Source : JoJo Wiki)

Nisio Isin Chronicle (01/2006)

Nisio Isin: Author of Monogatari Series, Katanagatari, etc.
Hirohiko Araki: Author of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures.
Interviewer: MYST
Points in common between Araki’s and Nisio’s works
Interviewer: So apparently, Araki-sensei made his debut in the same year that Nisio-san was born.
Nisio: I was born in 1981.
Araki: I made my debut in the 1981 New Year’s issue [of Weekly Shounen Jump].
Nisio: It feels like fate…if you can call it that, haha.
Araki: That’s amazing. At 24, you’ve already written so much in 4 or 5 years.
Nisio: I’m not sure how long I can keep writing, but for now I’ll keep writing as much as I can. I’m on my 15th book now.
Interviewer: Araki-sensei, did everything go smoothly after you debuted?
Araki: Not at all, it feels like I only started polishing my skills after I debuted. They let me debut before I had any style or originality as a manga artist. I had to learn a lot then, and it wasn’t until Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures that I really got started.
Nisio: I also loved your manga before Jojo, like Mahou Shounen Biitii, Gorgeous Irene, and Baoo Raihousha. Your manga all feel like my roots, there’s so much I’ve learned from them.
Araki: Oh yes, your novels do seem to have some points in common. I’ve started reading from Kubikiri Cycle [first book of Zaregoto Series] and haven’t read your latest books, but your characters all seem modern. It might also because a lot of them are geniuses, but they all think they’re superior and don’t respect others. It was interesting how the main character tries to confront those geniuses despite feeling inferior.
Their dialogue sounds like advertising slogans. I like that. Like those lines at the beginning of each chapter. The main character keeps banging out lines like that. That was very fresh and interesting.
Nisio: Thank you. My hands are trembling. I’m so happy that you’ve read my books.
I think Jojo is a wonderful manga, and I wish I could have all of humanity read it. It’s so good that it makes me want to recommend it to other people…somehow it feels like I have to go out of my way to say how much I like it.
Making characters seem powerful using powerful lines
Nisio: Earlier you said that I write lines like advertising slogans, but I think that’s partly because of your influence. It’s more than a verbal tic, it’s a single line that encapsulates a character. A line that only that character could say…
Araki: I try to include a character’s personal philosophy in what they say. Their unique way of thinking.
Nisio: That might why you’re different. Even in another story, no one else could say those lines. Even if somebody else used your lines, they wouldn’t become famous quotes. “Road roller!” only leaves an impact because it’s Dio who says it.
Araki: You have some great ones, too. “There’s always someone better, but at the top they’re all below you.” and a lot of others. Those are really good. They make you think. I think everyone likes those. They make you stop and think ‘that’s true’.
Interviewer: They’re cool and hook you in, and they’re convincing.
Araki: Lines like that make characters seem more powerful. It makes you wonder what would happen if that character was the culprit. It’s hard to stop reading.
Nisio: Jojo had a big influence on that. The enemy characters in Jojo all have depth.
Araki: Yes, I was going for that.
Nisio: There are no throwaway characters. Especially after Stands come into the story, there are Stands that seems weak but can be strong depending on how they’re used. Like (Stand: Bad Company. Only 10 cm tall, but 500 in number!) might just be the strongest.
Araki: That’s right, haha. Well for manga in the eighties, the enemies always keep getting stronger and stronger. But there has to be a limit somewhere, and it gets tremendously exhausting.
Nisio: Like when they go ‘the one you just defeated was the weakest of us.’
Araki: To break through that, I tried to have characters that are strong from an alternate point of view, or who are only strong in a single aspect.
Nisio: So like ‘There’s no such thing as strong or weak.’
Araki: It’s so exhausting to write manga where the enemies keep getting stronger and stronger. It’s like, “they’re already this strong, and they’re still getting stronger!?” and every week you worry about what you’re going to do. And then you get to the height of the bubble and it’s like, what now? It’s a very scary writing method. It’s fine if you do it once. When the strongest enemy gets introduced, you’ll get so popular that the publisher tells you not to stop. But as a writer, you can’t go any further.
Nisio: I wonder who started this inflation of power. It must have been a really crazy idea at first… Whoever it was, using this technique is like reaching a dead end or slash-and-burn farming. I think Jojo was a revolution in that area.
Araki: It was more like an escape route than a revolution, haha. But I think that’s how people work.
It’s like how someone with a strong punch isn’t necessarily strong.
Nisio: Someone you could beat depending on your strategy, I guess.
Interviewer: If you’re fighting Bush and he has nuclear missiles, you still might beat him with a bat. For example, Hara Tetsuo wrote Fist of the North Star so that whoever says the most powerful lines wins.
Nisio: That makes sense.
Araki: That seems like something you’d be familiar with.
Nisio: Novels are only words, after all. The main thing is dialogue. So characters that say powerful lines do become stronger.
Araki: I’ve also noticed something unique about your characters. They’re mentally strong somehow. They’re complete geniuses, but also lacking things or searching for things. That’s something refreshing, and it makes the story’s world interesting.
Nisio: Thank you. I have no words. Speaking of characters, I like Part 4 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures because it has so many unique characters. I like Tonio the most, but it’s such an all-star cast.
Araki: Thank you. I hear that the writer Otsuichi-san [mystery/horror writer] also likes Part 4 the most. I wonder if it’s a generational thing.
The appeal of Jojo and its impact on Nisio Isin as a grade schooler
Nisio: When I read your manga for the first time, it was when Ebony Devil, that doll from Part 3, slices off a hotel worker’s face with a razor. I remember it being really scary.
Araki: That must have been tough to read as a kid.
Nisio: Of course, I didn’t understand what Stands were, and that made it even scarier. I was creeped out by this weird armored warrior but thought Joutarou was really cool. I didn’t understand the logic or style of it so it was completely mysterious, but I could tell that it was in a different vein from the other manga being published at the time.
Even now, Jojo hasn’t fallen behind to imitators. Nowadays Shounen Jump has more manga with Stand-like abilities, but Jojo still sets itself apart. It’s not that it’s the original, but there’s something clearly different about it.
Why Nisio Isin became a writer
Araki: What made you decide to be a writer? How did you get started writing?
Nisio: To be honest, I originally wanted to be a manga artist. But I quickly realized that I couldn’t draw. No matter how I practiced, I wouldn’t get better. Then thought that since writing get printed, it doesn’t matter if my handwriting is bad or anything. So in a way, I’m writing the novelization of a manga that’s in my head.
Araki: So you might get your novels adapted into manga?
Nisio: That’s true. There are many scenes in my head that I have an image of. Like someone standing in front of the sound effect “ゴゴゴゴゴ.” I think Kadono Kouhei-sensei said something similar. [author, mainly known for Boogiepop series]
Araki: So you start with an image and replace it with words. The desire to write feels like something that comes welling out, but I wonder how that works.
Nisio: When you read something good, it makes you want to try it. Of course, reading your manga gives me motivation. It’s something like that.
Araki: Like ‘I could make something a little better’.
Nisio: When you see something wonderful, you can’t help but want to try doing it.
Araki: That’s true. Drawing is like that for me, like when I see a drawing that makes me wonder how it was drawn. It’s like a riddle I want to solve.
For example, there are manga artists who can draw lines in unbelievable directions. Normally you go from up to down or right to left, but they’re clearly doing it differently. Like Hara Tetsuo. I don’t know how he draws those lines, if he does them upside down or what.
For painting too, I wonder how someone made a color and things like that. It fires me up somehow.
Interviewer: Did you solve Hara’s riddle?
Araki:Not quite. I tried to draw beautiful smooth lines like him, but it wasn’t the same.
Nisio: I’ve thought something similar when reading your manga. When I read Janken Kozou for example, I was surprised at how you could portray Rock Paper Scissors. I thought that I couldn’t casually play Rock Paper Scissors anymore. To me, you’re not just a manga artist, you’re an artist.
Araki: I can’t really see that, haha. I’ve always felt lacking as a person somehow, and I want to become a full person. I’m not sure exactly what a full person is, but I’ve always wanted to become one since I was young.
Interviewer: Nisio-san, when you finished your Zaregoto Series after 9 volumes, you’ve said that “after finishing this piece of work, I’m not a rookie anymore.” Araki-sensei, with which manga did you feel like you’ve finished a job?
Araki: I don’t think there is one. My publisher keeps telling me I should write something new besides Jojo, but it feels weird to start something new before finishing Jojo. So I might keep writing it.
Nisio: For your entire life?
Araki: I don’t know.
Nisio: As long as there are Jojo stories, at least.
Araki: That’s true. But I’m writing about human relationships, so it never ends. Until humanity dies out.
Interviewer: How about when you stopped feeling like a rookie?
Araki: That would have to be when new manga artists come out. Before I knew it, the only one who’s been in Jump longer was Akimoto Osamu [author of Kochikame, the longest-running series in Weekly Shonen Jump, running 1976-2016], and I thought, “Huh, there’s only Akimoto-sensei?”, so I definitely couldn’t think of myself as a rookie anymore.
Interviewer: That’s quite some time since you debuted. [8 years?]
Araki: Yeah. I was trying to write with a youthful feeling. But then at like parties, when I looked around everyone was younger than me, and I went “Wha-?”. They would say “we can’t get started until you drink”, and I thought “Oh, this is bad”. Nisio-san, a time like that will come for you, too. It’s a lonely feeling. It really is nice to have some elders around.
Defeating enemies without inflating power levels
Nisio: Before, I said that Part 4 was my favorite, but sometimes it’s Part 1 or Part 2…
Interviewer: You like all of them, haha.
Nisio: I like how the enemies were defeated in Part 1 and Part 2, before Stands were introduced. They were mental, tactical battles, and it might just be because I like mystery books, but I love those kind of strategical tricks. Even after Stands came into the story, the mental battles were the most captivating.
Araki: Ah, yes. In shounen manga, there’s this pattern of beating enemies using willpower. I couldn’t accept it. I thought, “Are you really going to use willpower here?”. There is that amazing strength people that have during fires. That makes sense, but I still couldn’t accept it. Like, “If you’re going to do it with willpower, show it in your attitude.” I wanted some kind of logic behind it.
A long time ago, Shirato Sanpei-sensei used to write ninja manga (such as Sasuke, Ninja Bugeichou, and Kamui Gaiden), and they don’t defeat enemies with ninjutsu or magic in those. They used these kind of tricks, things with logic behind them. Like digging a hole in the ground and setting off gunpowder. It made me go “wow”. That influenced me.
Nisio: Like this thing you have to explain.
Araki: It won’t seem interesting unless there’s some kind of reason.
Nisio: In Part 2, did you just come up with the idea for the battle with Wamuu to be on chariots?
Araki: No, I think I was inspired. In shounen manga, I like when the battles are one-on-one in some kind of arena. This arena could be a narrow clifftop, or one where you lose if you leave the arena, and it’s fun to make a lot of rules. I think that’s where the idea for that chariot battle came from. Having some restrictions, so it’s not everything goes.
Nisio: In Jojo, the fights are one-on-one, or at most two-on-two, aren’t they?
Araki: That’s true. If there’s too many people, it’ll become like one of those old war manga. That seems tiring to just to write, so two-on-two is the most for me.
Backgrounds in manga vs. having to describe in novels
Interviewer: As a writer, is there anything you’re jealous about Araki-sensei for?
Nisio: I’m very jealous that unlike novels, you can draw backgrounds in manga. It’s hard to portray backgrounds in novels.
Araki: But even if you don’t write anything, the reader can imagine something.
Nisio: Drawings have incredible persuasive power. There are things that you can draw, but when you write about it, it turns into an explanation.
And then, you go “oh, I wrote an explanation” and feel intense regret… It won’t be a slogan anymore. I have this obsession that once I write an explanation, it’s all over, and it’s hard to deal with. So when I have insert illustrations in my books, it makes me feel that I can’t match the strengths of visual information.
Araki: I once read a story about a beautiful picture. There wasn’t any description about the picture. But the readers can imagine something. If you wrote a manga with that story, you would have to draw the picture. Even if it was Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, it would just be a copy. It’s something that gets ruined if you draw it. But if you don’t describe the picture like that story did, if you just say it’s amazing, then the reader will believe it.
Nisio: Purposefully not writing something.
Araki: I think it’s better if you don’t write about it.
Nisio: I’ve used a technique of writing something that’s impossible to visualize a few times. I think that’s the only way to explain something that isn’t there… You can write about things that you can’t even draw.
Oh yeah, I’ve used that technique in Shin Honkaku Mahou Shoujo Risuka, which is illustrated by Nishimura Kinu-sensei. I wrote about a ‘jacket like a safety pin.’ It was supposed to be clothing from a fantasy world, and then Nishimura-sensei ended up drawing it. I thought ‘oh, it got drawn.’
Araki: That’s impressive. I’ve also drawn a few insert illustrations. There was a character who has an arm injury throughout the book. So I drew an injured arm, but then at the end it said that the injury was on the left arm, and I had drawn it on the right arm. I thought, “do I have to redo the whole thing?”
You really have to read carefully. Insert illustrations are hard to draw, too. That’s why it’s impressive. Figuring out what a jacket that’s looks like a safety pin is like…
Nisio: When I know that there will be insert illustrations, I try to make it easier for my illustrators to draw them.
Araki: The illustrations for Zaregoto Series have an atmosphere to them too.
Nisio: Take-san is the one drawing them. I remember at first, when I was talking to my editor, I asked for them to be ‘Jojo-ish’, haha. That was supposed to be about the level of realism or reality in the illustrations…and then they came out like this.
Araki: It’s nice to see that the Jojo-ish part came through. When you line up the 9 volumes like this, you can really see an improvement in skill. I like these pop-style backgrounds, too.
Which writer is the biggest Jojo fan?
Araki: Nisio-san, which authors do you like?
Nisio: I’d have to say Kadano Kouhei-sensei. He’s famous for being a Jojo fan. He’s the biggest Jojo fan among writers.
Nisio’s editor: Just a while ago, when I told him that you were going to see Araki-sensei, he went silent for a few seconds and coldly said, “Oh, is that it so”, haha.
Nisio: A long time ago, when I read an interview between you and Otsuichi-sensei in Yomu Jump [magazine associated with Weekly Shounen Jump], I was so jealous that he got to meet you.
Araki: Otsuichi-san was writing for Shueisha [company publishing Jump], after all.
Interviewer: Nisio-san, if you were going to write a novelization of Jojo, what would it be like?
Nisio: I would write about Part 2, or maybe Part 1. Where the enemies are vampires and perfect lifeforms.
Araki: Not violence.
Nisio: I would choose not to use Stands. That way there wouldn’t be anything in common with Otsuichi-sensei is doing. [Otsuichi’s Jojo novelization is set in Part 4]
Araki: You don’t want to do the same thing as him?
Nisio: I really don’t to do the same thing as anyone else. If I did, it would turn into a contest with Otsuichi-sensei. What if I lose? If winning makes you the bigger Jojo fan that’d be terrible.
Interviewer: You can’t stand losing, not as an author, but as a fan?
Nisio: They might say “you call yourself a Jojo fan, but that’s all you can write?” or “you don’t love Jojo enough”, and make fun of me, haha. So if that happens I’ll say “Oh, my favorite part is Part 1” to get away.
Interviewer: For Part 1 and 2, there’s the issue of viewpoint. Whose perspective would you write from?
Nisio: Part 4 is Kouichi-kun. For Part 1, it’s Speedwagon. Part 2 was…did he have a name? That pickpocket boy at the beginning…ah, I can’t remember. This is bad.
Araki: He was there, haha.
Nisio: Otsuichi-sensei and Kadano-sensei are laughing right now, haha.
Interviewer: When did you understand how Stands worked?
Nisio: I somehow figured it out as I was reading. Like how when Stands get injured, their users also get injured. There was an explanation of what Stands were at the beginning of one of the volumes, and it all made sense after that. That was really helpful.
Araki: It’s a good thing I wrote that, haha. Most people said they didn’t understand Stands.
Nisio: I liked the battles with the D’arby brothers. That’s how I learned how to play poker. I was in elementary school and didn’t know the rules of poker, so I didn’t know what kind of battle that was, haha. So I went to a bookstore and browsed through a poker rulebook.
Araki: Oh really? When I was writing that I assumed everybody knew how to play poker. It seemed like everybody at least knows poker.
Nisio:I was in elementary school, after all. After that I really wanted to play poker, haha. I wanted to say things like, “I bet all six chips.”
Interviewer: You’ve learned a lot from Jojo.
Nisio: That’s absolutely true. I want to keep learning more and more.
Araki: Thank you. I can tell how strong your feelings are

[Table] I am Dave Plummer, author of Windows Task Manager, Zip Folders, and worked on Space Cadet Pinball, Media Center, Windows Shell, MS-DOS, OLE32, WPA, and more. (pt 1/2)

Source
Note: Based on observing question-taker's profile, he is still taking answers, so two parts may or may not completely summarize the AMA.

Questions	Answers
Space Cadet Pinball, how does it feel to be the most played "bring your child to work day" game? I remember it fondly.	The best part is that I used to "teach" computer lab when my kids were in K through 6th grades, back when Pinball was still included and well known. The kids could care less about anything technically hard or interesting that I'd worked on, of course, but Pinball gave me instant street cred with them.
	Especially cool was being able to walk over and enter a secret code that only I knew that would turn on all the cheats, like infinite lives. They thought I was a wizard at that age!
	The code, by the way, is "hidden test" without the quotes! Then various keys do different things, you can click and drag the ball around, and so on. Google it for the gory details!
	I always like to point out that I was working with a full set of original IP from Maxis, so I had nothing to do with the design of the game, or it's art, etc... that was all done! My contribution was volunteering to port it, including a partial rewrite from asm to C, to work on MIPS, Alpha, PowerPC, IA64, ARM, and so on, which was actually a lot of work. But I got it into the Windows box, which is how and why everyone knows it today. But all credit for the gameplay and so on goes to Maxis, all I did was not screw it up in that case!
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To add a bit of detail re Space Cadet Pinball: we built Space Cadet originally at my company Cinematronics and did a deal with Microsoft to ship it with the Plus Pack that accompanied Win 95 and Win 98. While it technically didn't ship w/ Windows, the Plus Pack had something like a 25% attach rate and pinball wound up on most systems anyway. Microsoft actually had an option in our original contract from 1994 to ship it with the OS itself or the Plus Pack. Maxis was our publisher for the subsequent retail version, and later bought my company. More germane to this thread: I believe Dave's port entered the picture a few years later, after Win 98, and was likely critical to pinball continuing to ship on later iterations of the Windows OS (i.e. 32-bit). I definitely appreciate the time he put in to give the game extra years of life on the Windows platform. Kevin Gliner, game designer and producer for 3D Pinball, and co-founder of Cinematronics.	Pleased to FINALLY put a name to the game design! You should update the Wikipedia article for the game, as I think it lists Matt Ridgway, who might have been sound? I've been crediting Maxis for years, not knowing the role of Cinematronics who was who. One thing that confused me: wasn't there a company that did video games in the 80s called Cinematronics? Any relation? Star Castle, Armor Attack, etc...
	As for timing, this likely between the Win95 and Win98 Plus! packs. It was very early on at least, and shipped at least in NT4, and perhaps earlier in "SUR" release that ran atop NT 3.51, but I don't have access to any source files to check dates!
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I keep meaning to fix that wikipedia article, there's a significant number of people that worked on the game and for some reason only Matt (an independent sound guy who did some excellent part-time contract work for us) is listed. There's also a lot of confusion about the timing of various releases and the companies involved, and who owns it now (EA). I actually have all the original source, although no rights to any of it anymore. Hard to say on the timing of the port. I was working in Redmond in '99 when I got word someone had done an NT4 and Win2000 port (I'm assuming that was you), so that was the first time the port showed up on my radar. I have a more confident memory (and contracts, email, etc) of all the events related to how pinball came about and the first couple years after it was released. I like to think pinball was the very first Win95 game (it was fun to watch Gates and Leno pretend to play it on stage at the Win95 launch event), but of course there were other games that shipped with the launch too. You're correct, there was an 80s arcade game company called Cinematronics that went out of business long before we started in 1994, and someone had let the trademark lapse. How we came to be called Cinematronics is a long story for another time...	NT shipped in 96, so the version I did for it would have been done in 95. I remember working on it about the time Win9X was shipping or in late beta. I could be wrong on that part, but Nov 95 would be my guess.
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Damn dude, porting assembly? You are a legend!	Thanks - we actually did all of our debugging in assembler. We didn't have any source-level or line-level debugging at all (except as noted below). So you'd connect to a machine through an ssh-like tool and then, if the symbols were right, you could get a callstack and inspect memory, disassemble functions, and so on. But since we spent much of our day staring at assembly, I became reasonably adept at it.
	I say "reasonably" as I was lazy enough that I would compile the components of interest to me with Visual Studio PDB symbols so that, if I could repro on my own machine, I could then source-level debug it. That made me fast at some stuff that others were slow at, but I likely never got as proficient at asm debugging as someone who never had an alternative. I had a developer friend named Bob whom was an ntsd (our debugger) superstar, and he'd write expressions inside of breakpoints to fire conditionally, that kind of thing. So I did learn that trick, but I'm sure there were dozens I just never knew.
	That all said, we rarely if ever coded in assembly. All coding was in C/C++.
	In the Pinball case, parts of the original were written in hand-coded in asm by Maxis, like the sound engine, and wouldn't have had a hope of working on anything but an x86. Rather than be lame and not have sound on the RISC platforms, I opted to rewrite that stuff in C so that it was portable.
	The RISC platforms also bring their own set of problems like 32-bit alignment for data. And being on Windows NT (now just "Windows") meant being Unicode, but fortunately there isn't a TON of text in a pinball game!
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boytekka: damn, the only time that I did assembly language is when we tried moving a small machine through the printer port.. I miss those days LordApocalyptica: Only time I did assembly was when I wanted to make a game on my TI-84, and decided that I didn't want to. I miss those days too.	First game I wrote in assembly I did in a machine language monitor on my C64. You can't (easily) relocate 6502 so to add code you'd have to jump out, do stuff, and jump back... Crazy!
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If I can ask a question, how does it feels to go from coding with basically zero help to working with modern IDE and code editors that give you a lot of infos, tips, error notifications and so on? I've started programming like a year ago from zero, and I don't think I could be able to program like y'all did 20 years ago or more. Thanks for doing this AMA anyways!	You're very welcome! The progression in tools has been amazing, really. I remember HESMON and my first machine language monitors for the PET and C64, then really nice ROM dev environments, and CygnusEd for the Amiga... all the way up to PlatformIO and Visual Studio Code.
	My most recent "WOW" moment was adding a line to my lib_deps line in platformio, which magically included the library being developed at the URL on github. So you can link to online projects... cool.
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Just wanted to say thanks for the Alpha port!	Alpha AXP was by far the hardest to debug! "Branch later, maybe"
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I just want to thank you for my first experience with pinball. I am now a top 100 competitive pinball player and own 16 pinball machines.	That's cool, which do you collect primarily? I was always a fan of Williams, and am FB friends with a couple of their older devs like Steve Ritchie, Larry DeMar, and Eugene Jarvis (but I should be careful, Bill Gates warned me never to name drop :-) )
	I have a Black Knight 2000 as my own machine right now!
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I have a wide range. Some modern Sterns like Metallica, Jurassic Park, Tron and Iron Maiden. Older Bally’s like Frontier and Fathom. 2 classic Bally/Williams Dr Who and Attack From Mars. Plus a few EMs. I like them all! Attack From Mars was the game that got me into the physical world of pinball. Collecting has been more of a recent pandemic thing since I can’t go out and play. I miss traveling around the country playing in big tournaments. Oh yeah and Steve Ritchie is quite the character. You must meet him some day. I’ve met him a few times and each time has earned a place in my pinball stories I talk about with friends.	Congrats on the collection, that's a nice set! I've never met Steve - I did meet Larry DeMar in vegas. I was playing at a slot machine and he was next to me, and had a name tag, and I was like... "Excuse me sir, but does the word Robotron mean anything?" and it turned out to be him!
Asking as someone pretty new in software development, did you experience impostor syndrome? If so, how did you deal with it?	My first couple of years were very productive, so I wasn't insecure about my output, but even so I definitely experienced imposter syndrome. I think most people who achieve aspirational roles do... I have a friend who was in the NFL who describes the same feeling.
	Being as productive as your peers is sort of the pre-requisite, and if that's true, then remind yourself that when you were in fifth grade, the eighth graders on the playground seemed so old and mature! It's odd in that I started in 1993, but to me anyone who started in the 80s was a "true" Old Timer and remains so in my head to this day. And similarly I'm no doubt the grizzled veteran to people I hired a few years later.
	I know when I started I felt like the dumbest guy in the room, and by the end I felt like the smartest guy in the room, and I don't think I'd gotten any smarter along the way. So it's all relative and perception. Well, that and the stock caused some serious attrition of the "really smart"!
	I remember visiting Google a couple of years ago in the bathrooms they had posters that read "YOU ARE NOT AN IMPOSTER", and info about seminars and so on about it, so it's very common! I wish I had a concrete strategy for you, but I don't other than "It's commonplace, and I bet there are a ton of resources on the Web. Don't be surprised you're experiencing it!"
What would you encourage someone to start learning today related to your field?	I'm learning React at the moment. Let's face it, the web development experience is utter nonsense. So I kept hoping for something that would make it clean, and easy to make components, and to work with REST apis. So I went looking for a solution. Then I read about Angular, and it seemed like "too much" to learn for the sake of making a SPA.
	But React seems understandable enough and solves a ton of problems with web development, not the least of which is being able to intermingle HTML and Javascript (via JSX).
	As for languages, I'd probably start with Python. I prototyped a complicated LED system a couple of years ago and it was admirable what it could accomplish for an interpreted language. And you probably have to know modern Javascript as well.
Now, would you be rather interested in working for windows, macos or linux ?	I work in all three. For my own projects I write to the ASP.NET Core 3.1, and that's available on Windows, Mac, and Linux. I originally wrote my LED server to it under MacOS, then moved it to Windows with about 5 minutes of changes (related to the consoles being somewhat different). Then I moved it to Linux, where I made it work and then containerized it with Docker. I got it up and running on my Raspberry Pi and in a Windows HyperV and under WSL using Ubuntu. To me that kind of stuff is super cool.
	Once I had it working in a Docker container I deployed it to my Synology NAS, which is some variant of Linux. So my NAS runs my Christmas lights!
	I love stuff like that when it works!
	My main workstation is a Dell monitor that has an internal KVM. I have a 2013 Mac Pro connected to it, which is maxed out and then has an eGPU and eRAID setup via Thunderbolt. And then I have a 3970X Windows PC connected as well, and I can jump back and forth with a button.
	I spend most of my day in Windows now, unless it's video related, in which case I use Final Cut Pro.
Hi Dave, thanks for the AmA! In regards to task manager - often times I have to click the 'end task' button more than once to get the frozen program to actually close. Why is this? Thanks again.	Remember that, at least in my day, End Task is different than End Process. The former sends a "Please close yourself" message to the app, and if it's hung, it should then detect it and so on, but doesn't always. Imagine the app is in a weird state where it's still pumping messages, it's not hung, but it's broken. End Task likely won't work.
	That's when you need End Process, which tears everything down for you. The substantive difference is that the program gets no choice in the matter and no notification. End Task can be graceful. End Process is brutal.
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What about when the task manager stops responding? We need a task manager manager to manage the task manager. Lol	I've never seen that happen, ever, unless the system itself or the window manager is bunged in some way. Your puny Task Manager cannot save you now.
	Then again, nothing can, save a reboot.
What cool new tech are you excited about?	Right now I'm actually trying to productize something of my own, a system for doing hidden, permanently-installed LED holiday lighting. It receives the effect entirely over WiFi, or it can fall back to built-in effects and so on. Quick demo from 4th of July here:
	https://youtu.be/7QNtj2hZtaQ
	I'm done the software on the ESP32 and on the desktop, and working on the phone app now. So the next step is to find someone to manufacture the actual addressable LED strip fixtures. They'd be like under-counter LED strips that snap together end to end, but weatherproof, and with WS2813 LEDs internally.
	In terms of stuff that I'm just benefitting from, the latest CPUs from AMD are amazing. I have the 32-core 3970X and the raw computing power is hard to comprehend. That you can buy a 32-core chip for $2K (or 64-core for $4K) amazes me! Now I need to learn AI or something to make use of all of that hardware...
After the rise of WinRAR, did you continue to use the trial or did you pay?	From: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
	Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2006 3:14 PM
	To: Dave
	Subject: Your BuyRAR.com Order #: 122229610 License Key

	Attachments: rarkey.rar
	My WinRAR order number, from about 15 years ago, is above. And my WinZip license is much older than that. As someone who (a) made their real living in shareware and (b) worked on Product Activation, I'm the kind of guy who always licenses everything! You'll notice in my PlatformIO/"Arduino" video I even walk people through how to contribute to show how easy it is. I love good, cheap software.
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Would you download a car?	My wife's Tesla downloads update all the time. I'm sure they're just as complex as the mechanical components of the car, so in a sense, we already do!
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But... why did you keep the email?	I have a folder on my OneDrive called Registrations where I keep copies of license keys and registrations. So it was handy. Looks like Telix is my oldest registration from 1989 or so.
Also what was Microsoft really like back in the 90s? As a user of MS-Dos 3.30 forward till now. I’m assuming there has just been a whole tide of changes. Was double space really as funny on the dev side as it was on the user side with the slowness and the pufferfish as a logo :)	I worked on Doublespace in that I wrote a thunking layer that could live in low memory and then moved the rest of the code into the HMA. I didn't work on the compression, but odds are the guy who did is reading along right now, I bet!
	I don't really know if it was faster or slower than its contemporaries like Stacker. I wrote one for the Amiga, though didn't get it quite finished before starting at MS, and it's an interesting and hard problem to do well. At least on the AmigaDOS it was, FAT would be a tad easier.
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I mean for its time it was great. But back then floppy disks and 10M RLL-MFM drives were more the norm. It was actually awesome to have it included IN the OS instead of having to buy stacker. I think this is why I get so much of a kick out of every phishing AD that says download this to double your RAM. It just takes me back.	RAM Doublers are a whole 'nother ball of wax. Raymond Chen, in his blog "The Old New Thing", covers them well. If I understand it correctly, in the most famous case the code to do the actual memory compression was disabled, so it literally did nothing, but did it with overhead.
	On the other hand, I note that current Windows, the HyperV, and even my Synology NAS offer "Memory Compression" now so perhaps there's a time and a place on modern cpus and systems.
I'm an Engineer and regularly use MS Office to produce reports and calculations. Subscript and Superscript are something I use all the time. For at least the last 15 years, in MS Word I can hit "Ctrl +" & "Ctrl Shift +" to make the highlighted text Subscript or Superscript. But MS Word sucks for calculations, so I use MS Excel. But MS Excel it's about 8 clicks to make something super or subscript, and the hotkey technology hasn't made it in. So my question is, why was MS Office 2003 the best version of office that was ever produced?	I retired in 2003. Coincidence? I'll leave that one up to the scholars.
If you could go back and change anything about Windows without consequences or worrying about backwards compatibility, what would it be?	Format! I wrote that and since I was used to using the Visual Studio Resource Editor for dialogs, but couldn't in this case, I just laid out a stack of buttons and labels, content in the knowledge that a Program Manager or Designer would come up with a proper design for it that I would then code up. But somehow, no one did, and no one has for 25 years! So it's a big tall stack of buttons like a prairie grain elevator.
Ever met Bill Gates or have an interesting personal experience with him or another higher up you can share?	Yes, even when I was a new college hire he had the 30 of us or so over for beer and a burger in his back yard. It was a nice touch and quite informal. Obviously, at some scale, it wasn't 30 people anymore and they couldn't continue it!
	Ever play the video game Star Castle? It was like that. Concentric circles of people standing around BillG each armed with what they hope is a question or comment so clever they'll stand out in some way!
If every software you need would be available for both systems. Would you use a Linux distribution or Windows 10?	Right now I'd use Windows 10 because, if the same client software is available, I'd do it on Windows simply because I have a new 3970X w/ 128G of RAM and triple RAID0 SSDs plus an Optane stick. All for about 1/10th the price of a Mac Pro. Since the hardware is so cheap and powerful, it's really hard to resist.
	Even if all the client software were magically available, or Parallels for Linux were a thing, I'd stick with Windows because I haven't seen a Linux UI that I really like. I know everyone has a favorite... if there's an actually good and attractive one that works out of the box, let me know what distro, and maybe link a screenshot!
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Give Mint 20 with Cinnamon a fair shot! I have struggled for years trying to like a Linux distro but never found one that felt and looked right which I think had been the reason Linux hasn't been adopted mainstream but Mint20 with Cinnamon is possibly it..if not its very very close.. Has awesome multi-desltop winodws feature and you can make it basically just like Win10.. Would love to know what you think of it! 20.1 BETA just dropped and has a super interesting feature called Web Apps that needs to be checked out asap! Heres a link to the 20 long term support version.. some people do not like the Minto Logos/Backgrounds out of the box..keep in mind there are a ton of nice ones included and many more you can get quickly if that's something you don't like..what is really neat is that you can make Mint20 look like any OS.. there are themes that make it exactly like MacOS I just have not personally tried those out yet. https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3928	Thanks, I'll check out Mint!
I am looking at my copy of Douglas Coupland's "microserfs". Although it's fiction, do you think it resembles the Microsoft Culture of the time?	Lord no, that book bugged me. On the one hand, they're a bunch of pretentious and precocious, annoying kids. I worked on a team (NT) where the tone was set by Dave Cutler and the guys he brought over from Digital, so it was rather different. On the other hand, it's such a big company that odds are those four main people DID exist somewhere in the company. Just not around me!
Why was (is) a monolithic registry preferred over distributing the settings in a number of files like Unix? Why did windows remain single-user focused for so long when Unix was multi-user since the 70s? In my understanding, if there is just one user, that user has to be admin which opened Windows up to security issues. (I don't even recall any sudo-like privilege escalation in pre-XP Windows.)	Windows NT was multiluser from birth. And there's nothing about the Windows architecture that requires users to be admin; the reality, I think, is that most apps started out in Win95 land and just didn't work if they were run as non-admin, so people ran as admin because the apps required it.
	We couldn't just break all those apps and say "Oh well, get better apps" so what you got was a convention of people running as admin. But again, there's no need to. Same as Unix.
	The one exception is that under Unix it's easy to sudo and so admin work briefly. I wish Windows had (or exposed) a simpler mechanism for letting me run as a non-admin credential and escalate when needed. I know UAC does the same thing, more or less, if used cautiously.
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Yeah NT did eventually get around to fixing it. My question was really about the earlier systems, because I think you said you worked on MS-DOS? Since there were existing systems with multi-user and privilege escalation even before the first Windows, somebody must have made a conscious decision to not include that functionality.	MS-DOS was only the second or third OS I can think of for a Microprocessor (CPM, SCP, then MS-DOS). What existed for mainframes and minis didn't matter much in the memory limits available on the desktop.
What was the inspiration for Space Cadet Pinball and what is your high score?	I don't know, I wasn't the designer, the inspiration part happened separate, I provided the perspiration part! I was actually pretty good at the game, since I was literally paid to play and test it... but I don't know the score, sorry! I do have the world high score on Tempest, though! But not Pinball :-)
1. What's something super useful within Task Manager you think even seasoned Windows users don't know they can do? 2. What do you think a future version of Task Manager should be able to do?	I think CTRL_SHIFT_ESC is a surprise to a lot of people!
	I think Task Manager needs Dark Mode, and a way to show who has locked what file or device so you can kill the offender when needed.
Why is it that I can still find dialogs in Windows 10 that were clearly built using 16 bit Visual Studio 97 version?	This should explain it. When you achieve perfection, you leave it alone:
	https://youtu.be/l75a8CvIHBQ
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Please for the love of God, use your Microsoft contacts to stop the snipping tool from going away. It's literally perfect but they keep trying to discontinue it.	One Compound Word: SnagIt. It's what you need to make your life complete.
	After my time, but I heard the new snipping and history that's being built in to replace it is pretty good. It better be if they kill snipping tool!
Thanks for task manager! I use it for so many things. How do you feel about newer versions of Windows de-emphasizing the control panel in favor of their new settings app?	I'm all for it if they made sure they had 100% coverage of all settings. It's sort of weird that in this day and age, with an R&D budget in the billions, we still have a mix of new control panel and old property pages. But I like the new stuff if it covered all cases!
Hello Dave! Why does Windows have such a rough time transferring a lot of small files? Is it a limitation of NTFS?	It's not Windows, it's all operating systems. Part of it is filesystem related:
	Imagine copying a file takes 200ms of overhead plus 10ms per MB. Coping 100M of large files will take 200ms + 1000ms = 1.2 seconds.
	Now imagine you have 100M of 1M files. Now you have 100*200ms + 1000ms = 20000ms or 20 seconds. 20 times as long for the same amount of data.
Did you ever get a chance to work in/on OS/2? I stuck with OS/2 until 2005/2006, before moving onto Linux, and would love to hear any opinions and stories you might have.	I didn't! I used OS/2 a bit but never had a chance to work on it. Many of the people I worked with did, though... but if OS/2 were Kevin Bacon, I'm one degree removed.
I had waited more than 20 years to ask this... What the fuck is Trumpet Winsock?	That's what you need to use TCP/IP on Windows before it was included in Windows. You're welcome.
What was the idea behind having "generic" activation keys starting in Windows XP that would activate any version, it was said they were for [educational purposes], did Microsoft provide them to 501c3/non-profit schools, or was there a different reasoning?	I'm not sure what you mean by "generic". I remember retail and oem, but what was a generic key?
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There was a set of keys that became public knowledge partway through XP life that appeared to activate unlimited machines as valid, though added a banner "For Educational Purposes Only". I remember trying it back in the day and always wondered what the intention was that was important enough the key activations were never blocked. [I did have multiple legal keys, but curiosity killed the cat and I had to swap one to the "educational" key to see for myself, lol]	I don't actually know! But I can surmise that if it was displaying a banner down in the bottom right corner of the screen, it knew it was not licensed and was likely limited or time-limited in some way. Unless you could actually ACTIVATE them with that key, which would surprise me.
How does OLE still work? I can't think of anything else that complex and old that still runs. We've got a legacy piece in our application that uses it and I can build against it using .net 4.0, in an Azure pipeline and deploy to windows 10 hosts and a piece of 90s technology still works perfectly. How and why?	It was complex, but pretty well written and very well tested. That's not to say there aren't a lot of bugs outside the common case codepaths, but I bet if Office used it, it's pretty solid, and will be forever.
Other than your personal phone number, did any Easter eggs make it to general availability?	There was one in the Win9X shell, but I think we removed it for Windows XP and later. So not that I'm aware of!
Have you ever wanted to make a "sequel" to Space Cadet?	There are actually two other tables available in the original Maxis game that should work, in theory, but I think Space Cadet was the best of the 3, so...
Were there ever any 3rd party edit/change to shell that made you think, "Why didn't we think of that?"	Not offhand, but "Stacks" on MacOS where it tries to rescue your mess by grouping things by filetype (Images, Docs, etc) is pretty clever. So that's something I wish we'd though of!
Have you worked at all with Bryce Cogswell and Mark Russinovich?? Also, what was your initial response to Process Explorer /the Sysinternals stuff??	No, but the SysInternal guys are geniuses of the highest order, so far as I'm concerned (and I say that based on their products, no knowing them). They know their stuff.
What are your best/oddest purchases you were able to justify as a work expense (for example, were you able to get MS to buy pinball machines as an R&D cost)?	I had DirecTv in my office! I was working on the Media Center prototype and we couldn't get cable on campus, so I got the dish installed on the roof, etc....
	I had a Tempest machine in my Office but at my own expense. I started right around the days of the "shrimp vs weenies" memo, so they were pretty cost conscious.
Is it true that you and Dave Cutler got into a knife fight over a hand of poker gone bad?	A broken bottle is not a knife.
Was DoubleSpace stolen from Stacker?	No. As I understand it, DoubleSpace was licensed from an Israeli developer. Then I heard that Stacker had somehow been awarded a patent on using a hash table in compression, which sounds pretty ludicrous if true. There was a trial, and even though it revolved around hash tables and math and compression engines, and no one on the jury had been to college, as I heard it. So the big guy lost. That's the story I heard, your mileage may vary. I'm not a spokesman, etc.
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MS-DOS 6.21, the most useless version. I remember writing an extra "2" on my 6.2 OEM disks when the update came out (no point wasting disks).	You say "useless", I say "canonical".
	I think I actually worked on 6.22, not sure. It was 6.2 something. In terms of usefulness, the features I added to it personally were:
	- Moving Doublespace to HMA to free up a lot of low mem, as noted
	- Giving Diskcopy ability to do it in a single pass with no swaps
	- I wrote a new version of Smartdrv that added CD-ROM support
	- I wrote a special version of Setup that worked via deltas and put everything on a single floppy (no point wasting disks).
	Mind you, I was just a summer intern when I did that, and it took me about 3 months.
What are your favorite DOS command-line tricks that still work in Windows 10?	doskey!
What actually happens if someone deletes Win32?	Human sacrifice, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria. Do not attempt.
Did Bill ever swing by your cubicle and tell you'd he'd take your assignment home and finish it in a weekend if you didn't hurry up?	Cubicle? It was the 90s at Microsoft! I had a corner office with a table, chairs, a Tempest machine, and a sofabed.
What is the best project you worked on or had friends work on that was canceled, that you would revive if you had the resources?	Windows Media Center, I'd say! And I wish they'd done a great AutoPC that the OEMs could have licensed and made common to most cars.
There has been a lot of hate on Windows / Microsoft from the Unix / Linux advocates. What are some narratives that you disagree / don't think are true?	I used to love the Amiga, so I know what it's like to feel a sense of advocacy for a platform that you feel is superior but overlooked in the marketplace.
	I think the most untrue narrative I've heard about them is that they all have neckbeards. I think it's only "most", not all.
How do you introduce yourself at parties?	"Does anyone here know how to update my Groove subscription on my Zune?"
What OS are you using now? What's your favorite OS of all time? What's the worst OS of all time? What's the worst Microsoft OS (if different)?	The best OS of all time was Windows NT 4.0 with the Shell Update Release.
	The worst OS of all time was the TRS-80 Model 1, Level 1 DOS that didn't have the keyboard debounce code in ROM yet so you couldn't even type on the thing.
[deleted]	No, I never put a true easter egg in anything. Especially in an operating system, I don't believe in them. You have to be able to trust the OS, and I think it goes against that.
How did you get started in this specific field?	I first wandered into a Radio Shack store in about 1979 when I was 11, where I saw my very first computer. It was not connected yet, as the staff had not figured out how to set it up yet. Being somewhat precocious, I asked if I might play with it if I could manage to set it up. On a lark they said, “Sure kid, have a shot”, and ten minutes or so later I had it up and running. This endeared me to the manager, Brian, enough that every Thursday night and Saturday morning I would ride my bike down to the store: I’d type in my crude BASIC programs and they were kind enough to indulge my incessant free tinkering on their expensive computer. So that's pretty much how I started!
Do you ever have moments where you’re like “they have it so easy nowadays” or do you think that because of the groundwork put in place 30 years ago that systems have become exponentially more complex?	Only when someone spools up an entire docker instance to pipe something to it on the command line... then it's like "Really? You're basically booting a virtual computer as a command?"
What's the best C++ expert tip you can share for fellow programmers?	If you make anything in your class virtual, make the destructor virtual, particularly if there's any chance that anyone might delete an instance of your derived class through a base class pointer. Otherwise, the behavior is undefined, I think, but even if it works, it's not what you want!
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Wow this is eerie. I literally fixed a bug a couple weeks ago that was this specific case.	They can be weird bugs to track down, too!
Tabs or spaces?	Spaces on an indent of 4, tabs set to 8.
How can I open an MS Binder file?	Push down on the metal tabs at the top and bottom of the central spine of the binder. That will release the 3-hole punch claws, and then you can remove your printed file.
"It's now safe to turn off your computer" Why was this splash removed?	I think most current BIOSes can do it on their own by now!
Do you have any insight as to why MS decided to build Windows 95 from the ground up instead of building off of an existing *nix system the way Apple did with OSX? Was it just for backwards compatibility or were there other reasons? Also, had you gone this way, how do you think Windows, and the industry in general, might be different? I'm asking as someone who thinks that WSL is the best thing to happen to Windows in years.	Windows 95 was not built from the ground up, but NT was. The most succinct reason (and just a guess, I'm not a spokesman) is that even though MS had Xenix on hand, there were fundamental problems in the way Unix handled SMP multiprocessor locks and so on at the time. I presume these have long since been solved in Linux, etc, but not without significant work.
	WSL is one of my favorite things too, but for the library of tools and software, it makes available to me, not because of some fundamental architectural superiority, I don't think!
What are your feelings about "Microsoft Bob"?	https://youtu.be/rXHu9OmLd8Y
What did source control look like in the 90's? How did MS keep its code from leaking out to the public? How did you handle versioning and different developers working on the same feature?	We used a tool called SLM, or Source Library Manager. It was sort of available briefly as a product under the name Microsoft Delta.
	It was OK for smaller teams but did not support branching, so just before I left we moved to Source Depot.
Why was Ctrl + Alt + Delete changed to Ctrl + Shift + Escape?	It wasn't! Ctrl-Alt-Delete raises the "Secure Alert Sequence" which triggers the OS to switch to the secure desktop, where you have the ability to click a button which will start task manager upon return to your regular desktop.
	Ctrl-Shift-Esc is a feature built into Winlogon that launches a TaskManager on the current desktop without switching to the secure desktop.
	There are theoretically hacks and exploits that can only be caught by switching to the secure desktop, so if you're ever in doubt, ctrl-alt-del is the more secure way to go.
How did DOS ever get away with just pulling device names like "COM1" out of thin air when it came to output redirection etc..?	That's for compatibility with MS-DOS.
What are you currently working on?	Mostly on LED and Microcontroller projects that I detail on my YouTube channel, and the channel itself takes a fair bit of my time! If you're curious, you can check out my current successes and failure adventures at http://youtube.com/d/davesgarage
Did you work with Kris Hatleid on Super Hacker and the game Evolution?	I worked with Kris on an unreleased title called "Commander Video". That's largely where I learned assembly language, since he did the bulk of the coding, I watched and did level design, etc. 1982 or so I believe!
Got any dev back door mainframe access codes for pinball?	hidden test
Dave, how did you manage to do all that without being able to google everything?	That's one of the craziest things... I got a degree in computer science before you could even look anything up!
	The hardest part was OLE2. Coming form a different platform (the Amiga) it was a monster to wrap my head around, and the book (Inside OLE2) was not the best for introducing devs to OLE. It scared me, and I sure could have used a YouTube tutorial or two!
Hi Dave! So here's a bit of an odd one. I loved your Space Cadet Pinball! I must have spent countless hours on it as a kid, and even now I still occasionally try to find ways to boot it up. A legitimate classic. But lately, the version windows offers just... don't feel the same. They aren't as nice. Is there a game you can name that you would say feels like a worthy successor to Space Cadet Pinball? Or even any more general pinball games you would recommend?	I have a real Black Knight 2000 machine here in the house that I fully restored, so I'm a fan of physcial pinball as well!
	I think the two best video games are (a) arcade Tempest, and (b) XBox Geometry Wars 3.
	GW3 is a classic, or should be!
Woah woah woah, University of Regina?!? Are you from here? Cool to see a UofR grad had such a major impact!	Yup! Check out the regina sub for a recent article
When working on MS-DOS what did you think of alternatives such as 4DOS, NDOS or DR-DOS, were they source of inspiration for new features or not at all ?	No in general, but Norton had NCD. It was a change folder command that could jump around the disk, so if you typed "NCD drivers" from the root, it could go down to "C:\windows\system32\drives". Super handy.
	So I tried to write one for NT, but it meant changing the working directory of the PARENT process (cmd.exe) and I could never figure out a clean and elegant way to do it without modifying CMD itself!
Which is the best version of Windows? (Figuratively speaking).	Windows NT 4.0

Title track predictions based on Sequence of Youth scheduler

Tales of Specter (Chapter 6)

CHAPTER 6
Astrapian City
SpenceSpecter Journal:
Entry - ??? It's been days and weeks since the Castle of the Valkyrie Queen crashed into the surface of the earth. Mostly I don't know where the heck are we... However I’m back to the Clan...
There is no place like Home...
I never thought that this place can look so good. The Specter Clan did a fantastic job in making it secure.

Specter says "Darkcrow, can you walk now?" "Well... With the Mechanic's help, I can walk, but it's going to take awhile before my leg is healed completely." He replied Spencer sits on his bed and think about what can he do.

Melody interview with my Clanmates, How did she found Specter also known as Me the Legendary Demon-Hunter.
One of the elf girl said "OMG! HOW DID YOU FOUND THE REAL SPECTER BLACKWING" and she continued ask questions for an extended period of time.
Melody said "Did you know about Me and Specter? I'm his Girlfriend." The Elf Girl said "OMG! Me and my friend have been waiting for this day for years! We've been Specter fans from the beginning! Sooooo... You guys are together now?" Melody replied "Well maybe... I do love Specter, He so cool and edgy..." The Elf Girl said "AHHHH, She's soooo Lucky to have him!" and they decided to scream in romantic excitements Melody blushed and stopped the rest of her reply.
Roger legs has fixed and he gone to trained outside in the clan with the clan mechanics. The clan mechanics added some new features of weapon in his robotic hand. Also the clan warriors added some new features of armor on his robotic body. After the upgrades, Roger is ready for combat for future missions.
The Clan Warrior said "This is the new metal coats for your new body, It can protect you from Corrosion and Bullets!” Roger will be a great robot warrior for the Specter Clan!
Lily, well she is now awake and has a interview with the knights on the other kingdom about the crash of the Castle of the Queen Valkyrie. She also has a chat with the Mechanic's of the Elf Clan about her motor skills.
Spencer said "Yeah, well it's good that she enjoy herself and not think about the sad stuff."
Victor, on the other hand, he kinda problem in his past-life as a Gambler. He can't stop thinking about it, he even tried to get the Specter help him to get cured, but they couldn't help.
Victor is a total greed loving Magi-Caster and I liked him... But his problem, is he attached on a past life. What is he hiding?
The next day after training and having fun, the Clans resume their meeting.

Specter says "Axelegore kill my partner Lurk and I have to avenge him for good. But i need the 7 orbs to combine into "The Elemental Orb" "The Elemental orb is a powerful magic artifact. It was used by the 6 knights of Lairon, but the creation of the Elemental orb is Unknown..." Specter explained the story
Specter says "Gizmo, The Small Chimera Furry who the former of the Axelegore Orders and has reveal the story of Axelegore Plan and the 6 knights but he died due to the battle with Cupiditas in The Castle of the Valkyrie Queen..." Gizmo is the Chimera Furry with a chip on his shoulder, but he has a bit of a hero complex. I can relate to that.
Specter says "We got the 5 orbs and the next one is the Electric Orb." The Mechanic's look at the 5 orbs and then to Specter. "We can make a Orb." One of the Mechanic's Replied.
Specter says "You can't unless you got them all 12 of them..." One of the Mechanic's look at each other and said "What, do we do?" "Well... We got the 5 orbs correct?" "Correct!
Specter says "Victor, did you seen the Electric Orb before?" "Yes, I saw it in the treasury before all of this chaos broke loose." Victor said with regret. "We have to get it back then."

Victor said "Mostly the Electric Orb was on Astrapian City, The most futuristic city with full of Money and Violence. It was found by the mayor for some unknown reasons. "It's know for power the entire city." "Do you remember where?" "Yes, It was in the Empire Astrapia State Building." "Can we get it?" Victor said "It's a risky try..." "We have to take down the entire state security force with all the Mercenaries and military there to defend it.”
Victor said "The mayor is worked for Axelegore, His name is unknown but the people called him The Black Dragon"

Specter says "Black Dragon, Is that the 4th orders?" "Yes they are, they were created recently. but yeah, that person is very dangerous.

List of Axelegore Orders
The Sky Crasher Leader: Gruz "They are the one, Sky Pirates who try to fly by shooting and cast magic to destroy all of the traveling ship and make them to banned traveling with airship all over the world and make their home."
The Dark Mechanicus Leader: Cogwheel "They are the ones who have all invented the really big and dangerous machine for the warfare and combat that does most of what the Dark Mechanicus does.
The Phantom Cultist Leader: Light "They are the ones who use their magic to battle and cast through the battlefield. They are the magical and powerful of all the orders.
The Black Dragon Leader: The Black Dragon. "This is the most unknown order, they are invisible to everyone except other members and seem to only be used as assassins by the other orders."

Specter says "They are one tough Orders..." "We can try but the attempt is most dangerous and failed to do this." Darkcrow said. Victor said "We are ready to go then, let's head to the city."
Specter says "Right, we got a world to save!" Victor and you all head to the city and begin your attempt to save the world.

The Astrapian City is a miles away from my Clanhouse and my Village but it's a very long walk to prepare for the Electric Orb... I packed up some food as well as the Orbs also my old dagger and my ropes...

Specter says "Where can i use the ropes for?" The ropes are for climbing big and small rocks. so, you can try climbing some nearby rocks. You find a few rocks you can climb near your current location.
Specter says "Well, i have to use the ropes or the dagger later until we headed to Astrapian City..." You begin to climb the rocks while packing the Orbs in your pack. While climbing, you accidentally drop one of the Orbs.

Victor grab and said "I got it!" and after a quick examination of the Orb, he said "Yes, it's still good!" You all continue to climb rocks until one of the rocks you are climbing is slightly wet.
After you climb a thousands steps. You see a great view and found Astrapian City.
"Woah..." he whisper. "We have to be very careful now, we are in their lands and they may have powerful fighters." Victor says.

Specter says "You got it!" Victor says "Right then, let's start heading to the city and quietly drop our pace until we find a good place to sleep." You all continue your journey to Astrapian City.

Astrapian City A cyberpunk world where everyone is a gambler, perverts, hackers, creepers and rogue.
"Everything is illegal is legal" is their motto!
Interesting Fun Fact! Astrapian City has the highest crime rate in Lairon Region! (Surprised?)
The buildings are tall and the streets are very wide. There is a large park area in the center of the city.
The city is ruled by a The Black Dragon and his council of advisors.

Specter says "What a bunch of rogue..." Just a bunch of gamblers and perverts though. We should ask for a job at the gambling hall... Well, looks like we are already in a lot of trouble.

Victor said "Those guys can break a skull on you for good!" which scared you a bit. You all go into a dark alley way to rest for the night.
Roger sleeps while standing up and Victor get a little too close to your personal space before going to sleep.

Specter says "This is kinda creepy place..." The three of you look around and see if there is any potential danger. "Yeah, this place is creepy..." Victor says in a low voice. You all feel your weapons ready just in case.

Well it's just a drunk guy who drank a lot of beer... and passed out. Still, might be best to keep an eye on him. The Six all proceed to sleep and wait for midnight to start to find the Electric Orb.

Specter wake up and their items got stolen! They all wake up at the same time and check your stuff.

To his surprise, his weapons are gone. He look at Victor, he's still asleep, he whisper to him that his weapons are missing.

Specter says "Damnit! Victor wake up our stuff is gone!" Victor slowly wake up and feel his stuff. "Hmm, my things are gone too..." "Well I guess we might as well get up..."
Specter says "Where the thief at!" You all notice the drunk guy sleeping at the end of the alley. You wonder if he is the one who took your stuff.

Then you wonder if killing him is going to make things worse for you.

Specter says "Hey, you drunk head! Where our stuff!" The drunk guy wakes up and immediately realizes something is wrong. You all wonder if it would be better to wait for him to pass out again. However, he starts running in your direction.
Specter says "Hey, that the Thief! Get him!" You all quickly begin chasing the guy. You try to grab his leg, however he eludes your grasp. By now other people have seen the commotion and are also taking an interest.
Specter says "Where the orbs and our stuff!" The Drunk guy starts running in random directions trying to get away from you all. The drunkard runs into a dead end alley and the Specters and you all wonder what to do next.
Specter says "I tell you one last time! Where is our stuff!" Victor then says something that surprises you all. "We might as well let him go and get our stuff back, he is just a little drunk right now..."

The drunk guy return the weapons and the orb back to Specter and run away from him
And Specter said "God! I hate this city!" So, the thief was not punished, but you are all satisfied that he will not do it again. But you realize there something over the dead end alley wall.
It's the Empire Astrapia State Building! Making you all think... "Hey, I thought that...!" Victor says something that surprises you all.
The Empire Astarpia State Building One of the Tallest Building in Astarpian City. It's also the Tallest Building in Entire Lairon Region with over 150th floors and powered and controlled by the Electric Orb with 1,000,000 gigavolts per years!
It was named Astrapia State Building by Victor as a joke for the Mayor.

Specter says "That's the Empire Astrapia State Building, or should i called E.A.S.B" "So Victor, what are you going to do with the Empire Astrapia State Building?" "I'm going to make a profit of course!" "Wait but isn't it illegal to use?

Victor said "Have you read the motto of Astarpian City?" "No?" "It's Everything is illegal is legal!" Victor then said "If you know what you are doing, it's perfectly legal to use.

Specter says "What kind of motto is that..." "Indeed." "How stupid can the government of this city get? (Sigh) Well, we can come back for the Building later, I guess. “Are you questioning my intelligence?" "No, but I’m asking you a question. Darkcrow can't stand up yet. but he found a way to enter the Empire Astrapia State Building. There two girls employees are entering the dressing room at the back door. And he saw one of the mafia with a VIP pass entering the E.A.S.B entrance door.
Specter says "Darkcrow, What's your plan?" "Plan? I don't have a plan, yet." "Just wait, maybe the best way is to..." Melody and Lily interrupts Darkcrow plan. Darkcrow said "Geez! What you doing here..." They both replies at the same time "Specter's orders!" Lily said. "We're here to escort you to the Empire Astrapia State Building! Melody said. Darkcrow complain. "Specter!"
Specter says "Well.. I don't even know... because I like some girls escort our team..."

Darkcrow punched Specter in a shoulder. "Ow! Why you punch me for?" "I don't know... I’m just pissed at something right now!" Darkcrow secretly doesn't want the girls joining his team mission. One of the gang at outside at the entrance of the E.A.S.B said to the gambler who want to gamble in E.A.S.B "Hey man, Give me your money or we'll beat you up!" Gang beat the Gambler to his death and drop his VIP pass.
"What the?" Victor said when he saw the crime.
"Well, it's obvious now that this is a perfect place to steal some stuff!" Specter said.

Specter steal the VIP pass.

"Alright team, we need to get out this stinky alley and find the Electric Orb!" Victor nods. You all take a good look outside the Empire Astrapia State Building. But the guards blocking you and said "May i see your pass, please?

Specter present his VIP pass.

You and the rest of your team pass the guards while they say "Wow! You're really lucky, man! Welcome to the Empire Astrapia State Building!"
Empire Astrapia State Building A huge skyscraper. While you're on the 40th floor, you can see the nice views of Astarpian City. This means that there should be some spare items around here somewhere.

Specter says "We need to register a room to rest up for the plan."

And you're all surprised to see that this city has a hotel on top of the sky city. Of course, it's the Empire Hotel Astarpia State Building.
The hotel room has a very luxury bedroom, kitchen, and a very large living room. A butler awaits your orders and ready to serve you at all times. You can make people think you're really rich by just telling them your name is Master Specter.
The butler announced the Black Dragon has a ceremony at E.A.S.B event hall. Tonight at 12:00 AM "Be there or we'll kill you!"
"You bet, boys!" Victor said. You nod at each other. "Go get some rest of the guys, we're heading to the ceremony." Specter ask. "Yes, Master Specter." The butler leave your hotel room.

Specter says "Geez! What we gonna do to get the Electric Orb!"

Victor says "I don't know." Spencer thinks for a moment. Roger says "Does anyone remember where the location of the location was? Victor said "Basically it's on the top to the tower." Spencer stands up "Let's get to the 100th floor!"

Specter says "But, how we gonna get the Electric Orb without getting caught by Black Dragon and his guards"

Specter hears and saw in the peephole. About those Bunny-Suit waitress talking in the hallway about The Black Dragon Identity.
The one waitress said "Did you know that he is working with Axelegore. That's why we should sit next to the VIP area in the event hall." Another waitress replies "Well, I heard he is the head of the Black Dragon Order.”

Specter says "Melody, Lily. I think you gotta need a distraction as the Bunny Girls Waitress at The Black Dragon."

"Haha, good idea!" Victor laughs. Spencer says "Victor, let's use your trick card to open the control room."

Specter says "Darkcrow, Roger. You guys up to make money at the Casino for me."

Darkcrow said "You serious, man?" Roger said "Yeah, I'm programmed to never ever to do gambling!" Victor says "Well, you can help me at the Control Room instead." Darkcrow said "Really, this is my worst mission of my life!

Specter says "I bet you, all the money from the Casino is yours!

Darkcrow agreed with his greedy attitude "Deal!" Melody replied "Hey Specter, why do I really need to distract The Black Dragon with the Bunny Suits anyways?"
Spencer says "I think the plan is, you seduce him with the bunny suit to prevent him from calling the guards, so we can get the orb from the room. also you with Lily!

Specter says "Lily, on the other hand is also has a Magi-Ability: Lilith"

Linda "Lily" Lilith Skyhound, The Demon Pilot in the Sky, Specter Ex-Girlfriend.
Magi-Ability: Lilith She can turn into a lilith or a succubus and any type of class such as Knight, Wizard or Cleric anything she wants! According to her beautiful and seductive dress of the entire female class!
She can take the job of a magical-demon to be tricked actively by the Black Dragon, but she is not stupid and agrees with Specter. Lily said "I agreed with the plans of Specter, also if I wears the bunny suits, I can turn my class Pilot into Magician! " Spencer: "Yes, I think you can do it. Lily said "Melody, are you doing this?" Melody replied "Of course :)" Lily said "Beautiful, let's get ready!"
11:55 PM before the shows started…
The plan has already started at E.A.S.B. Lily and Melody are in the dressing room where they going to serve some wine to the mayor also known as The Black Dragon, Darkcrow is on his black suits and got some chips and some cheating cards to his pocket. While Specter, Roger and Victor wearing a suit and they now going to the 100th floor.
The Bunny Waitress Team is on their way to the Casino as well, Specter decide not to tell them of the plan, they will probably just do the distraction.
Darkcrow is on his poker table with some Mafia around him. He gulp nervously... and he got the sweat all over him and said "Oh, hello there!" The mafia has a menacing look all over him! "Do you know how to play game?" The game master asks politely. "Why yes! I got a huge game of 5D-Jacks going on right now! Come let do this!" Darkcrow says happily.
Darkcrow sweating nerverously and wished "Man, i wish Roger should join me in this Casino!
Meanwhile, Victor, Specter and Roger enter the control room...
Spencer uses his magical powers, but no one is around, in fact the room seems deserted.

Specter says "No one here..." "It's empty!" Victor said with a creepy laugh. "Let's get the work done!" "What happens if the boss comes back?" Roger asks.
Specter says "Well, we have to stay focus." Suddenly, The Electric Orb is gone!

"Where is it?" Victor asks. "I don't know, someone must have took it." Roger says.

Specter says "It's must be that Black Dragon Guy at the Event Hall!"

"We have to find it!" Victor says. "Orb's power can be accessed by anyone." Roger points out.
Specter call Melody in her small microphone on her Bowtie.
"Melody! Lily! The Black Dragon got the Electric Orb!”
"We're in the begin in the ceremony now!" She replied. "Got it! Thanks Blueberry!" He replied. "We're on our way, we'll be there soon!" Roger said. "Huh, whoever he is, he must be a powerful and intelligent guy..." Victor mutters.

Specter end the call with Melody.

and Victor said "You called your Girlfriend, Blueberry?" "Yeah, she's a big hero around the campus..." Specter said with a cheeky smile. "Heh, well alright, I guess it's just as well that we have you along then."
Meanwhile at Melody...
Melody said "The Black Dragon got the Electric Orb!"
"That's great!" Lily replied. "Let's get going, we have to meet The Black Dragon in the ceremony!" Melody said. "OK!" She agreed.
The show announcer said "And now, the biggest guest! we like to announce..."
PLEASE WELCOME! THE MAYOR OF ASTARPIA CITY AND OWNWR OF E.A.S.B!
THE BLACK DRAGON! The Black Dragon has a shiny black silky tuxedo and a sharp white hair that cover his one eyes also with a black fedora and a Skull staff on his hand. He looks like Specter.
"Hello Everyone! Thank you for attending my biggest event so far!" He has a microphone in his hand.
Dragon said "This ceremony about my greatest city of them all and my biggest power in this city!"
Then, the Dragon begin to speaks...
"Now, I want you know that this event WILL be a historical moment! Axelegore, He one of my working partner with this work and this city, Our powers will rise above the world! I make this promise! Now, this isn't a speech this time, this is a question and answer session. If you don't ask me, you don't sit at the table! I HAD THIS! BABY!" he present the Electric Orb!
The Crowd gasp and say "WOW!" "Now, ask me a question, and i will answer!" The Dragon said while smiling. "This Orb can powered our City to the Unlimited Powers!" That mean More Crimes, More Violence’s and More Deaths in this Death Arena for those weaklings heroes who tries to restore the Orb! Now it's your turn to be the Dragon! "Why didn't you restored the other Orbs?" A Man asked. "It's a long story..." Dragon began to tell his tale... Dragon disagree the tale "But, it's a secret!" "Don't worry about it!" He replied. "But..." The Man said. "IT'S A TRUTH, NOT A BIG DEAL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU!" He replied angrily!" "I WANT TRUTH NOW!" He yelled to him!
Dragon yelled "OK, I'll reveal the truth, WHOEVER SHOOT THAT MOTHERFUCKING MAN HEAD WIN FOR A THOUSANDS BUCKS!" The man said "Wait, please no!" Then he turned to the Crowd and said "I'm sorry for my actions, I'm new at this and it was a mistake to come back here!"
Dragon said "IT'S TOO LATE! EVERYONE DRAW!" Everyone shoot at the Man Head and lead him in the painful death with a thousands bullet shot through the entire body...
The Black Dragon is a very powerful and dangerous man with a huge killing streak. Surprisingly, he dislikes to talk about his past.
Dragon said "What a Bloodbath! Guards, Send this man corpse to the Cremation Room. Before those grubs eaten him alive. Also here some thousands bucks whoever kill that guy!" He throw the Bill towards to the Crowd!
Everyone starts to grab the Bill! Dragon laughed insanely "Haha! I loved this city!" Melody was serious and said "What a dangerous man..."
Suddenly, Dragon invited "Who's that pretty woman? You want to join us for some drinks?" He pointed his staff to Melody... Melody accepted, this is some kind of amazing thing... Melody said "Me?"
"Yes, come sit next to me!" Dragon replied. "Really?" She replied back. "Yes, really! Don't I know you?" Dragon questioned. Melody walk down the stairs and sit with Dragon but Lily started sit with Dragon, But he said "Stop! NOT YOU!"
Lily said "But..." Dragon replied "Aren't you the blue haired bunny-suit woman that I pointed to her? Lily said "Yes, I'm her partner." "Oh, you look prettier! Come sit next to me…” Dragon agreed her info! Melody and Lily were sitting next to Dragon… They talked about life as the mayor of Astarpian City and then he said. "So tell me, have you ever loved a boy before?"
Melody reply with embarrassment "Wha.. What? No! Please, who would love a girl like me? Dragon said "Tell me, have you ever loved a boy before?"
"Seriously?" She replied. "Serious" He replied. "No, why would I?" Melody replied again. "Tell me, have you?" Dragon replied again. "No! Melody replied. Dragon said "Well, this is your lucky day for you. Because I'm here!"
The next moment, Dragon started to stare at Lily very close...
Then he said "Hmmm, you're not quite pretty enough to be a succubus, but you could make an excellent-" Lily said "What?"
Dragon interrupted him "I was going to say you could make an EXCELLENT PAWN ... or MEAT..."
Lily ask the Crowd "WHAT?!" Meanwhile... Specter, Roger and Victor is now on the Casino and saw Darkcrow won a lot of pokers chips bets from the mafia. The mafia are well known defeated and broke!
Darkcrow said "FUCK YEAH! FIFTY TIMES IN THE ROW!" He high fived the Crowd surrounding him. Roger said "Let's stake our winnings here!"

Specter says "Yo! Dark! Are you done here?" Darkcrow said "Yeah! I won 50 times in a row!" Victor and Specter got some chips from Darkcrow. "Victor, what do you think of Darkcrow's winning? Victor, disagree his winning streaks and said "Amateur! I won 100 times in this Casino!" Darkcrow look confused and said "What? You're joking!" Victor said "I swear to God! I'm the best Gambler here! Darkcrow said "OH YEAH?"

"Yeah, you're still an amateur." Victor said and walk away. Specter said "Let's stake our chips here! Dark shouted "Oh yeah! Victor, For now on, You're now my rival!" and high fived him.
Victor said "Hah, you and your 50 winning-streak in the row. Enough with the High Fives! Let's play Poker right here! Right now!"

Specter says "Enough! You Greedy Rats! We're have to find Melody and Lily!" "Oh, sorry! Let's go!" Darkcrow said. They left the casino room to find Melody and Lily and Darkcrow came back to get the chips "Sorry, but the chips coming with us!" He steal the chips and put them in the loot bag!

Meanwhile... Melody and Lily trying their best to distract Dragon! "Hey you! Stop staring at my butt!" Lily said. "Oh wait, are you talking to me?" Dragon replied. "Yeah, you better stop that." she replied. "Or what?" he replied. Melody try to sneaky steal the Electric Orb... and Dragon caught her! "What are you doing?! You trying to shock me?" he said in annoyance. "NO! But you have to let us go." Melody replied. "Oh yeah, I should let you go..." Dragon said. She smiled. "NOT, IF I GIVE YOU A KISS!" Dragon laughed insanity. “No, No, No, No!” Melody tries to run for it! He ran towards her and kissed her.
Suddenly, Specter saw Dragon kissing Melody in her lips... Dragon saw Specter and said "Aw... was that your Girlfriend that I kissed her in front of you?"

Specter says Rghh..." Specter stare at Dragon angrily and completely cover with red haze and aura in his body! "Should have waited until we're alone!" Dragon now knows. Melody tries to free herself from Dragon, but he is too strong! “By the way, as the mayor of the Astarpian City, She is now shall will be my QUEEN!” Dragon shouted!
Specter says "YOU GET AWAY MY GIRLFRIEND, YOU FUCKING FREAK!" In his demonic voice! He dash towards Dragon and gave him a punch in the face cause his skull break and then another one, and then another one! But Dragon won't go down! He punch back, and then several of them!
Specter summon the dead, demon and ghosts from out of nowhere to be his ally to protect from the Crowd! Several Ghosts and Demons started to appear around the area! More ghosts, skeletons and demon appeared to back them up! "Come on Specters! Do your thing!" Darkcrow orders. Dragon cast his mysterious Magi, and blew many specters away, including the crowd! Grim and evil spirits are powerful indeed! The crowd shoot the dead with their Tommy Gun. But no effects to the dead! The ghost slice through the crowd! The crowd died instantly!
Specter cast his powerful weapon Hades Scythe! Dragon casted an spell against him, but Specter block the attack! Then, he used his weapon, Hades Scythe to cut Dragon's arm! It was bleeding! The battle now begin to heating up! Dragon said "Damnit! Where that Rogue come from!" Then, in a flash of light, Dragon see a man standing there holding a very large scythe! He was tall, with dark shadow aura and long red hair!
Specter says "Dragon, You're souls is mine... AND I WON’T FORGIVE YOU!!!" He swing his scythe and Dragon casted his own Magi against him, but the Specter easily blocked the attack! "Let's make one thing clear, before I kill you!"
Specter ignore his orders and attack his wrath! “IT’S TOO LATE, TO PAY YOUR CONSEQUENCE!” He attacked him, with several ghosts, skeletons, and demons supporting him! Dragon casted some sort of shield against Specter attack! The clash of the powerful auras shock both fighters and their minions!

Suddenly, Dragon cast Nova! Nova appears to be a powerful explosion of light and sound! He can barely hear anything, but he see everything! Demons, Specters and even some ghosts blown away instantly!
“NGAHHHHH! DRAGOOOOON!” Specter shouted!
Dragon is retreating with his cutted right arm and left the Electric Orb behind. Dragon run for his life and got collapse on the ground and Suddenly, the mysterious pirate grab him and take him to the familiar ship.
Dragon said "Thanks for saving me, Gruz..." Gruz reply "No problem, but I think it's time we stop this little fight. The other group is ready to retreat this rogue wrath." "Hmm, let me just finish this fight, and then we can attack together!" Dragon replied
Gruz said "I'm afraid, you can't do that! Step on it, Sizzling Sisters! We have to retreat!"
The Sky Crasher ship retreat to the another place instead of the E.A.S.B.
Meanwhile... Melody and her teams trying to stop Specter wrath, Specter walking down the hallway to the exit to find Dragon!
Melody said "Specter! Just listen to me!" But he's not listening to anyone. He's too focused on killing Dragon cowering at the Sky Crasher ship. Melody said "Come on! Specter! Just listen to me!" She grab him and kiss him!

Specter heart is filled with love... He calmed down the Wrath... The shadows aura began to fade away..
Specter return to his former self... Melody take back her right hand away from him and just stood there awkwardly "Uh... Just let me come with you..." He said sadly. She said "Sorry Specter."
Specter says "Melody..." She turn around and she run away. She left him standing alone.

Meanwhile in Dragon...
Gruz said "Dragon, I can't believe that Specter Boy, destroyed your headquarter!"
Dragon said "Heh! I know..." Gruz said "I take it you want revenge?" Dragon said "Of course..." Gruz nods and hands over a small black orb.
Gruz, The Captain of the Sky Crasher Magi-Ability: Chaos
The Black Dragon, Leader of the Black Dragon Magi-Ability: Omega
Gruz: He can cast every Dark Magi from every Dark Magi-User.
Dragon: While Dragon on the Other Hands. He has the power to cast every Magi whatever he likes!
Gruz: Well, Axelegore is on Death Island with the Entire Orders also aren't you wanna stay with your crew at Death Island first, It's for resting for the battle you and that Specter Boy?
Dragon: Yes, fly your ship to Death Island.
Gruz: WELL THEN, OF WE GO TO DEATH ISLAND!
END OF CHAPTER 6
You have reached to Chapter 6

Performing magic I HATE!

Razzle-Dazzle - A crooked game to thin your players' purses

This is a fairly famous scam that works well in D&D. I like to bring it out in a fair or a casino where your players might expect that they're going to have to beat the odds to win, and it's always popular with players just because you get to roll a bunch of dice. It tends really to appeal to the gambler type of player. Please be sure that none of your players are recovering gamblers before presenting this to them, as you wouldn't want to be responsible for someone's relapse. It also (hopefully) goes without saying that this is a scam, and should be used exclusively in the context of D&D as it is illegal to run a Razzle-Dazzle game for real in many places.

The Setup

The players are presented with an array of wooden cups, painted in a half-dozen different colours. Mounted behind is a grid of colourful numbers that looks a little something like this. Each cup is numbered 1 through 6, roughly in even distribution.
The booth attendant/scammer is there barking for players. "Spend a copper, win gold! Even a child can manage!". For a mere one copper, the player is given 8 small balls, like ping-pong balls. They must throw them all in one toss. To represent these, get the player to roll 8d6. Alternatively, it could just be a dice game where they players are simply rolling dice (which works well in a casino). The score on the cups they land on (or the dice) is added up, and compared to the scoresheet. Points are earned by rolling a value that's marked in red on the sheet, and more than half the numbers there are red. To win the pot, the player needs to score 100 points. However, points carry over between tries, so even if you only score 5 points, if you pay another copper for another throw, you keep that 5 points until you win the pot or you walk away and forfeit your money.
Black numbers do nothing. The player is out their bet for the round, they got no points, no prizes. Rolling a green number adds another gold to the pot, but they can't claim it until they get 100 points. Rolling 29 on the dice, however, is a magic number. If a player rolls a 29, they get 5 gold added to the pot. But from then on, the cost of any subsequent rounds doubles.
It isn't super easy to relay this through text, so this is a good video that details the game and the scam: https://youtu.be/527F51qTcTg?t=126

The Scam

Everything up to here is 100% legit. You can absolutely run the game like this as a fair game, and while the odds are decidedly against your players, there's no cheating involved. However, they will probably only throw a few copper towards it as they will roll a bunch of black numbers and lose interest. The real trick is to get them invested.
Even if you're playing a fair game it's probably a good idea to have the 8d6 on hand to give to the player to throw. Let your players roll the dice but count them up yourself for the first few rounds. Play it up as though you're showing the player what to do. But, you want to deliberately miscount the dice to give them points or give them prizes. Generally speaking, they are going to be so overwhelmed by the rules of the game for the first round or two that they probably won't try to follow your math past the first 2-3 dice anyway. After all, why would you be miscounting to help them win?
Personally, I like to do 3 rounds for them, where they get one "point" score, one nothing, and one "prize". This establishes that you can win, and also gives them something (the bigger pot and the points) to lose if they walk away. Then, allow your players to count for themselves.
29 is where the real magic happens. after a couple of times hitting it, doubling the bid from 1 to 2 to 4 to 8... it gets expensive quickly.
A few other things that work well:

Consider getting some actual coins to represent the pot. I bought some of fantasy replica coinsfor my campaigns, but a roll of pennies or even poker chips work fine. There's something about clinking coins that really triggers that gambling instinct.
Have an NPC at the booth "win" before your players start playing. When scams are run like this, it's common to have someone who's in on the scam "winning" to attract the attention of the mark.
Confidence really helps to sell this. Practice your counting ahead of time. Little pauses awhile counting are ok, but don't pause long enough to let your players think.
You may get caught miscounting! Acknowledge the mistake, and smooth things over with a few free plays or even say you'll give their money back for the round. Let them count going forward. They'll probably lose a bunch and give up, but by that point the scammer has their money anyway.
Do not be afraid to sweeten the pot. Be generous. Add gold to the pot when your players seem to be getting discouraged. Give the players points or free rolls just because. Let a player roll sleight of hand to set one or two of the dice to whatever number they want.
While the odds are very low that the players will win, be sure not to put out anything that they absolutely should not have! Players are generally ok with getting took if they have fun doing it. But if the stars align and they manage to roll all 1s, you have to give them the prize, or they will be very upset.
Players will often egg each other on. Getting your whole party really invested will tend to snowball, and you may find you don't have to do anything but keep track of the pots and the bids and let them have fun.

It's been 6 hours and they're still playing...

Some players have a really strong need to gamble, or a really hard time walking away. If you want your players to move along, or if there's only one player wanting to play and everyone else is getting bored, you may want to shut things down.
Because it is a well-known scam the easiest way to shut things down, especially if you're running it as part of a fair or a street game, is to have an authority figure come by and shut them down for running a crooked game. Or maybe another victim comes by and starts a scene. Give your players their money back and have the scammer arrested, or start an encounter where the scammer runs and your players can give chase.
In a casino, you could plan for them to win. Deliberately miscount so they win the game, only to have the mob come by and escort them to a dark room in the back. Or, have the players catch the dealer cheating (which, if you're cheating, could happen anyway!)

Making some changes

Generally speaking I tend to add this to my games for fun and not in the actual hopes that I'll bankrupt my players. If it's a town fair, the average commoner probably can't afford to gamble more than a few coppers, so copper for gold makes a certain internal sense, and your players will probably easily soak losing 50-100 copper without flinching even at low levels. However, the game can also be played at higher stakes. Silver for gold also works, or 1 or even 10 gold for a buy in, for a much larger payout. This kind of stakes may make more sense in a gambling house.
Alternatively you could forgo a pot of money altogether and instead have a list of magic items that the player can choose from. Every time they get a "green" score or a 29 they add another item that they can win. I would be very cautious with this, as even though the odds are remote, there is a non-zero chance they might win and you don't want to accidentally overpower your party just because they beat the odds.
I also find "Razzle Dazzle" just not to be a good name. It's not descriptive, and it may cue players off to some vague memory of hearing the term. If you are proposing the "throwing balls into cups" variant, I usually simply call it "Cups" — It's simple, descriptive, and easy to remember. However, while it's a little bit meta, I sometimes also call the game "Fireball" after the number of dice you roll when casting the spell.
Generally speaking, I think it's a good idea to put the game in a context where your players are aware "the house always wins" so that they know going in that the odds are against them. Locking plot items behind the game would be a bad idea, it's generally a good plan to make the players' curiosity and greed the main driving factors to both start and keep them playing.

So why does the scam work?

The Youtube video I linked to up top gives a really good run down of some of the math behind it, but basically it relies on the bell curve. Rolling one die, you have one way to roll any number on the die, which is to roll it. Once you get two dice, not everything is equal. There is one way to get a 2 (roll a one on each die) but 6 ways to roll a seven (1 and 6, 2 and 5, 3 and 4, 4 and 3, 5 and 2, or 6 and 1.) So with any roll of the dice you're much more likely to get a seven than you are a two. Scale that up to 8 dice and it becomes that much more pronounced. You're orders of magnitude more likely to get 28, the most likely combination, than you are to roll an 8. If you unscramble the numbers on the chart and put them in order, all of the black rolls are in the centre, surrounded on either side by the greens, and then finally the are the least likely rolls.
29 is, of course, one of the more likely rolls, and by doubling the buy-in, it quickly increases how much money the player will have to pay to keep playing. Not only that, but the gambler's fallacy will tend to keep the player throwing money in in a hope to recover their spent cost.

In conclusion

My player have had a lot of fun with variations on Razzle-Dazzle, and even losing, it's fun to throw a bunch of dice on that slim hope that maybe this round will be the big winner. It's the kind of thing that can be used as a plot hook, or simply to have a little fun during downtime.

[Star Child] Chapter 38

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Despite their best efforts, the time anomaly that occurred when Christie made her confession did not go unnoticed. Master Igor had a spell to alert him when Christie left from talking with Meg and her friends. This wasn’t the end of the time anomalies either. Master Igor approached Meg about it the next day, and another time anomaly occurred while Meg was in his office, confirming that time behaves oddly around Meg. While Master Igor and the others investigating Meg tried to use those anomalies to peg her as a non-wizard, they were unable to find anything conclusive, and called off their search, since Meg’s portal was indistinguishable from that of a wizard, leaving Meg to study for finals in peace.
Because of how exams were scheduled, most of my exams were in the first half of the week, but my Intro A&A final was Friday afternoon. On the plus side, it meant I had extra time to study, and didn’t have to worry about oversleeping it. On the downside, it meant that I was studying all week, worrying about all of the potential variations Master Claude could throw at us.
“Calm down, that’s way beyond the scope of this class,” Matt said while we were studying in the library on Thursday.
“Seriously, you’re letting all the reading you’ve been doing for your apprenticeship go to your head,” Alice said.
I laughed. “Sorry about that. Probably also engineering getting to me as well.”
“Yeah, you’ve explained every variation Master Claude gave us at some point this week,” Matt said. “You’ll be fine.”
I knew they were right. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a second-year class, so it was expected for it to be easier than my senior engineering classes had been.
On Friday, Matt’s group met up at Conner’s sandwich shop for a last-minute bit of cramming before we walked over to the exam. Most students had already gone home for the break, so it was pretty quiet there despite being the lunch rush, and we were able to spread out our notes across two tables.
This time, it was my turn to tell everyone else to calm down.
“Seriously, we’ve been studying all week,” I said. “Unless it’s a little detail you want to memorize, I don’t know how much more cramming is going to help you.” I had donated my notes to the cause, but I was focusing on eating my lunch so that I wouldn’t get distracted by my stomach during the exam.
“Yeah, but I keep mixing up my scales,” Alice said. “And if the equations aren’t going to be labeled-”
I cut Alice off. “Your solutions won’t make any sense if you use the wrong scale.” Goodness knows I'd worked through enough problems the wrong way to prove that to myself.
“But what about the essays where you describe which equation to use at each scale?” Alice asked.
“Do the math first, write the essay later,” I said. “I did that all the time in my physics classes back at my mundane college.”
We arrived at the exam early so we could get our normal exam seats in the lecture hall. The lecture hall was bigger than our class needed for normal lectures, but it meant we were able to spread out for the exams. I liked to sit somewhere near my normal seat in the middle of the room for a sense of normalcy. Matt liked to sit up front, so that he couldn’t see everyone else progressing through the exam and get stressed about whether he was working fast enough. Alice liked the natural light coming in from the windows.
“Miss Schmidt, would you mind dropping by my office after the exam to discuss research plans for the break?” Master Claude asked when he walked into the room. About half the class was present. While everyone knew I was apprenticing with Master Claude, it was still a bit odd for him to discuss it in front of the class. He had been swamped in his office hours all week though, and I had been busy studying, so it made some sense that he’d ask to see me. He had mentioned something a few weeks ago when he was over for dinner on Sundays.
“Of course, sir” I said.
The exam was pretty much what I expected it to be. It took me most of the time to do it, since I wanted all of my answers to be thorough, but I got it done and checked over with a few minutes to spare. Alice had been right that I was letting all of the advanced texts I was reading go to my head.
“Do you remember when I mentioned that I was trying to arrange observational time over the break?” Master Claude asked me once he had ushered me into his office.
“It’s been a few weeks,” I said. “But I do remember you mentioning that.”
“I gave your question about measuring the Celestial force some more thought,” he said. “Surprisingly, most of the Masters in the department are traveling for the holidays, so it might actually be possible to try to engineer something in between the observations I have planned.”
That piqued my attention.
“Since you’re going to be staying on campus for the break, I thought that you might be interested in helping with the observations, I needed” Master Claude said. “They’re not specifically tied to the project you’ll eventually be doing, but having the observational time will be useful."
“It’s not like I have much else to do,” I said. I had been anticipating this, based on our previous discussions, but was waiting for the semester to be done before asking about specific details.
"Once we've measured the night's targets, you would be more than free to use the instruments to see if it gives any insight into your magic,” Master Claude said. "It will involve a few all-nighters, and there are only a few days during which each set of observations can be taken on-”
I cut him off. “It’s break, and Hank has been begging us to test his latest caffeine enhancements.”
“I just wanted to check, since I know my niece tends to use the break to get up early and work on personal projects,” Master Claude said.
“I’m of the camp that uses break to feel less guilty staying up late,” I said with a laugh. “Strange magical antics aside, I’ve never been the sort of person to pull an all-nighter.”
Master Claude walked over to his desk. “I have a schedule here somewhere,” he said, looking around the surface. Then he started digging through the papers. A minute later and he gave up. “Between reading papers, grading, and my own work, it probably got buried. If I find it, I’ll have Beth bring it by, otherwise I’ll write it out again once I’m done grading. I'll also bring by some books on the instruments you'll be using on Sunday.”
“Sounds good, sir,” I said.
“Enjoy your weekend,” Master Claude said. “Also, I started looking at your exam for the last few minutes before the block ended, and you certainly outdid yourself in how thorough your answers were.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said.
I walked back to the house feeling infinitely lighter, almost like I was floating along. The impact of my feet on the cold ground through the thin soles of my shoes kept me confident that I wasn’t actually floating, but I kept checking myself to make sure that I wasn’t doing anything else.
“Congrats on finishing your first semester!” Hank shouted as I walked in the door.
Of course everyone was already here and ready for dinner. Those that had had exams had already finished them, and then Hazel and Jack had just been hanging out and making sure the rest of us still ate and slept. Hazel had to harp on Hank in particular, since he was self-testing his magic caffeine again.
“How’d it go?” John asked when I got to the kitchen.
“Fine,” I said. “Pretty much what I expected. I took most of the time, between answering in detail and checking over my answers, but finished with a few minutes left.”
“What took so long getting home then?” John asked. “Dinner’s been waiting.”
“Master Claude wanted to check whether I was still in for helping with some observations over break,” I said. “He was going to give me the schedule, but he couldn’t find it.”
“Don’t get me started on his office back home,” Beth said. “If you think his campus office is bad, his home office is even worse.”
It didn’t take too much to imagine. The difference between his desk and the rest of his office made me think that he was keeping it clean for when he needed to speak to more important people. Without that pressure, I could imagine the books and papers strewn everywhere, chalkboards with diagrams and equations at all angles.
Dinner was one of the best I had had in weeks. It was just a basic chicken and pasta bake, but with exams done, my stomach was ready to enjoy anything I fed it. Despite the cold, we made some smores in the backyard and just spent time laughing.
When I woke up the next morning, I was the most relaxed I had been in months. Four glorious weeks without classes. Even with the observation periods later in the break, I would have plenty of time to just do nothing.
Doing Nothing was a lot harder with the limited technology we could use around campus. I meandered downstairs to find the brothers hunched over the table.
“What are you guys doing?” I asked.
“Shhhh…” Sam said from the kitchen.
I left them and walked over to the kitchen to get some breakfast..
“So what are they doing?” I whispered to Sam.
“They’re playing Wizard’s Wager,” Sam said.
I looked up from my bowl of cereal and stared at him blankly.
“Right, sorry,” Sam said. “It’s a derivative of mundane poker. Obviously with magic.”
“But why are they hunched over the table?” I asked.
“That’s the puzzle part,” Sam said.
I gave Sam a confused look while I chewed my way through my bite of cereal.
“Wizards two hundred years ago liked to combine games that maybe shouldn’t have been,” Sam said. “I don’t know why they chose poker, puzzles, and magic, but they did.” Sam looked at me, and then back at the brothers. “That didn’t help, did it?”
I shook my head.
An idea dawned on Sam’s face. “You don’t have observations for the next few days, right?”
I hastily swallowed the food in my mouth. “Nope,” I said. “Later in the week, but Master Claude is going to have Beth bring me a copy of the schedule once he finds it.”
“We really should have done more of this in the summer,” Sam said. “We all grew up playing these games, be we only really play them over break, since summer is taken up by apprentice work. But even though you’ve got the orphan story covering you for the most part, it’d be good to get familiar with some of the pastimes wizards grow up on.”
“You mean like terrorizing your dog in the backyard with nerf guns?” I asked.
“Fair point,” Sam said. “Grew up on in generations past then. And the games are still part of wizard families, especially at the holidays.”
A knock sounded from the door.
“I’d better get that,” Sam said. “I’ve never seen John break concentration for anything when he’s playing Wizard’s Wager.”
Beth came and joined us in the kitchen. “You know you can just come in,” I said as she joined us in watching the still scene playing out on the table.
“It still feels weird,” she said.
“You’ve been over here daily for how many months?” I asked. “You practically live here.”
“In Beth’s defense, I forgot to unlock the door this morning,” Sam said.
“So did you have any plans for relaxing?” Beth asked.
“Well, Sam got the idea to introduce me to some games,” I said.
“Oh! We’ll have to have a game night once Uncle Claude is done grading exams!” Beth said. “He won’t be coming for dinner on Sunday, unless he finishes grading exceptionally quickly, but sometime after grades have been submitted, when you’re not working on those observations.”
“We’ll probably be playing some games once the families are here,” Sam said. “So that would be a great warm-up so Meg knows the basics.”
“Wait, are your parents coming too?” I asked Sam.
“Nah, they’ll be busy at home for the break,” he said. “I think one of my uncles was going to try to visit though. And he’s terrible with names, so even if he tells my parents about you, he’ll get your name wrong, and probably whatever backstory we tell him.”
“That’s good,” I said through a mouthful of cereal. I wasn’t as worried about the other families, since they didn’t know me, but Sam’s parents would know me immediately from all the school projects we had done together when we were younger.
“John’s probably going to be a while though,” Sam said. “You know him and Wizard’s Wager.”
Beth rolled her eyes. “Honestly, I’m not surprised,” she said. “It took him half of last spring to get over losing to his cousin last New Year’s. They’re all probably going to want to test new strategies before their parents arrive. But Meg, you really shouldn’t start with Wizard’s Wager. Actually, Portal Racer might be more up your alley. It’s a bit newer, since it only really developed when collectible toy cars became popular.”
“I do like to play with portals,” I said.
“Someone’s gotta show Sam up at that,” Beth said.
“Hey!” Sam said. “Don’t blame me for being good with portals.”
“So how does it work?” I asked.
“It honestly sounds stupid when I try to explain it,” Beth said.
“You know those race car tracks?” Sam asked. “The ones with the big ramps, and a loop-the-loop. Now imagine using portals to extend that down ramp, and a six foot loop.”
Instead of imagining it, I made a projection.
“Exactly!" Sam said. "Part of the game relies on having a good set of racecars, like the mundane versions would. But it also depends on your skill with portals. Between the guys and me, there’s a pretty good collection at our homes, and I could always make a quick trip back to get them. I’d be really interested to see what sort of max speed you could get.”
I thought about how the portals would work. You’d want to keep the car oriented the right way, but otherwise, all it would take would be either a really long passage, or a set of portals and a nice fall in between.
“I’m definitely interested in trying that,” I said.
“Okay, that’s one game down,” Beth said. “But that isn’t a whole games night, so I’ll have to think of a few more things.”
“Awesome,” Sam said. “We’ll have to bug the guys later, or see if Hazel’s got any ideas.”
“Have you seen Hazel?” I asked. “She wasn’t in our room when I woke up, and we were going to experiment with some hairstyles from an old history textbook.”
“I think she went for a run?” Sam said. “But don’t quote me on it.”
“Wait, have you been to the boutiques around campus?” Beth asked.
I was kinda surprised that Beth asked. I wasn’t one for boutique shopping, and clothes had mysteriously been appearing in the closet as the seasons changed. I just assumed that it was some wardrobe that was part of the house, like the rest of the random stuff from the attic. The clothes had all fit, and been the plain, comfortable style that I favored.
“No,” I said with a dose of skepticism.
“Since you can’t go home, we’ll have to get you some holiday clothes,” Beth said.
“Good point,” Sam said.
“What am I missing out on here?” I asked.
“Holidays at Bard require more formal attire,” Sam said.
“Yeah,” Beth said. “Jeans and a cardigan won’t cut it for gatherings. Especially around John’s family.”
I was not liking where this was going. “Couldn’t someone just go to my house and get some of my stuff from there?” I asked.
“Nope,” Sam said. “Mundane dress clothes don’t fit the bill either.”
“You’re telling me there’s wizard dress attire,” I said.
“Precisely,” Beth said. “We’ll wait for Hazel to get back, and then you’ll both need some more formal attire.”
“Well, Hazel could get away with whatever’s considered formal for elves,” Sam said.
“Formal? Elves?” Hazel asked. I jumped a bit, since I hadn’t heard her get back from wherever she had been. “That’s literally all my grandparents wear. I have something in my wardrobe, but it was a present from my great-grandmother, and it looks the part.”
We all laughed. Mythic or mundane, we all had a relative who simply didn’t understand our taste in clothes, and would buy something they liked but that we would never wear.
“I still don’t have any wizard money though,” I said.
“You will by the end of break,” Beth said. “Uncle Claude couldn’t find his schedule for the days he wants to take observations, but he did say that there was some extra funding for that project, and that he'd pay you for your assistance with the observations, since they're technically outside of your apprenticeship. And besides, like the restaurants, most of the other shops around here will take any currency, magical or mundane.”
I had no more ways to protest. We waited for Hazel to clean up from her run, and then Beth led us from one shop to the next, trying on clothes and accessories. We stopped for lunch at one of the nicer restaurants we had been meaning to try, but hadn’t because of how many of us there usually were when the guys were along.
“They’d better be done with their game by now,” Beth said as we walked up the stairs to the house.
“How long does a game go on for?” I asked.
“Depends on who’s playing,” Beth said. “Longest John’s been in was eight hours I think? Usually families will try to keep it shorter though.”
“Okay then,” I said. “Portal Racers is sounding more and more appealing.”
“But you can’t spend all evening on that,” Beth said. “I think Uncle Claude and I have some board games that I can bring over. Ooooh. Do you think you could do colored illusions?”
“I can try,” I said.
“We’ve got one game that’s better with an illusionist,” Beth said. “You can play with the cards and chips, but I’ve heard it’s better if you can become the leader of the ancient civilization, since it’s easier to get into character that way.”
I had no clue what sort of game Beth was talking about, but I let her continue listing off different games that we could try playing over the break.
“You went to Bella’s without us?” Hank asked after we described our shopping adventure.
“There’s usually too many of us to go there most of the time, and we were next door anyways, so we figured we’d try it out,” I said. “The food was good, but it’s definitely too small for us all to go, except maybe later again in the break before students get back.”
“Yeah, they didn’t have tables for parties larger than four,” Hazel said.
“That is a bit of a problem,” Hank said. “So what’s this I hear about a games night?”
“Meg’s going to challenge Sam at Portal Racers,” Beth said. “And we’re going to introduce her to other games so that she’s not completely lost when your family visits. Didn’t Sam fill you in?”
“About time he had some real competition,” Hank said. “I’m pretty sure he sends his cars through some time loops to speed them up.”
I already had some ideas to do him one better, taking advantage of both physics and magic.
Without the structure provided by responsibilities, dinner turned into dessert turned into talking around the table into the night. If anything, it felt like we had even more time than we should have, but for the first time in weeks I wasn't worried about accidentally altering the flow of time.
Hazel dragged me out of bed on Sunday morning to go for a run.
"Do I have to?" I asked.
"Unless you want to watch the guys hunch over a table all morning," she said. For whatever reason, we had instituted a no work rule for the weekends, so reading the books Master Claude had loaned me was off the table.
"I could go back to sleep," I said. Not that I actually would go back to sleep. But it was an excuse.
Hazel knew I wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep and called my bluff, forcing me to get out of bed and get ready to go for a run with her.
The cold morning air wasn't as painful as I had been expecting. The run itself was bearable at best, but my nose didn’t sting with every breath, so I was counting it as a win.
“Wow it’s been a long time since I went for a run,” I panted when we finished our set of loops around campus. I had done a lot of walking the last four and a half years, all around the campus of my mundane college, and then all around Bard this past semester. But my legs were still complaining about the exertion.
Hazel, on the other hand, looked like she had just gone for a morning stroll. “The discipline is good,” she said. "Not just for running, but for magic. Wizards use alcohol to push their limits, but it's also important to know what those limits are."
"Can't have my portal be too efficient," I joked.
"It's not just about that," Hazel said. "You know as well as I do that you're a lot more powerful than portals and party tricks."
"I know," I said. "But what do I do that's risky? If anything, I use it to stay away from the action."
"Well, there's gravity," Hazel said. "And then probably time. And who knows, whatever you do to see other places might have its limits."
"Fair point," I said.
"So we'll keep at the running over break," Hazel said.
I groaned, but accepted the wisdom to her plan.
The rest of the day was spent up in the attic. Once the guys remembered that it was a disaster zone, they had put it on our group to-do list to organize it a bit, but everything that had gone on during the fall had killed that plan. There was generations’ worth of stuff hiding up there, ranging from textbooks and supplies to clothes and furniture. Sam’s extended family, which the brothers were part of, took turns using the house as their respective children came of age, and no generation of occupants seemed particularly concerned about bringing their stuff along with them after college.
“Hey, what’s this old diary?” Beth asked. She started flipping through it.
“Meg, you’ve got to come see this,” she said after a few pages.
The handwriting was startlingly familiar. I hadn’t thought about it in months, since other things had taken priority, but there was no mistaking the script.
“That’s got to be older than anything else in here,” I said. “Sam, you never said Master Giovanni was a distant ancestor.”
“What?” Sam asked. He came over to look at the diary.
“That doesn’t make sense though,” John said. “Wasn’t he in Europe somewhere? And if the dates in his other diary were right, he’s older than Bard College.”
“Maybe someone else put it here?” Hazel said. Everyone was putting down the things they had been looking at to come look at the diary.
I kept flipping through the pages. “This isn’t from his time as a student,” I said, skimming some of the entries. “He hid it here late in his life.”
“Wait, go back!” Beth said. “There was a symbol.”
I flipped back through the pages, slowly so Beth could scan them for whatever she had seen. Four pages earlier, she told me to stop.
“That’s an ancient symbol for l’Ordre,” she said.
Unfortunately, while the script was familiar, the language varied, and the page we were on wasn't in English. The last journal had reacted to my aura, so I called a little bit to my hand to see if this one was similarly enchanted. It didn’t react.
“Looks like we have to translate this the old-fashioned way,” I said.
“With the library empty and no major field trip this break, I don’t have much else to do,” Beth said. “John and I could probably work on that while you’re doing the observations with Uncle Claude.”
I looked at John. He seemed surprised at being roped into the project, but wasn’t complaining.
“Speaking of which, has he found the schedule yet?” I asked.
“Oh! Yes!” Beth said. “Sorry, I forgot about that when I came over. It’s in my bag downstairs.”
It was getting late anyways, so we called it a night for the attic organization party, and went back downstairs for dessert.
Beth handed me the piece of paper with Master Claude’s scribbled notes about which nights he wanted to take observations.
“Looks like I’ll be keeping busy,” I said. He was ambitiously hoping to start observations as soon as grades were submitted on Tuesday.
Next Chapter

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