Month: September 2014

Metal Tuesday – Primal Fear – Black Rain

Primal Fear is another strong, solid power metal band, and I really like “Black Rain,” hence its inclusion in the hallowed halls of Metal Tuesday.

Lyrics:

As I watched the rising sun
A walking shadow on the run
There’s no hope and there’s no anger, I’m defenseless
I stand alone out in the cold
Ten more miles on desert sand
The farth still shakes, I hear tank shells explode

Is it just a dead memory
Stranded in the thirty third latitude degree
A few words of truth could never lie
Who will kill me, I’m a refugee alive

In and out, I watch the sky explode
Enough, our mission’s sold
The gushing black rain kills us all
In and out, I watch the sky explode
Enough, our mission’s sold
Even if the black rain kills us all

As men of honor and belief
We never knew our enemies
There’s no reason that’s worth dying for
As I hear the silence break
A so called fight, a big mistake
Or was it just to see another thousand die

Under friendly fire of our own crew
Another day will never come true

In and out, I watch the sky explode
Enough, our mission’s sold
The gushing black rain kills us all
In and out, I watch the sky explode
Enough, our mission’s sold
Even if the black rain kills us all

Monday Fiction – Avalon Chapter 17

Erik

Well, there was one good thing about this bizzare vampire ritual. They’d killed one of their own as part of it. Eight to take down, including the boss vampire. Erik looked over to Veronica. His sorceress watched the ritual with terrified eyes, which was not a good thing in Erik’s book. Whatever was happening, it held the vampires’ rapt attention. Veronica shot a warning glare at Erik. It must have hit the point Nao had told them about. Time to see if this tossed together plan was going to work.

The basement shook and Erik was deafened as Veronica released the sound spell she’d been building in her mind. Erik felt hot brass hit him as Nigel and John turned their suppressed MP5’s on the two vampires next to them. Erik was already moving. The plastic zip-ties around Erik’s and Kurt’s wrists fell apart with the softest touch of his power. Erik concentrated on the hilt of Far’ling at Nao’s waist. In one smooth pull, the sword sailed across the basement into his waiting hand.

Stumpy materialized next to Erik. The metal claws the vampire had instead of hands lanced out at Erik, but bounced harmlessly off of the invisible shield. Erik dropped the shield for an instant to thrust the elven sword into Stumpy’s chest. The vampire didn’t even scream as he flashed in flame. Erik was turning to fight the next vampire as Stumpy’s ashes swirled around him.

The vampire punched at Erik’s shield. A shotgun blast reduced the vampire to ash before Erik could attack. Kurt must have freed Jason and the others already. Erik didn’t bother looking over. He had to trust his team to do their jobs. With vampires, hesitation was death.


Anne

The explosion of sound was an annoyance. Anne was busy examining the bindings David was doing. By teasing the faint streams of wild magic in the basement, Anne could see through the stainless steel of the bowl David was using to purify her blood. She could pick out her blood in the mix of vampire blood and amplification substances. It glowed with its own unique – frequency? That was the only word that came to Anne’s mind as she watched David pour the streams of bound magic into the bowl. Some of her blood stopped glowing. It looked like the vampire blood, but warmer? Damn, magic was hard to put into words. So, this was what her cousin felt when trying to explain particle physics to her last Christmas. Then, Anne realized what she was seeing. The ritual changed the frequency of her blood into something that vampires could not only consume, but would boost the magic they pulled out of it. Okay, so now how was she going to stop it?

David was directing the flows of wild magic for the ritual. What if he wasn’t the one directing? Anne felt the magic binding her to the ritual. It was strong, probably the strongest that David could throw with all of the amplification from the candles and whatever he’d thrown into the mix. Except, he was only calling on a few of the streams of wild magic running through the basement. Of, they were the strongest of the streams, but without that annoying block in her mind removed, Anne could see so many more. Each was a faint whisp compared to the streams used by David, but combined? Anne teased the faint streams into a new binding and lashed it to the stream running from her to the ritual. Instantly, the flows reversed.

“What?” David screamed, barely audible over the gunfire now filling the basement. He pushed against Anne as she claimed the streams of magic around the ritual. It was kind of pathetic actually. Anne easily batted down his few attempts to reassert control of the ritual. It was hers – and she could see how the bindings were working together. She tugged at the knots, unraveling some, while subtly changing others.

The grazda screamed in pain and horror as the ritual’s streams of bound magic attached to the nearest vampire. He wanted to suck all of the magic out of her blood, so Anne made him feel what it was like. Anne watched the red glow of the vampire’s magic ripped itself out of the grazda‘s body to join with the magic of the ritual. Anne barely saw the withered corpse fall to the ground. She was too busy to see what other vampire she could destroy with this bound magic.

Anne, stop, Veronica said over the telepathic link. How are you holding that much magic?

I don’t know, Anne answered, The block is gone, and all of the sudden– As soon as she thought the words, Anne’s block slammed back down. The magic that seemed so easy to control was now flooding through her uncontrollably. Anne screamed in agony as the magic of the ritual burned her mind.

Dump the power! Veronica screamed into Anne’s mind.

Where? Anne asked.

Anywhere! Veronica answered. Anne felt around the streams, looking where she could dump the excess. She felt the prodding of David attempting to take control of the ritual. More from instinct than any conscious thought, Anne grabbed hold of David’s small stream and forced through all of the magic she was holding. Anne thought she heard someone screaming. Then, the world went black.

A small prick woke Anne. A man dressed in SWAT gear kneeling next to her finished inserting the IV. Anne swiveled her head as the SWAT guy handed the bag off to Kurt.

“It would do me good if you would try to stop nearly killing yourself during these little fights,” Kurt said. The worried look in his eyes belied his light tone. Anne have him a weak smile.

“Who?” Anne asked as she realized the basement was crawling with SWAT-looking guys.

“Jason’s people,” Veronica answered, kneeling next to Anne. Veronica took a look at the IV and shook her head dismissively. Veronica’s fingers danced around Anne’s body while she spoke some elven words in a low tone.

“I can’t feel the wild magic,” Anne said, in shocked sudden realization. “What did I do to myself?”

“Nothing,” Veronica said, a bit coldly. “You burned out the streams around us with the amount of magic you drew and dumped.” Veronica gave Anne a hard look. “Your own magic is depleted, but not burned out, which is to say the very least, surprising. At any rate, you should start feeling something in a few hours. Now, I have to go help Erik and Samantha see if they kind find Nao.”

“She escaped?” Anne said, trying to sit up. Kurt laid a gentle, but firm hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah, and Erik’s pissed,” Veronica answered.

“Alone at last,” Kurt said, softly as Anne laid back down. She chuckled because laughing hurt for some reason. Anne reached up and stroked his face.

“Hey, Kurt, when we get out of here, do you want to go to the Mia Gold concert?” Anne asked.

Friday Quote – Neil deGrasse Tyson

I’m optimistic. I see no longer people accepting fuzzy thinking in the world. The change is not that people aren’t still saying under-informed things. The change is that if you’re in power and you say something under-informed, there are people out there with a voice who will take you to task for saying so.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The marketplace of ideas is truly a wonderful thing.

Monday Fiction – Avalon Chapter 16

Anne

“Now, my vojnici, we will obtain what it has taken these long years to find,” the gazda said to the gathered vampires, in heavily accented English. “Our clan will be one step closer to the Mandate of Heaven.” The eight other vampires in the basement roared their approval. The gazda took a step closer to Anne. He was short, barely making five and a half feet. Like Nao, his hair was platinum blond, but where her eyes glowed a sapphire blue, the gazda‘s eyes glowed an angry, ruby red. The grazda firmly gripped Anne’s chin and forced her eyes to meet his. She could feel his overwhelming presence thrust itself into her mind with all the smoothness of a sledgehammer. His low laughs were drowned out by her screams. He was just as quickly gone from her mind. Anne just hung from the chains binding her to the iron pipe.

Anne looked over to Kurt and the others. Kurt looked incensed, but the other Avalonians looked almost bored. Even those two traitors that Lady Maritza had sent along didn’t seem interested in what was happening as they covered her friends with their submachine guns. Samantha had managed to let Anne know what was going on when the vampires freed her from the chair long enough to install and chain her to the iron pole in the center of the basement. Anne couldn’t believe that Nigel and John were working for the vampires. She was still having a hard time believing her rival on the city’s police force, Detective Harvey Welks, had been on the vampires’ payroll.

“David, are you ready to harvest the blood?” the grazda asked, pronouncing his minion’s name “Dah-veed.” The human nodded, smiling beatifically up at the grazda. “Then do so. We will complete this before the dawn.” The human occultist put on a pair of blue nitrile gloves and walked up to Anne.

“Going to slit my throat?” Anne taunted defiantly. He ignored her and freed her left arm. His grip was much stronger than Anne expected. “So, are you going to cut my wrists and make it look like a suicide?”

“Interesting thought, but no,” David answered, tying a tourniquet around her upper arm. She felt the tiniest prick as David carefully inserted the a needle into her arm. Satisfied, he produced three glass vials and filled each of them with her blood. As each filled, David stoppered the vial and placed it into his jacket pocket. Then he withdrew the needle and put a bandage on her arm.

“That’s it?” Anne asked, shocked.

“That’s all the blood we need for the ritual,” David answered, “We were going to kill you. Especially considering how deadly your unpurified blood is to the vampire. Nao made a strong argument for keeping you alive so that we could keep using your blood against our rivals. It’s quite elegant when you think about it.” Anne hung her head, trying to look resigned to her fate. It wouldn’t do for David to see her smiling.

David walked back to where Nao and the grazda were standing. Set up next to them was a small card table with four unlit candles, what looked like a small spice rack, a stand with a collection of cooking utensils, and a stainless steel mixing bowl. If Anne didn’t know better, she would have sworn David was about to give a cooking lesson instead of performing a magical ritual. He poured the three vials of Anne’s blood and added something from one of the bottles on the spice rack. The basement filled with the rotten egg smell of sulphur. David concentrated, and Anne could feel the flows of wild magic bend to his will. The four candles sparked to life. The flows were dancing around David as he tied them to the candles. Something about the knots he used on the flows made them pulse stronger. Veronica had said practitioners on this side of the gate used candles during rituals as amplifiers. Now, Anne understood what she’d meant.

Grazda, now we need the death blood of a vampire,” David said. The grazda looked among his vampires. They all seemed to swell, as if begging to be asked to do this for him.

“It should be one of your scions,” Nao said, “The closer the better.” The grazda nodded his head and pointed to one of the vampires. As the other vampires shrunk back with disappointed looks on their faces, the black-haired vampire grinned viciously and strode to the card table.

“Pyotr, you have always been the strongest of my children,” the grazda said, “You have always made me proud. Now, I ask you to make the ultimate sacrifice so that the clan can continue on the holy path. Do you have any reservations, my child?”

Nema, moj otac,” Pyotr said in a booming voice. The grazda‘s face broke into a wide smile. Pyotr bent over the mixing bowl and bared his throat. The grazda plucked a long, thin-bladed knife off of the table. Moving faster than Anne could see, the grazda grabbed Pyotr’s hair and instant before slashing Pytor’s throat. The grazda held the vampire steady as a stream of dark blood poured into the bowl. As the two bloods mixed, a cloud of noxious smoke filled the basement. It took everything Anne could muster to focus on the flows of wild magic around the table and not retch.

David uttered phrases that sounded like mangled elven as he added the contents of two more bottles to the concoction in the bowl. The flows of wild magic danced around the candles and then into the bowl. A braided flow water, earth, and heat leapt out of the bowl and lanced into Anne’s mind. The basement disappeared and Anne was suddenly lying on a cold, hard table.

“Which of the infants have you chosen, great lady?” boomed an achingly familiar male voice. A woman’s face came into view above Anne. Except the face was huge. It was like looking up into the face of a giant. The woman’s eyebrow cocked up in surprise.

“I see the choice has been made for us,” she said, in a soothing, if loud voice. “What let you come back and see this I wonder?”

“Meliandre, our time is running short,” the familiar voice said. Anne couldn’t see who was talking, but she’d met that man before. Where was she? A baby started crying in loud screams of discomfort. Anne tried to get up, but she didn’t have the strength.

The baby’s screams cut off suddenly and Anne could taste the salty iron of blood.

Anne was jarred back into the basement. Her eyes focused on the flow from the table to her. She could see even smaller flows dancing around the basement. How could she have missed those before? There was enough raw wild magic in the basement to destroy all of them. Anne started pulling those small flows of wild magic into the braided flow between her and the table.

Then all hell broke loose.

Because it’s really not our money…

The Fed’s been pumping money hand over fist for the last few years, and economists have been wondering, “Where’s the inflation?” Turns out, it’s because consumers have been “hoarding money.” Or, what used to be called savings.

In the wake of the most severe economic downturn in most of ours lifetimes, is it surprising that many of us have been putting more cash aside? Yet, because we’re not doing what the Fed and the .gov wants done, they’re going to spin responsible financial actions as greed or irrational.

Screw them. People make better choices if they aren’t panicked. Savings help reduce panic when an unexpected emergency hits, and allow consumers to make better choices.

It’s our money. It’s our choice. Do us all a favor and get the hell out of the way.

H/t ASM826 over at Borepatch’s place

Metal Tuesday – Fozzy – Grail

Another in the long line of Metal Tuesday selections because of its ability to get stuck in my head.

My brother informs me that the lead singer is Chris Jericho. a wrestler of some renown (although I have to take his word for that.)

Lyrics:

I’ve been searching oh I fear
For what seems like a thousand years
Only to find that I’m losing my mind
I’ve been standing to the side
A blackened soul as my guide
Only to see there’s a price to be free

You can cast a magic spell
Or pull the sword from the the stone
Until you find the Grail that you’ve been looking for
You’ll always be alone

Where is this Grail I’ve been searching for?
So many years since you’ve been gone
On all the roads I have traveled on
Where is this grail I’ve been searching for?

I have run so far away from the stench of decay
Only to learn I should never have turned
I’m completely at fault, to a pillar of salt
I’ve been reduced feel the pull of the noose

You can cast a magic spell
Or pull the sword from the the stone
Until you find the Grail that you’ve been looking for
You’ll always be alone

Where is this Grail I’ve been searching for?
So many years since you’ve been gone
On all the roads I have traveled on
Where is this grail I’ve been searching for?