined.
I'll post a link to the article with Bret and Heathers side of the full story, but for those of you who haven't heard I'll briefly explain. If you are already familiar or you intend to read the article anyway then I'd recommend that you skip this wall of text.
Here's the article https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/bonfire-of-the-academies-two-professors-on-how-leftist-intolerance-is-killing-higher-education
Bret Weinstein was a professor of evolutionary biology at evergreen state college, and despite being a very liberal left wing person he got into some trouble with evergreens New diversity and equity panel (full article explains this much better than me). This ended up hitting the news after Bret refused to take part in a day of absence, which traditionally had involved black students and staff voluntarily excluding themselves for a day to make a point about what it would be like if they weren't there. However on this year the group of students who organised the day of exclusion decided that white people should exclude themselves, and Bret (who is white if you hadn't guessed) felt that this was wrong so he emailed the organisers to let them know it and he did not comply with their demand that he exclude himself. Obviously he was accused of racism over this, but quite surprisingly he was also confronted with a mob of students who shouted at him, intimidated him and his students and demanded his resignation. This was recorded by members of the mob and uploaded onto YouTube, where it gained infamy as a display of disgusting behaviour by SJWs/crazy lefties/whatever. Anyway, instead of these students actually being reprimanded in any way they had their demands acquiesced to and were encouraged to continue by the staff members who had been teaching them to "protest" in this manner to start with. Things actually escalated, with Bret and his students being physically threatened and somehow the college administration even allowed students to patrol the campus with portugaling baseball bats. Anyhow, it ended up with Bret and Heather (his wife who is also an evolutionary biologist and who also taught at evergreen) having to resign as they were refused to take a sabbatical. They opened a law suit and eventually settled for half a million, but they are out of employment, currently out of careers that they love and their former students have lost phenomenal teachers. Plus the college administration has afaik not admitted to any wrongdoing, not attempted to reign in these "protesters" (on the contrary these students are still being indoctrinated into these armadilloty viewpoints) and of course the college is still being supported by US taxpayers.


Anyway, the reason I wanted to open this thread is that (according to Bret and Heather) this whole debacle was actually encouraged and potentially engineered by the college administration and faculty members, which begs the question of what should be done to prevent university administrators from acting this way. Should there be more legal responsibility placed upon them? Is there enough already, or even too much?
Personally my feeling is that academic freedom should be paramount (or as close to as reasonably possible), and I'd generally be very wary of the state dictating how individual universities should behave. However it doesn't seem to me that university administrators are primarily interested in academic freedom, and I don't see how to encourage them to prioritise it without state intervention.
I know that Jonathon Haidt has been promoting a new ranking of universities according to their diversity of political/philosophical opinion among teaching staff (heterodoxacademy if you're interested) but I'm not sure how accurate such rankings would be, or how effective when it comes to actually convincing prospective students to enrol into highly ranked universities.
My own feeling of UK universities is that administrators are generally more interested in maximising revenue (which currently would mean cramming in as many undergraduates into courses as possible without increasing the resources required to actually teach those courses properly) and increasing their own salaries than increasing the quality of their institutions, but that is not something I have much evidence for.


Also I'm sure we've had threads on university political leanings before but I did a very lazy search and I also think it goes beyond that. And Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying are pretty damn awesome.

This post is a thing I am posting now so I don't forget to post it later, but will probably not finish right now. So it is rawww and wriggling unedited atm. Also this could probably have been posted in the science and stuff part of the forum but I'm more interested in the political/philosophical consequences currently.
https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15
This is an article I found pretty interesting, essentially it is trying to describe the phenomenon wherein an intolerant or inflexible minority can (or will) come to dominate a tolerant or apathetic majority. I should point out that whilst I found this principle very interesting, the article itself seemed very long winded and tedious to read to me, so if anyone knows of a better discussion on this principle then hmu fam. I also do not agree with all of the author's conclusions or suggestions.
The first example given is the prevalence of kosher soft drinks (in the US I think, but presumably all around the west) despite the fact the vast majority of folk are not Jewish (again in the US/the west). This can be explained by the fact that Jews will only drink kosher drinks, whereas very few people will refuse to drink a kosher drink, therefore since the price of production is not significantly changed it is more economical for soft drink manufacturers and marketers to just sell kosher soft drinks. Likewise the same principle applies to some extent to the sale of kosher and halal meat, although not to the same extent as a significant number of people in the west are opposed to kosher and halal meat upon the grounds of animal welfare (or sometimes simply due to antisemitism/Islamophobia) and also I imagine these forms of slaughter might be significantly more expensive.


This principle may have rather more significant implications than these examples however, particularly when it comes to politics. If it holds true in the case that there is an intolerant minority (in the sense that they will not bend of certain policies/ideologies) within a certain political movement or party whilst the majority of this movement/party is relatively tolerant or flexible then it would be seen that the views of this minority are dis proportionally over-represented within the movement/party. And to some extent I would say this does appear to happen within many left-wing political movements (although I'm not sure how true this appearance actually is) and even in the wider political landscape in the form of "political correctness gone made" (and in other forms too probably), wherein political or public figures are often very careful to avoid saying things that are not viewed as politically correct, despite the "fact" (apparent but not easy to truly determine) that the majority of the public are not usually that bothered about it, because a rather vocal minority are very bothered by it. I think in recent times we've been seeing a backlash against this, in the form of people becoming less tolerant of apparent political correctness and such like, which I would imagine is part of the rise of populist movements (Trump and brexit spring to mind).
An example of this that first springs to my mind would be a thing that happened during the (most) recent election of the head of the labour party (here in the UK) where Corbyn's rival (at this point iirc it was a two horse race) was accused of sexism after he said that Corbyn should be "rocking Theresa May back onto her heels" during prime-ministers question time. Now anyone with a functional brain should be able to realise this is a boxing metaphor, but the woman (an MP in the labour party ffs) who made the complaint thought that it was a reference to May's footwear (highheels) and so was a sexist statement. This could and should have been easily clarified without the need to apologise, but the "offender" who's name I cannot remember at all instead acted like an utter fanny and apologised and agreed that his comment was somehow sexist. Now I don't know if this a particularly significant example, but hopefully it illustrates the point.
An actually decent example might be the Stop Funding Hate campaign, which is an attempt to apply serious financial pressure to the Daily Mail (a rightwing armadilloheap of a newspaper that really does try to spread a fair bit of hate tbf) by encouraging people to boycott companies who advertise in the Daily Mail, and it has met with some successes so far. Now I don't know if  people who hate the daily mail are actually in the minority or not, and personally I'm one of them. But this campaign is somewhat worrying to me, how much will it take for a media outlet to be considered hateful by a group like this? Will this actually succeed in reducing the mail's reach or will it just cause their usual readers to pushback on movements like this?


As per usual I'm getting bored of writing this long arse rambling post. But I want to point to what I feel is a pretty significant logical error in the article - the notion that the Islamic empire converted regions that were mostly Christian or Judaic via this principle. I think this argument is flawed because it ignores the fact that the minority (Muslims) in this case were in a position of authority backed up by military power, and so they achieved gradual mass conversion of the populace not simply by being less tolerant than the majority but by being able to enforce their intolerance to a greater extent. Ie they were actually able to execute Islamic apostates and to declare that the children of a Muslim were always Muslims whereas Jews and Christians were not.

Also I was initially just going to post this paragraph as I thought these were questions worth discussing, so I might as well still post it:
"Clearly can democracy –by definition the majority — tolerate enemies? The question is as follows: " Would you agree to deny the freedom of speech to every political party that has in its charter the banning the freedom of speech?" Let's go one step further, "Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?""

For someone wanting to learn and practice the maths. Particularly statistics, but other maths too.

Wagwan my good dudes, this topic was brought to my attention again recently thanks to good old anti-semitism (err sorry, anti-Zionism wink wink) on university campuses in the UK. So I thought I'd post a posty post and see what peeps think.

Personally I am not a fan of no-platforming in general, although I do agree with it when it comes to people advocating violence or sexual violence. Obviously if a private venue wants to refuse a platform to whoever they want then fair enough, but when it comes to universities funded largely by public money and with the aim to educate folk I feel it's a lot less than fair. For starters there's the right to free speech, although technically no-platforming doesn't infringe on it as such and this aspect isn't too important to me. My main problem with no-platforming is that it promotes intolerance towards alternative views and stifles debate when one of the major aims of any decent education system (imo) should be to promote the ability to debate and explore alternate views. I know in the popular media there is a trend to show political student groups as being opposed to free debate etc but since I've largely avoided these groups (partly through lack of interest, partly because at first glance at least my university societies do seem to live up to this reputation)  I don't actually know how fair this representation is.
I believe Boris' brother the Jo-man Johnson has suggested that an independent body should have the power to fine universities that it deems to be stifling free speech, which might be reasonable. Although to be fair I do see why universities would be reluctant to host more controversial figures considering the practical issues around security etc.


What do you fine fellows think about it?


(Also was considering expanding into the debate around anti-semitism vs anti-Zionism in UK universities and in general but it's a different topic which I don't know much about personally and I cba to write much more atm, but feel free to post a posty post about it here or in a new topic if thou wish).

Wagwan my good dudes, there may already be a thread for this kind of thing, in which case I am most horrifically ashamed.
Anyway, some super old stuff was found in a super old grave in Greece and its super fancy too
http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/unearthingamasterpiece.html

Sup crackers.
I watched another Joe Rogan podcast that threatens to blow my mind. He had Graham Hancock and some other dude who's name I've forgotten on, and they were talking about the evidence for catastrophic meteorite collisions in the past (around 12000 years ago, or maybe 12000bc, can't remember) and subsequent flooding and whatnot, and the possibility that these would have destroyed ancient civilizations (at a time when humanity is supposed to be only a hunter gatherer society) and quite possibly even the very evidence of their existence. They made a lot of interesting and apparently valid points, although I don't know much about meteor collisions or geology so maybe they were just talking armadilloe but whatever. The idea of catastrophic collisions and the damage this would cause certainly seems plausible, and could explain some weird armadillo. Would advise checking it out (is a portugaling long podcast though).
Anyway, that got me to look into Graham Hancock's theories a bit, starting with the ideas he proposed back in 1995 in "Fingerpints of the Gods", which seems  be before he had any suggestions as to what would have destroyed these civilizations. Still some very interesting proposals so far, and I'd never heard of or thought about  the apparent contradiction with what we classically think about (for example) the ancient Egyptians and the actual sophistication of architectural of the pyramids, let alone the logistics of building the bastards.
Some of the armadillo he was suggesting seems to be based on very circumstantial evidence, but it certainly is making me question what we really know about all this. And it's pretty awesome to think that Atlantis might have actually been real, even if there's no actual evidence. I know that even in medical science it's not exactly been uncommon for many researchers to stick to a largely accepted model even when there's a evidence that pokes big ole holes in it, and the idea that the same s true in archaeology certainly wouldn't surprise me. For example the idea that Gobekli Tepe (a large city of some kind with fairly sophisticated architecture made from pretty portugaling huge chunks of stone, that carbon dating has shown to be at least as old as about 11,000 years) was built by hunter gaverers just seems utterly absurd to me. Even if you take the founding of the place to be shortly after the advent of farming (which apparently would push back the consensus on when agriculture began I think) it still seems somewhat implausible that their society would reach such a stage so quickly.
Anyway, I haven't gotten around to any fact checking yet, but I wanted  share this crazy sounding armadillo, and I wondered if anyone here has looked into this shizzle?


Tl;dr Atlantis was real!!!! Jet fuel can't submerge a large landmass!

Just so you know.

Sup beeches, so it seems universal income schemes are gaining proponents at the moment (well they're set to be trialled in Finland, Canada and Utrecht) and I wondered what y'all think of the idea.
These schemes vary a lot in the details but essentially the idea is that instead of paying welfare to individuals who meet a certain criteria you simply pay a regular income to every adult citizen regardless of their own private income (generally these schemes still allow extra money for those at retirement age and for disability benefits). On the face of it it sounds unaffordable, but according to a group of UK economists/some form of money boffins (sorry I can't find the article at the moment so sourcing this is a bit tricky) a citizen's income of £71 a week (about twice this for over 65s and somewhat less for 18-21 year olds) cost very close to the UK's current welfare system, although social housing costs and disability benefit would still be necessary here and I'm not sure if they were included in the cost of this scheme, I shall try to find the source.) Since you don't need to pay for means testing, check up with claimants investigate benefit fraud etc you simplify the system and reduce the cost of this welfare scheme. Evidence from Canada's 1970s mincome  scheme (all residents of the trialled area who fell below the poverty line were offered a guaranteed minimum income regardless of whether they were already in work) suggests that this sort of scheme also significantly reduces strain on health care and would see a decrease in crime rate, saving money from the central budget which could (no solid evidence here, just saying it could) make up for the extra cost of this scheme. Analysis of the mincome trial also showed that this scheme did not generally stop people seeking work (teenagers in education, mothers of newborns and those close to retirement did tend to choose not to work) although I'm not sure if average work hours decreased for those on this scheme.


The proposed benefits of this scheme are mainly that it would make the system fairer (no one would be financially better off out of work), would reduce stress for most of the working age population by acting as a safety net and by allowing the option of reduced working hours (which may well benefit employers also as this is associated with an increase in productivity) and would allow for more people to do voluntary work and suchlike. It would also mean a lot of people wouldn't have to work jobs they hate just to get by, but the flip side of this is that there are lots of unpopular low paid jobs and so this could cause a labour shortfall in these jobs.
The major criticism of this scheme is obviously the fear that people would just choose not to work, but it generally seems unlikely as £71 a week is not a huge amount of money, and the evidence from mincome seems to support this. I suspect this scheme would cause a drop in average working hours a week but this doesn't seem economically detrimental, and should help to reduce unemployment rates as well.


Personally I was very skeptical of this idea at first, but if it proves to be financially viable I'd be very keen to see it implemented. I expect that at some point in the future a system of universal income would be pretty much a necessity for the developed world since automatisation is going to continue to reduce the value of human labour, but as to whether it's a viable option in the near future I think we shall have to wait and watch these upcoming trials in Canada and Finland.
I apologise for the general lack of sources, but I am a terribly lazy human being.

Anyone still find the time to play these? I decided to have a crack at runescape recently because nostalgia, and it was an awful idea, I forgot how mindlessly addictive I find these games.

As per jubals request. Some games designers need to be treated like lamed race-horses, it may seem sad at the time but at least it stops them reproducing and serves as an example to the rest.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh I wrote a load of armadillo about my theories and then it crashed and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggghhhhhhhh.


So this is a thread of theories, like how Jar Jar is actually a Sith lord or whatever else amuses or intrigues you.


Well I think Yoda knew about the plot against the Jedi, but let it happen anyway. I don't see how someone as wise as Yoda could be blind to the plot, or how the council would not have been more suspicious of Palpatine unless someone on the council was telling them to chill the portugal out.
But why would Yoda betray the Jedi? Because the Jedi were not what they pretend to be. They were not heroes and they were not compassionate, they never actually show any decency towards non Jedi. Throughout the films we see the Jedi through their own point of view, the only dissenting voice we hear is Palpatine's and we dismiss him because the Jedi have told us that the Sith are pure evil. IIRC the Sith only hate the Jedi because the Jedi perpetrated a genocide against them (a very long time in the past, but it's still important when you consider the conservative nature of the Jedi.) Children are indoctrinated into their cult from a very young age (8 year old Anakin is considered too young to start training, too young to be thoroughly brainwashed perhaps?) and are forced to lead a harsh life of austerity and relative social isolation. The Jedi train these children as soldiers, and makes use you them as soldiers whilst they are still children (Anakin has obviously seen and used violence by the start of AotC and according to what I think is still canon Jedi children as young as at least 14 fought in the clone wars) which is exceedingly disturbing.  Once they reach the status of Knight they seem to have no one investigating their actions, they are trained killers with little regard for ordinary people and who are happy to use mind control on any random alpaca (and lets face it, mind control is portugaling terrifying and a worse invasion of someone's rights than outright violence.) No one (apart from Anakin himself) seems to give a portugal that little Ani slaughters an entire village of sandpeople including the children, but of course slaughtering the genuinely dangerous Jedi younglings is unspeakably evil.
But even if you (or more importantly Yoda) still see the Jedi as good then just look at what they teach. Severe emotional repression and the avoidance of emotional attachment. Why? Because without these the Jedi are apparently prone to "turning to the dark side" aka going psychotic and killing without thought. Either force users are inherently prone to emotional instability or the Jedi lifestyle predisposes one to it (and I think this is far more likely), but whichever it is I think it's incredibly likely that Yoda will have seen many atrocities committed by Jedi (turned or otherwise) during his 800+ years of life. Even if he manages to keep faith with Jedi teachings it would be unsurprising if he wanted to curb the power/number of the Jedi, if he didn't then surely he would welcome the opportunity to become the sole leader of the Jedi and implement reform. Is he capable of betraying the Jedi? Well if he has succeeded in following the Jedi mantra of emotional repression and lack of attachment then yes of course, after all his colleagues sacrifice is all for the greater good.
So Yoda allows the Sith to make their move and destroy most of the Jedi, the fatal flaw in his plan was his overconfidence in his ability to defeat Palpatine and destroy the Sith. Thus after betraying his order and allowing their deaths for nothing he goes into exile, broken hearted and ready to die.




Also I don't think that using the Dark side turns anyone evil, I think that most Jedi turn because they are taught that tapping into the Dark side will start them on a path of no retreat, thus it becomes a strong symbolism of turning on their teaching and snapping a lifetime of their emotional repression and inhibition. The Jedi lifestyle is not at all balanced, it's hardly surprising if they find it difficult to find a balance. I've read that Mace Windu was able to tap into the Dark side without turning, he can't be the exception that proves the rule (because exceptions don't prove a rule, it's a stupid phrase.)






I've spent way too long thinking about stupid space magic, I should probably do something productive now.

Hai guys, surprised there's no thread on this already.
So I watched this recently and I thought it was good, after watching the old films again I feel like this trilogy could well be the bestest.

Spoiler

Trollface 

Sup bitches. So there is a tabletop simulator on steam which cam be used to play all manner of classic tabletop games online, from chess to war games and rpgs. Has anyone here got it and would y'all be interested in doing an exilian games night? I appreciate that we're all busy people and many of us live in different time zones but it could be cool if it works.

Evening ladies and girlymen.
Motivational thread, for motivating and stuff.
You shouldn't need it anyway you bumbling Boris botherers, man up and do stuff. Or woman up and do stuff or whatever. Just do stuff.

So I can't be the only one who starts craving whatever food is being described when I'm reading a novel.
Heres a website dedicated to nerdy foods, I've successfully made both virgin and non virgin mudders milk and unsuccessfully made beorn's honey cake. http://www.geekychef.com/
I also found a recipe for seedcake somewhere, the hobbit always makes me mega hungry. As does a fair amount of the first (and best) parts of LOTR. I'll post it up here later.
Anyone else made such stuffs?

Erm this is just a placeholdery thing so I don't forget about this later, but I just read an article on some shizzle called the TTIP which seemed somewhat biased and unlikely so I wanted to check it out when I've got time and hear the opinions of those of you who know/care about stuff like this.

I never made one of these, so now I am:
Wagwan.

Yo bitches, I said I was writing a thing and I have written some of it. I hope to keep writing this thing because I really like the idea, but it takes me a long time to write such things so I don't know if I'll manage it.
Our protagonist or whatever he will be is a character you will all know and have heard stories of, but probably not from his own perspective and hopefully not from a story like this. I imagine you'll work out who he is before he does.
Also I use naughty words sometimes, is there a way to bypass the swear filter? Armadillos won't really be fitting into this tale I'm afraid, and neither will portugal. Well I can sort of bypass it by using spaces, be warned, there are naughty words.  Sort of.

Anyway, here's the first part of the thing:


Birth


There was darkness. And something else. Awareness.
He couldn't discern anything, but he was aware of his own existence. He? Yes, he was a he, whatever that meant.
It meant he was male. And if he was male, he must have a physical prescence, a body.
And suddenly he could feel it. Mainly pain, searing pain all over. But other things too, he could feel his body, knew it was there, his limbs, legs, arms, hands. A head, a neck, a torso. He was lying on something, face up.
His eyes snapped open, light flooded into the darkness, blinding, searing, confusing. His eyes snapped shut again. His chest rose, air rushed in. His chest fell, breath rushed out. Was this breath his first? Was this his birth?
He lay for a while, just breathing in and breathing out. There were smells, but he didn't know what they meant, what they were.
His eyes opened again, slower, more cautious. It hurt still, but the pain faded. There was no sense at first, no meaning to the light. But then patterns appeared, shapes started to form. The light's source was a small square, high above and to the side of him. Around the light source were squares of grey, ordered in rows and stacked together. A wall. A wall with a window. He was ..... inside?
Yes, inside. There was more grey above him, a ceiling. More walls around him, one with a patch of dark brown instead of grey. A door. A closed door.
And there, to the side with the window. His right, his right side. There, there was a figure. A body. His body?
No, it couldn't be his body could it? Was he seeing his own body from the outside? He kept his gaze on the figure, flexed his fingers. He felt them slide over the floor, it hurt. But the figure's fingers didn't move. It wasn't him.
He tilted his head foward, look down at himself. There it was, his own body. It looked... wrong. He was clothed. Yes, a belted black robe covered him, but his hands and feet were uncovered. They didn't look right. Skeletal, with cracked, mottled brown skin. He raised a hand before his face, looked closer. It wasn't just skin, the hand was covered in something. Dirt? Mud? He brought his other hand up, rubbed them together. That really hurt. But some of the stuff fell away, revealing red, raw looking skin.
He looked back at the other figure. It was clothed as well, not in a robe but in trousers tunic and jerkin. It appeared to be one of the Folk, a man. Its skin looked normal, pale and somewhat dirty but not covered in mud like his own. It had medium length brown hair framing a slightly chubby face. Its chest was rising and falling, apparently it was alive.
He looked away, just lay there and stared at the ceiling. His face started to move, his mouth twitching, curling up. A smile. It hurt, but it felt good. It felt more than good, it felt right, felt like it was more a part of him than anything else he knew. His mouth opened and breath bubbled out in short sharp bursts. Laughter. That hurt even more, and felt even better.
He heard noise coming from the other figure. It was moving, turning its head and making nonsense noises. He shot up, rising to his feet, laughter and pain forgotten as something new thundered through him. Fear.
His legs buckled and he almost fell, unsteady in this new position. He backed away from the figure, his breath coming in ragged bursts, his heart pounding. His back hit a wall, he flattened himself against it and slid down to sit on the floor. He kept watching the figure, its eyes were open and it seemed to be looking around. It didn't appear to be anymore aware of itself than he was.
He rose to his feet again, fear giving way to curiosity. He approached the figure, watching carefully. It lifted its head, started to sit up. It looked around and saw him.
"Where am I? Who are you?"
He stepped back, startled. The noises .... no, the words. They made some sense to him, they meant something.
"Who are you?" he tried to speak the same words, they sounded similar but not quite the same.
The figure scratched its head "Lars" it looked around "oh, the drunk cells. Almost as good as home." It looked over at the window "nearly time for them to let us out I reckon. So, what was your name? Last night's memories are.... hazy to say the least."
"My name? ..... I .... don't ..... know."
The figure - Lars - grinned "well I've been there before, you certainly look rough enough." Lars gave a dry chuckle "Sons, you look like you've been bathing in a swamp."
He lauged along with Lars, though he did not know why. Not faint little laugh of Lars, but strong, musical peals of laughter, not just from his belly but from the very centre of his being, his very.... soul? His soul.
"Alright Chuckles, it wasn't that funny."
"Chuckles?"
"Aye, well I need to call you something, and since you can't remember your own name..."
"Chuckles. I like Chuckles."
Lars nodded "Chuckles it is then. Ah, you hear that? I thought it was about time to leave."
He did hear it, the sounds of something striking something else, coming closer. Footsteps. Footsteps on stone.
The footsteps stopped, and more noises followed. Hard to identify, and then a scraping, a squeel of metal sliding over metal. The door opened, revealing a figure in the doorway and behind him a corridoor of grey stone.
The figure was another man, another one of the Folk. He was wearing leather armour and had a sword belted to his waist. His face was grim, surly and sour looking.
"Get out" his voice suited his face.
If Lars was perturbed by the man's attitude he did not show it "much obliged, thanks for the hospitality. My friend and I are unclear as to the events of last night, I don't suppose you could shed any light on the matter?"
The man made no reply, just stood in the doorway for a moment and then turned and started walking along the corridor. Lars shrugged and headed after him, Chuckles following.
He stepped into the corridor and looked either way. To the left was the man leading them, heading towards an open door leading into a room. To the right there was another door, this one closed. They went left, and found themselves in a chamber with four stone walls and a door on each one. The wall to the left had a window as well as a door, with glass in the frame. The armoured man headed to the door in this wall and opened it without a word. Light spilled in, too bright for Chuckles. The man remained silent, just gestured at the open door.
Lars headed for the door, and Chuckles followed. Before stepping out into the light he turned to the armoured man.
"Truly, I don't remember a thing. Do you at least know my name?"
The man looked at him, lips curling in disgust "F uck off."
F uck off. No, that wasn't his name, but it was certainly a familiar phrase. Something told him he'd be hearing it a lot.