Ada heating and air jackson tn

I need a good gas cooling method, ideally something using minimal power. With the new thermodynamics stuff I'm not sure how best to go about it. In theory convection could be useful, but it seems slow in the thin atmosphere. Air conditioners cost a lot of power. If I thicken the atmosphere I lose the unlimited atmosphere heat sink.
How do people do it now? I'd love to hear and see some of your setups.

Hi Reddit!
I have no one in my life. The last person that loved me died..
So I'm using you to say goodbye, as no one else would notice or care except my cats.
I don't even expect you to care… but I want someone to know I'm gone, even to pretend to myself that a passing stranger acknowledged I was worth reading.
​
The beginning: My mother was born physically damaged and had a hard life. When she and her husband, my sperm donor, decided to have a marriage saving baby (me) you can imagine how that turned out.
My father left us the morning of my 15th birthday, sending me a text message to tell us he was already moved into his girlfriend's place. And she was pregnant.
I have a few half siblings I don’t know, as I have never been invited to be a part of his “better” family.
​
As my mother was physically unable to work, I dropped out of school to work full time and care for her.
I finished school off campus but was short a few credits. My main courses were done, but I couldn’t get enough time off work to get extracurriculars to graduate. This really hurt my working career.
We made it work, and found happiness in poverty. We were best friends and had each other’s back no matter what.
​
Then one morning this year mum couldn’t breathe. Doctors lied and gave empty promises.
She needed so much care, I lost my job from (obviously) not showing up enough. We lived off my tiny savings, with the promise from doctors she would get better.
She died 29 days after they first lied to us.
​
Her lungs shut down. She couldn’t breathe. She was so scared and couldn’t even get enough air to cry. I only saw one tear go down her cheek when she whispered to me how much she loved me.
I spent every second with her, comforting her, changing her diapers (she was too weak to stand), trying to feed her, and holding her as she gasped for air.29 days after being told she would be perfectly fine, at 3:35-36am, as I was washing her face, she looked at me, smiled, and she was gone.
​
I begged, borrowed, lied, and would have stolen, just to afford cremation or they wouldn’t let me have her back. They were going to keep her! I…I just don’t understand that.
​
With all of that I forgot to feed myself, lost 40lbs in 2 months and collapsed (I‘m 5’1” and 89 pounds) I have no energy to stand, I can’t sleep from the stomach pain, and my thoughts are so slow lately (I’m guessing it’s lack of food?).
I’m very skeletal (although my belly is all distended…I don’t really know what that’s about…I’ll post pictures if anyone can answer why the fuck I have a beach ball belly and my breast bones are poking out). Edit: I can't seem to post a picture. But I am curious as to why, if anyone can answer before tomorrow night. I can post on tinypic and link instead. Or I'm just stupid and one of you can help me post them here...probably just me being stupid.
​
As I can’t afford food for myself, only my cats, I’ve been living on a big bag of rice I got at the food bank, I’ve allowed one small bowl a day.
But now my cats are running out of food, and I have nothing. No money. No way to feed them after tomorrow.
​
Now I have to pay her 3 different ambulance rides, a transfer to the “big” hospital who had a larger oxygen machine (the local dingy hospital couldn’t keep her breathing), her Estate lawyer, someone said I need to pay taxes for her this April, and I’m about to lose my apartment.
​
Tomorrow I run out of cat food.
Tomorrow my water gets shut off from 4 months lack of payment.
Tomorrow my heat gets shut off from 4 months lack of payment.
April 1st I lose internet and cell, which has been the only way I have been able to send out job applications.
​
$4000 would be enough to pay off the bills at least and feed my cats, buying us another stretch of desperate need.
But unless I can get a job, I have no hope of paying the medical bills or lawyer ($25,000).
I’ve listed everything I have of value to sell, everything, and not heard a thing back for any of it.
I guess I do have a price for my life, and I am only worth $29,201 of debt. A worthless life in the end.
​
I’m tired.
I’m so sad.
I have worked, and stressed, and sacrificed my own life to keep my mum healthy and alive.
I’m all alone in the world.
​
If I can’t figure out how to feed my cats by tomorrow, I will be killing them, and then myself.
There just isn’t any other way left for me.
I have a way to put them down as gently as possible (the vet would be $1000, if I could afford that, I could feed them! FFS), and I have planned out mine to succeed regardless of anything. It will be undeniably final. I can’t risk waking up in the hospital, only to find I now owe MORE for my own stay, and have to live in a world without my cats.
​
I don’t want to die. I just can’t afford to live.
Thank you for reading this.
Please remember my cats, and know they didn’t deserve this, and I didn’t want to go.

I recently came across this post and it blew my mind that the scene of the burning tree at night is set on Christmas eve. It occurred to me that this scene is very similar to Robert Southwell's well known poem 'Burning Babe'. We know that McCarthy is very well read in old English poetry. He quotes Shakespeare almost word for word at least once in most of his works. There's Milton in the gunpowder scene and James Shirley in BM p240 'The judge smiled and touched the withered garland at his brow' although this is a bit of a stretch. The more I read this the more I'm beginning to think it has to be an intentional reference by McCarthy. Here's the poem.

AS I in hoary winter’s night
Stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat
Which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye
To view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright
Did in the air appear;
Who, scorchèd with excessive heat,
Such floods of tears did shed,
As though His floods should quench His flames,
Which with His tears were bred:
‘Alas!’ quoth He, ‘but newly born
In fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts
Or feel my fire but I!
‘My faultless breast the furnace is;
The fuel, wounding thorns;
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke;
The ashes, shames and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on,
And Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought
Are men’s defilèd souls:
For which, as now on fire I am
To work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath,
To wash them in my blood.’
With this He vanish’d out of sight
And swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I callèd unto mind
That it was Christmas Day.

The poem is a kind of cursed vision of Christmas where despite Christ being newly born he already suffers for man's soul and burns them up in his fire and declares that he will wash away the sins with his blood. An image of repentance through blood.
This is almost identical to what happens in the novel except there is no babe its just a tree. The kid stumbles upon a burning tree in the cold night. Here, unlike the poem, someone finds the fire and warms himself and kneels and reaches his hands out in a manner of repentance. This is especially poignant keeping in mind it is well past the main movement of the novel where the gang has butchered raped and scalped anyone in their path, innocent and guilty all the same, and are now being hunted by General Elias. Despite the kid's moral greyness in the novel, he's surely committed crimes with the gang and now kneels by the fire, which in accordance with the poem is a symbolic image of Christ that weeps and burns for men's sins and intends to shrink away in order to cleanse their souls in his blood.
Given McCarthy's interest with Christmas (SM spoilerAlicia dies on Christmas), the holiness of blood, and general themes regarding catholicism, this seems too good to be coincidence. The tree scene obviously has parallels to the burning bush in Exodus but I think it's very likely McCarthy had this in mind too. I'm curious to know if anyone has other interpretations of this.
​
***Robert Southwell was an English catholic priest and after residing in Rome he returned to England as a missionary but was arrested on false charges. He was held captive and tortured for several years before his persecution by Edward Coke. The same Coke that judge Holden name drops when he swindles a lieutenant into thinking that the gang was not responsible for Mr Owen's death in chapter 16 p252 ("He quoted Coke and Blackstone, Anaximander, Thales"). Robert Southwell was sentenced to death and died a martyr in a time when Catholicism in England was waning and being rooted out. Its interesting that McCarthy, a raised Roman Catholic, invokes his poetry at this point of the novel.

My company is focused on HVAC upgrades for existing homes. So furnace and AC changeouts, ducted heat pumps, and ductless mini splits are the bread and butter. Actually focusing a lot on the heat pump side of the business recently. Right now, my rough process is:
-Home visit. Look at existing ductwork (if present), existing indoor and outdoor units. Understand from customer any comfort issues
-Manual J sizing calculations plus rules of thumb to figure what size system to spec
-Check in with dealers to figure current pricing on the big bits (furnace, air handlers, outdoor compressor unit, etc)
-Figure how much raw material (copper for line sets, wiring, insulation, any ductwork if needed) needed based on size of house and site visit. Price based on estimated feet used.
-Tack on estimates for smaller bits like thermostats
-Estimate labor based on my experience. I have a ballpark number of hours it'll take the installers to do a zone for a standard install. Add/subtract labor based on how easy or hard the job is.
This is a lot of work and obviously we don't win every job so sometimes that work is just wasted. Anyone have tricks to doing it faster? I was looking at https://craftsman-book.com/national-estimator-cloud-product and was wondering if something like that might help speed up the process or make it more accurate.

Memories of Matriarch Sundisk, 3rd Chief of Sapwater Village, Recovered Post-Mortem
With my back-mounted mechanical arm, I grabbed some of the orange berries from my shoulder bag. My trunk then instinctively handled them into my mouth whilst I stared at the screen. The expenses for Sapwater Village defiantly stared back at me. As the village’s matriarch, it was up to me to handle all this expenditure. The village’s reserves could only stretch so far, even with the generous funding of our benefactors. Maybe if we limited the fuel consumption of the herd, and set limits on-
Suddenly, I was on edge. A low rumbling of distress came from the watchtower west of the village, and my tail stood on end- the low noises communicated something was approaching our village. My species’ ability to communicate over long distances came in handy in situations like this, but what could possibly be such an important threat out here? We were on a rather out of the way planet. Sure enough, a comm from the Northwest watchtower popped up on my device, and I opened the channel. Syrupeyes, the watch guard, appeared on my screen.
Before I could say anything, she cut me off. “A human is coming.”
“What?” I trumpeted. My mind raced. Why were the uplifters here? We were a small colony on the outskirts of treaty-space. What had we done which was important enough for direct contact? To my knowledge, we hadn’t breached any treaties, let alone a major one! The humans even gave their blessing to this colony! If our funding got cut, we likely wouldn’t survive the dry season! Maybe it was just a civilian… I held on to that hope.
“Did you see any insignia on them? Are they an ambassador?” I asked.
“They were in a blank exosuit. Seemed to be Library-of-Gaia-make. What should I tell the people to do?” replied Syrupeyes.
This did put my mind somewhat at ease, Gaians would probably only be interested in documenting the wildlife of the planet. Still, it would probably be best if the human put in a good word with the library, so we should at least have a welcoming ceremony.
“Well, a welcoming ceremony is likely in order. I’ll make an announcement shortly, just let them know to prepare,” I replied.
With a simple affirmative, Syrupeyes shortly ended the comm. Promptly, a rumble let everyone know to prepare for festivities. I chuckled softly to myself as I heard squeaks and trumpets of excitement from the nursery. No time to waste then, people were probably confused. I opened the announcement system and started explaining the situation to people, and giving instructions. Bustling noises made it through the door as activity in the village picked up. Time to prepare.
I walked through the curtains into a small dark room lit by luminescent strips around the central mirror. I started falling into the routine of applying the ceremonial face paint, grounding myself in the familiar textures and colours of the powders. Face paint finished, I then chewed on some of the aromatic herbs available. Finally, I replaced my current shoulder-pack with a more elegant one for special occasions. With that, I was ready to head out.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Log (error, indexing corrupted) of Pino Jacinta, Unaffiliated
The clanking of my exosuit was what kept me awake, despite my body screaming at me to rest after walking for what felt like days. Yet a feeling of inertia kept me going, unable to make the effort to stop. At that point, I was certain the only reason I could still stand was thanks to the hydraulics system of the suit. I was in a constant state of near-collapse.
I had put on the suit in a haze after I had fallen out of my cryo chamber. When the suit had turned on, it immediately started processing notifications about translator updates and unsent messages which my mind did not let me focus on. Maybe due to the cryosleep, my memories were hazy and I did not remember how I ended up here from Shi Maria station. I don’t know why but I started walking, but not knowing what else to do, I continued on, held up by the hydraulics of the suit. In the periphery of my vision, the notifications still sat there, easy to ignore.
It was then that a notification popped up, more prominent than the rest - no, too loud to be a notification, an alarm? My mind was feeling even more hazy. I had to force myself to read it, word after word. I had to repeat the word “low” thrice, the word “oxygen” seven times and the word “warning” four times before my brain processed them into a coherent sentence.
Low oxygen warning. Huh.
I then noticed it was getting harder to breath, to the point where I was hyperventilating. Then, the world was spinning. Despite my suit’s best efforts, I stumbled. That was when the panic began to set in. I was going to choke. Not knowing who I was. Not knowing where I was. This is where my life would start flashing before my eyes, if I remembered any of it. There were plants outside. Despite the hours I spent walking, it only just set in. Plants meant atmosphere, oxygen. Grasping at my helmet, I looked for a way, any way to pull it off. It was firmly stuck on. I was struggling to breathe now. Half-remembered, a memory flashed in my mind. A warm presence, a hand around my wrist guiding it up to the base of the helmet. I gripped a latch, and pulled. The faceplate slid up. Air.
I breathed deeply. The air was rather hot and dry, but to my oxygen-deprived lungs felt incredibly refreshing. It carried the scent of dried grass and hard-packed earth. My eyes began to focus, and the lilac grasses and distant trees once again came into view, in bright light. Sounds of alien birds and insects carried across the plains, unfamiliar sounds. With what little strength I could gather, I rolled myself onto my back, and saw a soft blue sky, and clouds weren’t blocking the intensity of the bright white star of this planet. Only a few thin wisps of cloud could be seen at all, and the sky was otherwise featureless except for the birds circling overhead. A cool breeze was blowing against my skin, softening the harsh heat.
Whilst I rested, out of some ingrained instinct, I started mentally scanning my body. My feet felt numb, but otherwise seemed fine. Other than my feet, my legs ached the most, and I felt fibres of stiffness in them. My waist hurts slightly, some kind of a stitch in my lower abdomen. Resting soothed the pain, I could barely feel it now. I could still feel a burning sensation in my lungs, from earlier, and my heart was fluttering still. Deep breaths. Shoulders and arms were surprisingly alright, although with the same strands of stiffness, and my hands felt slightly clammy but otherwise good. Since I had gotten out of cryo my neck still ached, a strange kind of itchy ache. Best I could do at the moment was to squirm in my suit to soothe the itchiness. My face was fine, but my eyes hurt a bit. There was no reason to have done that self-scan, I couldn’t exactly treat any of those, but my mind had been acting weird since I had woken up, so I didn’t question it. Now that I had taken some time to rest, I forced myself up, pushing against my exhaustion with a bit of help from the suit.
I then took time to orient myself, and looked around. To one side, the land got more flat, and rather unremarkable as even the sparse trees faded out in the distance. Other than that, the land was mostly similar to where I was now, except for one more hilly region where trees seemed slightly concentrated around. Looking closer, I saw silhouettes on that hill, strange bumps and squares-
Was that a village?
Once again, the repetitive clanking of my suit was keeping me awake.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Memories of Matriarch Sundisk, 3rd Chief of Sapwater Village, Recovered Post-Mortem
I had ordered the villagers to collect up a basket of fruit, as part of the ceremony. One of the elder Yaan had provided a flower garland, to place upon our guest. We had also set up the sunset lamps, traditional for all festivities. For as much as this young colony had traditions. We also set up air-cons near the entrance, as wasteful as air-cons in the open were. It was proper to be lavish for a welcoming ceremony. The reception crew consisted of myself, some guards, and the village priest. (It was determined that role was necessary for colony morale. As long as they didn’t interfere with my work, I went along with it.) We were still preparing, and I heard some murmuring about the ceremony, so I felt the need to intervene.
“Remember, the Gaians have been partial to our colony so far. They’ve been pressuring various human governments to maintain our funding. We need to maintain amicable terms with them for the sake of this colony! This ceremony is clearly in order! It is not worth it to risk a grievance, even if it does turn out to be a civilian,” I reminded them. Communication, as always, was important.
As I watched, I noticed the human was not using a vehicle at all, just walking. Would it be polite to offer a ride, or would that be viewed as an insult? I wasn’t entirely sure about human customs. After some consideration, I decided on a compromise: I would walk down the hill to meet them. It couldn’t be considered an insult as I was only walking with them, not making them take a transport, but still provided some level of courtesy to a guest, if nothing else at least signifying good will. I walked down to meet the human, and noticed their odd walk. Likely thanks to the help of the Gaian exosuit, the human’s legs moved perfectly, even mechanically, but the torso was slightly swaying as if it was unsteady. Maybe that was just how bipeds walked? I ran with that theory, right up until I reached the human.
When we met, the human promptly collapsed.
I panicked. This was not how the ceremony was supposed to go. Immediately, I tried to pull the human up by my trunk, and the rest of the ceremony crew rushed down to help me. Unsurprisingly, the human wasn’t that heavy. Still, we did need to pull them uphill, so with considerable effort we carried the unconscious human. I was slightly relieved that this likely meant they were not sent by the Library, unless something had gone seriously wrong in their mission.
We carried the human into one of our guesthouses, and I had called for the village’s medic. The human’s faceplate was off, but the helmet was still on. They had brownish-beige skin and dark brown hair with streaks of green. I couldn’t narrow down an origin from that though - that was a common skin colour amongst humans as far as i knew, and humans often changed hair colour. I had the guards prepare a bed - the regular beds were overly large for the human, but we managed to find a smaller one made for children. We’d probably need to remove the suit to provide medical attention, so I decided to work on that.
Removing the helmet was the easy part, there were a few buckles along the collarbones, along with some airtight seals. Once I pulled the helmet off, I tried looking for a way to remove the rest of the suit, searching the interlocking plates and fabric of the exosuit until I found some more latches. After pulling on three, along the back, the suit opened at last. I was shocked at how cute the human was - I always imagined them as regal and somewhat intimidating. They wore an old fashioned starship uniform, with “CSS Carmina” embroidered on it. Looking past that, I layed the human on the bed and let the doctor, Dawn, tend to them.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Log (error, indexing corrupted) of Pino Jacinta, Unaffiliated
I woke up under the blaring sun. In a building, without my suit. The building was simple, made out of clay, but had intricate patterned windows carved out of it, which conveniently let the bright sunlight fall right on my face. I felt some kind of air mattress below me, although I could tell there was no bedframe with low to the floor I was. What little furniture was present in this room towered over me. Luckily, whoever my hosts were were courteous enough to provide an air-con unit, which cooled down my skin despite the sunlight on me. My throat felt dry and cracked. Pushing myself away from the sunlight, I saw a bowl of water on the floor next to me, which I tried my best to drink from despite the very awkward shape. Looking up from the bowl, I noticed an elephant sitting across from me. It had a mechanical arm mounted on its back. It trumpeted at me, and the translator picked it up.
“You were talking in your sleep.”
Huh. Elephant was sapient. Good to know.
Slightly unsure as to how to proceed, I asked; “where am I?”
“You are in Sapwater Village. You fell unconscious so we provided medical attention. You were severely dehydrated and fatigued,” came the reply.
“No I mean.. What planet? I thought I was on Shi Maria”
The translator read the elephant’s expression as confusion.
“... Shi Maria was destroyed 50 years ago. You’re on a planet called Aisha.”

This is a long story, so I am going to keep it as short as possible. Feel free to ask any questions and I'll do my best to answer in the comments or edit my post if I was not clear enough. Please keep in mind, I am really stressed over this and I'm typing this on a phone, so please excuse any mistakes or awkward tone of voice.
To preface, I've been paying rent, and have been a pretty quiet and easy tenant for the past 10 years. My landlord is elderly at this point, but other than the past 2 years, she has been a decent landlord. However, the past 2 years have been hell. I live in a small-ish building with only four units. One unit is downstairs and is occupied. My unit is upstairs, occupied by me (obviously) while the other two units next door to me have remained unoccupied since ~covid times (to be honest, it's been empty a bit before). Neither have been maintained. On a "minor" level, there are technical issues like water damage and collections of roaches in the bathtubs (yes, I have photos of this) that have crawled their way to my unit. More importantly, for the past two years, squatters have decided to live in those units and damage them, damage our parking lot/car port, steal from the car port, break in to my car, have used and broken the laundry machines, have cracked the electrical box and stolen electricity (supposedly - I called Edison who put a new lock on the box, but my landlord and her husband came some months later and sawed it off. I literally informed her as they were doing it that it's illegal and she needs to now have Edison come back out, but she refuses), damaged our hot water heater and the water pipes (I assume to have wateshowers in the in units?), etc. I have filed police reports, I have informed my landlord and have gotten videos of people trespassing and breaking in. She has refused to make police reports claiming "the police already know" etc. She has always been the conspiracy theory type, and I've always brushed it off, but at this point, it's more like she's purposefully ignoring it. Additionally, she has told me verbatim NOT to call the police (which, yes, I informed her was also illegal). Also, there are just an abundance of issues with the unit itself. The air and heat don't work, the dishwasher is broken, the window screens are falling apart, the small pool we have has molded and is growing algae, etc. None of this has been caused by me. The air and heat unit is over 20-30yrs old from what I know and 15-20years for the dishwasher (both were here before I rented from her). To give some credit, she did make an attempt to fix the heat two winters ago because I got extremely ill from the cold, but it didn't work and the handyman she had come out basically said it's just old. Other than the air and heat, I've considered this minor because I have feared for my safety while living there these past two years.
Anyways, I'm now moving out. Well, attempting to move out. I have found a new place and am currently typing this there, but I am still paying rent to this landlord because, at one point when I spoke to her around one year ago regarding all these issues, she essentially threatened me. She indicated I would be forced to pay for ALL the damages caused by both squatters and general wear-and-tear of the complex, INCLUDING the pool??? I've called bullshit on this (excuse my french) as I do know my rights (and things like the pool aren't even in the original lease), but I cannot get this conversation out of my head. At that time, I wasn't planning on moving. I was simply informing her of the issues inside the unit and that they needed fixing. Her response told me that when I move out, she will not give me back my deposit and will charge me for her negligence. I'm not sure if she really means this, as she is old, scared of the police, scared of court, etc. but at this point, I need to expect anything. I obviously don't want to go to court or deal with any nonsense, but I will if I have to. And frankly, I know she will lie to the courts, if it does go that far. So, I'm still paying rent there for the time being, and I've been making requests for her to repair what she is legally required to (such as the dishwasher) so when I leave, that's not an issue. She can't bill me for something she's already repaired while under lease when I was a tenant, right? And once these things are repaired, I'd like to move with leaving the unit forever. I don't know if this is the right solution, and I'm still paying rent, but it seems the most logical and easy to me.
However, she's completely ignoring my calls now. Calls, texts, letters, etc. She refuses to respond. She still cashes my rent checks, of course, but she is completely ignoring me. The last message I have from her is honestly rather creepy. She directly asks where my new address is, but I have not informed her of my intention to leave, the fact I have a new place, nor did I tell my one (1) neighbor. NOBODY knows, yet somehow, she does? Anyways, I don't think there's anything I can do about her possibly watching me as I have no proof, so I'm forgetting it for now. But, I need her to respond to me. Even if I were to send in a letter that I'm moving out, I feel like she would ignore that too!
I've called LA housing and am waiting for a call back, but in the meantime, any advice? or just, any similar stories of crazy landlords that in the end, the tenants were able to overcome and succeed? I'm so frustrated. I would feel better if she actually responded to me, but I have nothing to go off of anymore.

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Journal of Camille Lambert - April 14th (Part 4)
​
The screams of monsters who unfortunately were no longer beyond my comprehension echoed through the eternal night. I looked up to see one of the nearby warped buildings buckling, as the familiar shape of the Crab Nightwalker hefted its weight on top of it.
​
It looked considerably different from when I’d last seen it in Puriysk. It's now ill-fitting shell was adorned by glowing flowers, with red vines clinging to it like a sickness and hanging off of it like tendrils. In those tendrils, I could see screaming men, being pulled toward its maw. Pulsating flesh oozed out of the Crab's armor, as if it had overstuffed itself to the point where that armor could no longer contain it.
​
I watched as the Crab began to pry into the building it stood on, and as its tendrils probed through the windows, dragging out screaming men who shot hopelessly at it as if they stood any chance of killing it.
​
In the distance, I could see the beginnings of an orange glow as somewhere in Parsons a fire spread… not started by Nina this time. Progress? Looking down toward the street, past the out of place hardware store that Calhoun had escaped into, I could see various Nightwalkers fleeing for their lives, as their former brethren, newly marked by the Rosen Prince pursued them.
​
It was like something out of a nightmare… impossible horror after impossible horror, melded together and left to tear at each other's throats. The hellish monsters I’d known all my life versus the oppressive militia who I’d long since learned to fear, while a floral parasite ran rampant through the streets, consuming them all. The fact that the backdrop to this madness was now the twisted result of intersecting one town on top of another seemed trivial compared to the insanity that dominated the streets.
​
I turned, about to descend the stairs of the clock tower to throw myself back into the chaos when from the corner of my eye, I noticed Dom scrambling up the makeshift stairwell that Calhoun had formed out of the collapsed roof of the church. He had Gretchen slung over his shoulder, and Nina was coming up behind him. She hastily swapped out the magazine in her shotgun for a new one, before looking down frantically.
​
I ran to the far side of the tower to help Dom and Gretchen up through the broken clock face. She went first, followed by him.
“What’s going on down there?” I asked.
“Good news, the Bat thing is dead. Bad news, the Rosen Prince got it.” Dom said, reaching back to pull Nina up behind him.
​
Almost on cue, I heard yet another demonic screech from the hole in the church roof behind us and I saw another familiar face clawing its way up Calhoun’s makeshift stairwell.
​
For the most part, it looked like the same Horned Nightwalker we saw in Calhoun’s courtyard although now I could see the glowing flowers of the Rosen Prince adorning its arms and shoulders. Its hands had changed too, with jutting blades now protruding from its wrist. Gretchen looked back at the Horned Nightwalker with a grimace, before giving a sweeping motion with her hand. As the Nightwalker reached the top of the makeshift stairwell, I saw it buckle, then collapse, sending the creature crashing back down to the ground floor along with a significant portion of the roof. I hoped that might keep it down for a while longer.
“Holy fucking shit, what the hell happened here?” Nina cried, looking out over Parsons.
​
“The mist was already moving the town, I had to make do,” I said. “Don’t ask me how I did it, I don’t know! I don’t think any of the locals came through, though.”
Nina looked back at me, before shaking her head in exasperation.
“Well I hope to fuck they didn’t,” She said. “Cuz I do not have any kind of rescue plan.”
“What about Calhoun?” Dom asked.
“Wounded and on the run,” I said.
​
“Well let’s track his ass down and get the fuck out of here,” Nina said. “How badly did you hurt him?”
“I shot him twice in the stomach and he fell out the window,” I said and pointed to the broken clock face. Nina looked at it again, before looking straight down.
“Christ… and he survived that?” She asked.
“Evidently… since this pocket reality is still holding together,” Gretchen said. She rubbed at the back of her neck, wincing in pain as she did.
​
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“I’ll survive,” She said, “But let us deal with Calhoun first. If he is wise, he will recognize the futility of this engagement and seek to return to the Eldest. We cannot permit that to happen. Then he may be lost to us.”
​
I stared out of the clock tower again, looking toward Calhoun’s House a short distance away.
“Can you get there alright?” I asked.
“I’ll manage,” She assured me, although before we could decide how to proceed, another inhuman scream echoed from the Church below.
​
Nina screamed back at it in a condescending tone, then added: “Shut it, you vegetable fuck! We’re having a conversation!” As if in response to that, several crimson vines latched onto the sides of the hole in the roof, slithering outward to grab purchase onto the sides, before beginning to pull something up.
Gretchen sighed, rubbing at her temples and shaking her head.
“Why are you the way that you are?” Was all she asked.
​
A massive claw appeared on the edge of the roof, as the Horned Nightwalker… or at least what it had become, attempted to climb its way out. Its hands had already changed into sickle like claws that reminded me of the Horselike Nightwalker I’d seen in Puriysk. Several spider like legs rose out of the hole in the roof, lifting the new creature out of the ruined church and onto the roof as it dragged itself toward us.
​
“Such a bounty laid out before me!” The voice of the Rosen Prince snarled, “And I have you to thank, Gretchen Di Cesare! Yet, my hunger is not yet sated… for you have not yet joined with me, child!”
​
Nina readied her shotgun, firing into the new creature's face. Batlike wings unfurled from its back, closing around its body and taking the brunt of the fire.
“I grow ever stronger, from the wonderful creatures I have dined on. They offer me little in knowledge, but much in strength!”
​
As The Rosen Prince advanced on us, I noticed something else from the corner of my eye. The Crab Nightwalker was drawing closer to us as well. I know that Gretchen saw it too. Nina stopped shooting while shimmering blossoms with pale yellow eyes inside opened on the Prince’s wings as the fires quickly died down.
​
“Ah… ironic, is it not? To find you now in the same position you were in when you invoked me here. Cornered… Helpless... Desperate…”
​
Gritting her teeth, Gretchen gently pushed Nina aside, staring down the coming Prince.
“You presume far too much, my old friend…” She panted, before looking at us. “Grab something, hold it tight, and pray to whatever God may be listening.”
​
With a wave of her hand, Gretchen brought down more of the roof beneath the Rosen Prince. It did little to slow it down, but it did enough. Gretchen turned, grabbing the metal frame of the turret clock and letting out a cry of exertion.
​
I felt the ground move beneath us again, although this time it wasn’t something in the tower she was moving.
​
It was the tower itself.
​
In one swift motion, the clock tower had detached from the rest of the church and launched itself toward an adjacent building. The lower part of it lodged itself into the roof of that other building completely, causing part of it to crumble. Somehow though, the clocktower remained intact… for the most part. I imagined that had to be thanks to Gretchen.
​
“What the fuck are you trying to do?!” Nina cried, looking over at Gretchen with a new fear of God in her eyes.
“You told me to learn…” Gretchen hissed, “I’m learning…”
​
She strained again, looking back as the Rosen Prince spread his wings to take flight. Nina, Dom, and I grabbed hold of the frame of the turret clock since it seemed like the sturdiest thing to grab as Gretchen moved the tower again, launching it into another building, this one closer to Calhoun’s house.
​
The impact was too much for me this time. I lost my grip and was thrown to the ground, rolling toward one of the broken clock faces.
“Cam?” Nina called, before letting go of the clock to dive after me. She wasn’t fast enough.
​
The wind rushed past me as I fell out of the window, landing hard on the roof of the building below. I saw Nina looking down at me from above, before leaping down after me. She landed with a little more grace, and unevenly stumbled to my side, hastily putting a hand on my shoulder.
“You alright?” She asked.
​
I gave a half nod since despite being in considerable pain I was pretty sure I hadn’t broken anything.
“CAM!” I heard Dom cry, and saw him going to the window next. For a moment, I was sure he was about to jump down too, although Nina waved an arm to stop him.
“Don’t!” She said, “Stay with Gretchen! Get to the house, and kill that one eyed motherfucker if you see him! We’ll catch up!”
​
Dom hesitated, before looking to see that the Rosen Prince had launched himself onto the last building we’d been on. The Crab Nightwalker was almost on top of him now, and I watched as the two pressed together, their features sliding together as they formed into something new. Pieces of the crab's armor slid onto that twisted amalgamation of bodies, partially reinforcing its spiderlike legs. The batlike wings on its back grew larger to accommodate the new size of this creature, then split to form new wings. It morphed and changed, adapting to the prey it now hunted, becoming something draconic, arachnid, equine, humanoid, and floral all in one unholy mixture. Such a thing should not have ever been… and yet it was and when the change was complete, what was left was an armored creature three times taller than a man with several chitinous horse legs, segmented like a crab or a spiders protruding from its bulbous lower body. It had a hunched-over torso like a human’s, with thick arms ending in chitinous claws and a head that split open like a flower, with gnashing teeth in its center and antlers adorning its shoulders like pauldrons.
​
Of all the horrors I had seen in this world… this was by far the worst.
​
The flesh and armor it did not take from the Crab Nightwalker slunk away, pulsating and trying to reform into something new, while the body the Rosen Prince had made for himself spread its six draconic wings to give chase to Gretchen.
​
The tower moved again, launching itself toward another building and Nina grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the hole in the roof of the building we were on that the tower had left. I had just enough time to see the Rosen Prince take flight in pursuit of the tower before we made it inside the building.
​
After all the noise out there, the silence inside was almost jarring… and if I wasn’t absolutely terrified by the fucking flower dragon made out of every horrible thing that had tried to kill me in the past few days chasing after my friend, I might have even found it calming.
​
The building we were in looked as if it’d once been somebody's apartment. Nina looked around for a bit, before finding a door leading out into a hall.
“Come on, we should hurry,” She said, gesturing for me to follow her. I was certain that she had no idea where she was going, but to be fair I didn’t either so I followed her.
“Do all of your jobs go this badly?” I asked, as we headed for a door at the end of the hall.
“Not this badly, no,” She said. “This right here is a brand new record.”
​
We went through the door, heading down a flight of stairs, and out into the lobby of the building. Nina paused by the front door, looking out onto the street to ensure the coast was at least somewhat clear before moving ‘Somewhat clear’ being the operative term here.
​
The streets of Parsons were reduced to little more than complete pandemonium. I could see the burning corpses of the Rosen around us, along with one lone member of the Sheriff’s Boys who seemed too dazed to even realize we were there.
​
As the flames of the dead burned around him, devouring ruined cars and blackening the bricks of the buildings around him, he wandered aimlessly.
​
We all paused as behind us, one of the buildings that Gretchen had hit when she’d decided to turn a building into an airplane began to collapse. I could hear people screaming and felt a knot in my stomach tighten. The lucky sounded as if they’d been crushed outright… the unlucky just kept screaming.
​
Both the man on the street and I stared at the ruins of the collapsed building, and looking back at him I was hit with the knowledge that everyone in this miserable city probably knew that this was the end. They were all going to die here… whether it was at the hands of the Rosen, the Nightwalkers, or the destruction, they were all going to die. Maybe they all hadn’t accepted it as my friend on the street had… but it was a chilling truth.
​
This that had once been their paradise was now their tomb… and once Calhoun was dead, even that would no longer remain. I wondered if we were just as doomed as they were… and I wondered if we were just in denial about it.
​
Well… no time to think too hard about it now.
I felt Nina pulling at my arm.
“Let’s go,” She said. “I think the road up ahead is clear!”
The other man was looking at me now.
​
From behind us, I could hear the cries of the Rosen and looked back to see them sifting through the ruins of the collapsed building, looking for survivors. The man on the road just laughed, before calmly taking out his gun and putting it under his chin.
​
I heard the gunshot but didn’t see him die. By then we’d already moved on. But it still made me flinch.
​
The gate to Calhoun’s House was just up ahead, although it was not unguarded. I could see several more trucks, like the one Kevin had driven parked out front, with a few of the Sheriff’s Boys stationed around them.
​
As far as I could tell, the courtyard was pretty secure… perhaps they were waiting for Calhoun’s return. The clock tower was lodged in a building half a block away, and I saw it make its final push toward the twisted house, crashing into it head-on and shattering its malformed architecture.
​
In defiance of all laws of physics though, the clocktower still held together, despite jutting out of the front of that twisted building. The Sheriff’s Boys at the gate watched it with slack-jawed awe, before a familiar voice on a megaphone brought them back to attention.
“GUNS UP BOYS! COMPANY’S COMING!”
​
Between the cars, I could see Kevin holding his megaphone and pointing toward the building the clock tower had just jumped from. Of course Kevin was still alive. This day just hadn’t gone badly enough…
​
The Sheriff’s Boys manning the guns on their trucks got to work immediately, spinning to take aim at the Rosen Prince as he loomed over the nearby building, regarding the assembled prey with every eye on his sickly, pulsating body. I saw his wings spread wide as he began his final descent toward the courtyard. The bullets tore away chunks of his writhing flesh, but they did not slow him down. Instead, he simply folded his wings over his torso, shielding his body from the hail of gunfire as he made his advance.
​
The Rosen Prince lunged forward with one jagged claw, crushing one of the nearby trucks like it was made of paper. I saw Kevin take a step back, grimacing in rage before tossing his megaphone aside. Some of his men fled, but he stood his ground… probably because he physically could not run.
“You sonofabitch…” he growled, before pulling a gun from his holster. My eyes widened as I recognized it.
​
Gretchen’s revolver.
​
Kevin must have found it after we’d left!
​
I wondered if he knew what it did, and I got my answer only moments later. He pulled the trigger, striking one of the wings of the Rosen Prince.
​
The creature shrank back, letting out a hiss of pain, although seeming more confused than hurt. Pink mist rose up from its wing, and I saw the flesh begin to bubble and sear. The Rosen Prince recoiled, its flesh twisting as every eye on its body widened. Kevin kept the gun trained on the Prince, but didn’t fire again. The Rosen Prince retreated back up on top of the building. Its burning wing detached itself, although that didn’t quite seem to be enough. Entire chunks of what I suspect used to be the Bat Nightwalker sloughed out of its body as it tried to shed whatever flesh that Gretchen’s blessed bullet had destroyed.
​
“Keep shooting!” Kevin called, starting to limp back behind the remaining trucks. “Governor Calhoun is on his way! And get me somebody to help deal with that fucking flying tower!”
I looked over at Nina and saw her eyes narrowed as she watched Kevin leave. I watched her grip her gun tightly and put a hand on her arm.
“Don’t!” I warned, “Those trucks will tear us to pieces!”
​
I could see in her eyes that she wanted to argue, but clearly she knew better. Her eyes then darted toward the wall and I could see her doing the math in her head.
“Left side of the street, move fast, keep low,” She said. “We’ll jump the fence.”
That sounded like a slightly smarter idea, and I let Nina take the lead.
​
The trucks didn’t even seem to see us, and kept shooting at the Rosen Prince. I could even see a few crimson flares shooting up from some of the Sheriff’s Boys, catching the Prince’s body and setting his flesh alight as he retreated back atop the building again. Nina reached the fence first and I boosted her up to the top. She straddled it for a moment, reaching down to help pull me up before we dropped down into the courtyard together. She grabbed her shotgun again, keeping at the ready for when the inevitable shooting began.
​
The courtyard was in an even worse state than we’d left it in. The fountain was almost completely destroyed and had soaked the ground beneath us, turning anything that wasn’t protected by the cobblestone into mud.
​
Countless bodies, belonging to men, Rosen and Nightwalkers along with a few blackened things that I think were Nightwalkers, littered the ground. The truck that Kevin had used to attack us was crashed into a nearby wall and looked more or less completely totaled. We could see Kevin limping over toward where the clock tower was, looking up at it as he barked orders.
​
“Where’s my fucking explosives? We need to get back inside the house without letting any more of those things out through the fucking door!”
Nina stifled a laugh.
“Oh man… I forgot about the portal to hell…” She said under her breath, as if it was the funniest joke she’d ever heard.
​
The clock tower shifted, as the section of the house it had embedded itself in began to crumble. The tower sank down to the ground, still remaining intact. I took that as a sign that Gretchen and Dom were still inside.
​
“MOVE!” Kevin cried, ushering his men back as a cloud of dust flooded the courtyard. Nina and I shielded our eyes for a moment, although I realized as soon as she did the kind of opportunity that had just appeared for us. She gestured for me to follow, leading me toward the house under the cover of the dust.
​
“Whoever’s in that thing, I want them fucking dead!” Kevin said, coughing through the dust. He turned away from the clock tower, waving a hand in front of his face to try and escape the dust. Nina and I were almost at the front door now, and I already knew what she planned to do.
​
Honestly, I thought it was a terrible idea. But at this point, I was still on board with it.
​
Kevin looked up, noticing us just as we reached the door. Through the dust, I could see his eyes widen as Nina reached the front door and pulled it open.
“NO!” He cried, reaching out as if he could somehow stop us.
He couldn’t.
​
On the other side of the door, I could see reddish sands. I could feel the acrid heat and burning wind on my face. And I could see dark figures amongst the sands, looking up as soon as the door opened.
​
Not Nightwalkers… not Rosen.
​
Something else.
​
Nina fired a few rounds from her shotgun, forcing Kevin to try and run. He dove to the ground, crawling behind the shattered remains of the water fountain, as the Sheriff’s Boys turned to see that on top of all their existing problems, they now also had to deal with a portal to actual literal Hell. Because why not? I’m sure it really sucked to be them at that moment.
​
I saw the first of the blackened Demons charge through the door, snarling like a wild dog. It was torn to pieces by some gunfire from one of the Sheriff’s Boys almost immediately, but more followed.
​
There weren’t a lot of demons that poured out of that door… but there were enough.
​
I saw one of them leaping onto one of the Sheriff’s Boys. Its entire torso split open vertically, revealing a velvety mouth, full of teeth that clamped down on the poor man before he could do more than scream. As the Sheriff’s Boys tried to deal with the demons, Nina unleashed burning death upon them all, mindlessly shooting anything that moved. She paused only to pull the door closed, since I guess it made sense not to just leave that hanging open and unattended. I suppose it’s not like she needed even more Demons.
​
Behind the fountain, I saw Kevin struggling to stand as he tried to escape the carnage… and I started toward him.
​
Kevin saw me coming and hastily reached for Gretchen’s revolver, but I was faster. I raised my gun and fired twice, hitting him once in the arm and once in the chest. Kevin let out a cry of pain. The revolver slipped out of his hand and clattered uselessly to the ground. He left it where it lay, trying desperately to pull himself back as I pulled the trigger again, shooting him in the stomach two more times.
​
Finally, I was on top of him and pressed my foot down on his injured leg, earning a final cry of pain from him.
“What was that you said to me the other day?” I hissed, “When I kill you, I’ll have my boys do it… I’ll let them have their way with you first…”
My eyes burned into Kevin’s, and though he tried to keep a defiant face, I could see the fear in them.
​
“Where are your boys now, Kev?” I asked.
“It’s… Kevin…” He rasped, although I could still hear the fear in his voice.
I’ve gotta be honest… it was kinda funny.
“I know,” I replied as I squeezed the trigger one last time.
​
I might have only been using a .22, but it did the job perfectly. Kevin’s head jerked backward and he sank down into the mud, his eyes still open and staring quietly into infinity. I’d remember those eyes… but they would not haunt me.
​
I looked over at Nina, who gave a wide berth to the Sheriff’s Boys and the Demons trying to maul them as she ran to my side. She looked down at Kevin’s body, and I saw a wry smirk cross her lips, though as she reached down to pick up Gretchen’s revolver.
“Guess he shouldn’t have run for office,” She said, before looking toward the clock tower.
​
Through some of the crumbling bricks, I could see two figures limping out of the ruins.
“Dom…” I said, running toward him.
Gretchen was slung over his shoulder, but it was hard to say who was supporting who at that point. He collapsed down into a sitting position, and let her flop down onto the ground. The only indicator I could hear that she was still alive was her slight groan of pain.
​
“Oh my God, you’re okay?” I asked.
Dom just gave me a meek thumbs up.
“Next time… let’s… let’s not do… whatever that was…” He said, pointing vaguely at the clock tower. I pulled him into a hug, that he weakly returned.
​
“Hey… you good?” Nina asked, looking down at Gretchen and giving her a slight kick.
“Test results… sub-optimal. Do not recommend second attempt,” She groaned.
“Yeah, you’re fine. Get up, you big fucking nerdy baby.”
​
She reached down to help pull Gretchen to her feet again.
“Hot tea…” She murmured, as she leaned against the crumbling clock tower for support. “Hot tea… and a bath…”
She looked over at Nina.
“What are you doing when this is all over?”
“Oh, I’m gonna get fucking drunk and buy a lottery ticket,” She said. “I do not know how we’re all still alive right now, but I’m feeling pretty damn lucky.”
“Alcohol… yes… in tea…” Gretchen agreed, “You’re buying.”
​
With a trembling hand, she took her journal out of her jacket, turned to a fresh page, and in letters large enough for me to read wrote: ‘TOWER. NO.’
​
A distant roar pulled out attention back toward the gate. Above it, I could see the Rosen Prince descending from the building again for round 2. He was smaller this time, and had shed his wings… yet his form was otherwise unchanged.
Gretchen just closed her eyes in exasperation before sighing.
“Right… him…”
​
Through the gate, I could see the Sheriff’s Boys in the trucks trying to fight the Demons and the Prince to no avail. One of the trucks hastily sped off into the night. The other one stood its ground, shooting vainly at the Rosen Prince as he came for them. He brought one claw down like a hammer, crushing the men in the truck like it was nothing, then drawing it back to hit them again out of rage.
​
Hissing in satisfaction, we watched as the Rosen Prince continued toward the gate, his many legs going over it as he advanced into the courtyard.
“This night draws to its close, my old friend.” He snarled. “It seems you can run no more… while my strength, is everlasting. It is time… come into my ocean, as you were always meant to.”
​
“Oh fuck off already,” Gretchen huffed, before noticing Nina out of the corner of her eye, offering her the revolver. They traded a look before Gretchen took it and aimed it at the beast that advanced on us. The moment it realized what was being aimed at it, I heard it snarl with rage. Its body tensed as it lunged for us, trying to close the distance before she could shoot.
​
But it was already too late.
​
The gunshot echoed through the courtyard as the bullet hit the Rosen Prince square in the chest, and I saw his body begin to seize up. He clawed at his chest, many eyes going wide. A pained scream escaped him. Pink mist rose from the wound, causing its flesh to bubble and squirm. The Rosen Prince’s eyes fixated on Gretchen again as his body began to die.
“WRETCHED WOMAN!” It hissed, throwing its weight toward us as its body convulsed and boiled. “THIS WORLD REMAINS MINE… YOU SHALL NOT RUN FROM ME AGAIN!”
“Yes, this world is yours,” Gretchen agreed. “Enjoy it while it lasts. I imagine it won’t be for much longer. Your services are no longer required here. But thank you for your assistance.”
​
“TREACHEROUS WITCH!” The Rosen Prince snarled, desperately trying to crawl toward us. I saw the lower half of its body break away. Its legs curled in on themselves, twitching weakly in death. Only the Prince’s rotting torso remained now and Gretchen stared into its countless eyes, cold and unblinking.
​
As it tried to pull itself closer to us, one of its claws broke off. It’s movements slowed, as the amalgamation of corpses the Rosen Prince had assembled melted away. I could see the luminous flowers on its body starting to die, as the eyes turned white and fell away. In a few moments, the body of the Rosen Prince lay still as the flesh melted off of its bones… and silence filled the air.
​
“Is it dead…” I asked quietly, “Really dead?”
“No,” Gretchen replied. “The other drones will still be active, and I suspect he’ll be coming back for us shortly, once he can build something even worse to throw at us. We should leave now, while we still have the chance.”
“What about Calhoun?” I asked.
​
“If he’s not dead already, I vote we leave him to the Rosen Prince,” Gretchen said. She checked the cylinder of her revolver, “Seems whoever had this wasted the last of my ammunition… luckily I had foresight. Camille, you still have the bullet?”
“Right here,” I said, reaching into my pocket to take it out.
​
“Good,” She handed the revolver off to me, before turning away and heading toward the door. Her gait was slow and she gave the Rosen Prince a wide berth.
“I’ll remove the rune on Calhoun’s door. If we can find the room with the Eldest again, we should have a way out. We can use the last bullet on him, and see if it works… no promises, but right now I we’re low on options so it will have to suffice fo-”
​
A sudden onslaught of gunshots interrupted her. I saw Gretchen hit the ground with a pained cry, clutching at her side. Nina ran to her immediately, dragging her behind the ruins of the fountain, while Dom and I ran back toward the clock tower.
​
A single figure stood under the gate, shuffling past the ruined trucks with a heavy pistol in his hand.
​
Governor Calhoun looked significantly worse than when I’d last seen him. His skin looked a shade paler and his good eye seemed sunken. He’d stripped off both his shirt and suit jacket and I could see the bullet wounds in his stomach from where I’d shot him… although that was not what stood out the most. His skin was adorned with fresh cuts, with streaks of blood flowing from them like rivers. In his other hand, he held his ritual dagger.
​
“Leaving me for dead?” He asked, his voice hoarse and cold, “After all you’ve done… to ruin my world… to burn my temple and salt the earth upon which it was built, and you can’t even finish the job? Disappointing.” Nina tried to pop out of cover, but Calhoun shot first, grazing the stone by her head and sending her back down.
​
“It’s a shame it had to come to this,” Calhoun said. “I would have saved your world. I would have saved each and every one of you. But now after you’ve gone and wasted everything I’ve done… decades of good… I see now that there is no salvation for you people. There never was. I built paradise! And you’ve burned it! Corrupted it! Unleashed plague upon it! Why? I did no harm to you! I left you people be! And yet in stubborn defiance of my efforts to resolve this peacefully, you’ve-”
“Kill yourself,” Nina called, and Calhoun trained off.
​
“Excuse me…” He hissed.
“We’ve got you four to one, and you’re already looking like death warmed over… so cut the speech, Calhoun. Cut the theatrics… and let’s just get this the fuck over with you self-righteous fuck!”
I saw Calhoun actually crack a smile there.
“Ill-mannered until the end,” He said, before finally lowering his gun and tossing it aside, “Well… at least you were consistent, in life.”
​
He took another trembling step forward before sinking down to his knees. I saw Nina rising out from behind cover, while Dom and I did the same, our guns remaining trained on him. Calhoun looked at us, before slowly taking his knife and turning it toward his stomach.
​
Was… was he actually going to do it? Just like that?
​
Nina seemed surprised, pausing as she locked eyes with him.
“If there’s no salvation,” Calhoun said, “Then all that remains is death…”
With that, he drove the dagger into his stomach, sucking in a breath as he did. Nina actually flinched at the sight of it, but I stayed still, watching as Calhoun buried the dagger deep into his body, and as the blood dribbled down his hands.
“Holy Lugal,” he rasped, “I have no home to defend… no souls to offer. And so, I offer my own. Grant me retribution and I shall become yours.”
​
My eyes widened, and I could see Nina's doing the same. We understood all too late why he’d mutilated himself…
​
We fired on Calhoun, but it was too late.
​
A blinding crimson glow had already spread through his body, traveling along the carvings he’d made in his flesh and I could feel the air around us rippling. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear Calhoun screaming, followed by a faint voice over all of the noise. A voice I only barely recognized as Gretchen’s screaming:
​
“RUN!”

AZ65H12DBMW5 wall unit won’t heat. Also won’t access aux mode or show diagnostic codes when following directions from the manual and YouTube videos. It blows cold air on all settings. No heat though. Any suggestions?

English isn't my first language, so please understand if my English sounds a bit broken.
Since last August, I've been living with 3 roommates, and we have been having conflicts over so many things. Among those conflicts, we had the most argument over the guests and temperature.
Because I tend to get up early, I usually try to go to sleep by 11 pm. I personally try to limit the noise from 10 pm to 8 am to respect people with different sleep schedules (then I leave home at 8, so I am not even at home until the afternoon). Meanwhile, some of my roommates are night owls, so they would bring their friends or girlfriend/boyfriends and blast music and sing in the common area after midnight.
Regarding temperature, we settled to keep our temperature at 72 after weeks of arguments, which was a bit lower than the midpoint (I wanted a warmer temperature and they wanted colder).
We recently changed the temperature to A/C since the temperature was going up to 78 in the daytime, which wasn't a problem. However, at night, the temperature goes down to the 50s and 60s after sunset, which made the house too cold for me.
I asked my roommates if we could turn the heat on before going to sleep for now because the house being below 65 is too cold for me even with a space heater. For some reason, all 3 of my roommates got extremely hostile and told me to stop thinking about myself because they are "waking up in a sweat and can't even open the window because of the hot air from outside." They also said that their cats are being overheated because "they are meowing a lot and drinking a lot of water."
I tried to explain to them that we already agreed on 72, which was lower than the midpoint already, and I am only asking to have the heat on at night until it gets a bit warmer. After the back-and-forth conversation, they told me to "shut the f up" and said my opinion doesn't matter because it is 3 vs 1.
They also started cussing me out/talking bad about me in front of my door & blocked my device from wifi that I also paid for. Am I really asking too much?

Wanted to ask for the internet's opinion on a proposed system for our house under construction Western PA. Considering going with a heatpump with a gas furnace as a backup. First and second floor are around 5400 total sq ft and the basement is around 1800 sq ft finished. We'll also have solar panels if that adds any helpful context.
FIRST FLOOR AND BASEMNENT WITH GAS FURNACE AND HEAT PUMP

• 1-Carrier model 59TP6, 96% efficient, 2 STAGE gas furnace “Performance Series” with variable speed blower motor with a 20 year heat exchanger warranty to set in the basement and serve the first floor and finished basement.
• 1-Carrier heat pump model 25TPA7, 17 SEER, Performance Series 2 stage heat pump unit with a 5-year compressor warranty and environmentally safe “PURON” refrigerant to set on the side of the house on a 30X30 patio stone.
• 1-Carrier cased evaporator coil.
• 1-Carrier media type air cleaner.
• 1-Honeywell, Trol-A-Temp 3 zone base series zone control system. Zone I will be the first floor Master Bedroom area, Zone II will be the remainder of the first floor and Zone III will be the basement.

SECOND FLOOR WITH GAS FURNACE AND HEAT PUMP

• 1-Carrier model 59TP6 at 96% efficient, 2 stage, “Performance Series” furnace with a variable speed blower motor with a 20 year heat exchanger warranty to set in the attic in an overflow pan with a condensate safety switch and serve the second floor.
• 1-Carrier heat pump model 25TPA7, 17 SEER, “Performance Series” 2 stage heat pump unit with a 5-year compressor warranty and environmentally safe “PURON” refrigerant to set on the side of the house on a 30X30 patio stone.
• 1-Carrier cased evaporator coil.
• 1-Carrier media type air cleaner.
• 1-Honeywell, Trol-A-Temp 2 zone base series zone control system. Zone I will be the left side second floor and zone 2 will be the Right side second floor.

I live near the Vancouver area in BC and our buildings are designed to retain heat. Very few of them have air conditioning.
During the 2021 heat wave, we abandoned most of our home and retreated to a single small room with an air conditioner. Inside that air-conditioned room, we were able to maintain a temperature in the high 30s C / 100s F, while the rest of the home (and the outside) were in the low 40s C / 110s F.
It was so hot that running water scalded, doorknobs could burn, and heat could travel down from the roof through the wooden beams and radiate out from the studs. Our building got so hot that it settled and warped, permanently, in ways it never had. Almost a thousand people died.
I didn't own vintage camera equipment at that time, as I had been on a break from film photography for many years.
When the next extreme heat wave hits my area, I want to be ready: how should I protect my equipment? Perhaps transport it to a relative's home where they have a basement and store it there? Is 40 Celsius an OK temp for a week for a vintage TLR or SLR to survive, or will things warp and melt? Let me know your thoughts!

Do you guys have advice for repairing old leaky hardduct in crawlspace and reinsulating and a rough estimate on cost? The house is 955 sq ft. Unit is 2 ton gas heat system and is brand new. However, sellers of the home didn't replace the ductwork and simply re wrapped insulation not even over all the ductwork. There's no duct sealant or mastic and over the summer I felt a cold blast of air around the crawl space. We can't afford to replace all the ductwork for $4400-$5000 and were quoted $2300 to "repair" the ductwork. What do you all think?
Thank you.

Hi all,
Curious if this is normal operation, or potentially a case of an oversized system (or something else?).
We have an 1800sqft house with a 4-zone mini-split system with a 42k BTU outdoor heat pump (MXZ-5C42NA3). The indoor units are Mitsubishi MSZ-FS wall-mounted mini splits that are 18k BTU, 12k BTU, 9k BTU, and 6k BTU, respectively.
The issue I’ve been finding is that during the mornings when outdoor temperatures are fairly mild (high 40s to low 60s), with all 4 indoor units set to around 70F, the outdoor unit short-cycles. What ends up happening is that nothing really gets fully warmed up to target temperature; all the zones linger around 67-68F without much heat coming out of the splits.
If I turn off unneeded rooms, all of a sudden the outdoor unit spins away happily, and we get nice warm air coming out of the 1-2 units that remain on.
Any thoughts? Thanks very much.

Hello preppers,
I was blown away by the amount of discussion generated by my post last week. I'm going to start posting information as I'm able to, hopefully once a week.
This week's post covers carbon monoxide poisoning--what it is, how it hurts people, what you should do if exposed, and most importantly, what you can do to PREVENT it from affecting you and your family.
It’s late October.
You turn on the pellet stove for the first time this season.
Works well. You settle in for the night.
You wake up with an awful headache, blurry vision, and nausea.
You stumble to the bathroom to throw up. Your legs don’t work right.
You find your significant other there, passed out on the floor.
They have vomit on their face and all over the toilet.
You call 911.
What happened?
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless gas.
It is produced by the incomplete combustion of fuels.
It is a risk whenever something burns.
Your organs need oxygen to function.
When you breathe, your blood absorbs oxygen from the air through your lungs.
When you breathe CO, it binds to your blood 240x more strongly than oxygen.
It prevents oxygen from binding to your blood well.
It also stops your body from using the oxygen it CAN bind.
It also releases damaging chemicals in your body (reactive oxygen species).
Common scenarios include:
Poorly functioning heating systems.
Improperly vented fuel-burning devices (lanterns, kerosene heaters, grills, gas generators).
Cars left running in poorly vented areas.
Fires.
*I put fires last here because the presence of a fire should be obviously dangerous.
The symptoms it causes are nonspecific.
That means they are found in a lot of other diseases.
This can make it hard to recognize even for EMS and docs.
Be vigilant, especially if multiple people have similar symptoms at the same time.
Watch for dizziness, chest pain, confusion, blurred vision, headache, shortness of breath, and nausea.
CO can be detected by machines.
CO monitors are required by code, specifics depending on state.
Some have built-in batteries rated for 10 years.
Some plug in and have a 9V battery as backup.
Some are combination smoke and CO detectors and can be hardwired.
Put one on every floor of your home including the basement.
Install them how the manual says to.
Test them regularly.
I test mine once a week. Press the button until it beeps.
Note that this tests the circuitry but not the CO sensor itself.
You can buy canisters of CO gas to test the actual sensor too.
Follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
If you make propane or kerosene heaters (Mr. Buddy is a popular one) part of your prep, get a battery powered CO detector.
Test it with a fresh battery.
Take the battery out and tape it to the detector.
Store it with the heater.
That way it’s ready to go.
Use the heater in a big area and open the windows (as the environment and OPSEC allow).
If you use a portable generator, move it 20 feet away from the garage.
NOT in the garage. That traps CO.
Even if the door is open, there is likely poor airflow within the 3 remaining walls.
Angle the exhaust away from open doors and windows.
Which of the following doesn’t produce CO?
A. Campfire
B. Electric space heater
C. Kerosene lamp
D. Oil boiler
E. Propane kitchen stove
The electric space heater doesn’t combust fuel to produce heat.
What’s the first step when you think someone might have CO poisoning?
A. Gather important documents.
B. Open a window.
C. Call 911.
D. Evacuate everyone outside.
Evacuate. Opening a window might not be sufficient.
True/false: CO detectors are always different from smoke detectors.
True
False
Combination smoke and CO detectors are sold as well as standalone units. Check which one you have.
True/false: CO poisoning can be mistaken for the flu or other viral illnesses.
True
False
Symptoms of CO poisoning are not specific (headache, vomiting, dizziness) and can lead to misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis. It can be hard to reliably figure out without blood testing, especially if the patient is confused or doesn’t recognize what happened to them.
Take home points:
CO is dangerous.
You can't sense it.
Assume it's present anywhere something is being burned.
It can kill you in minutes if it builds up (improper ventilation).
Get CO monitors if you don’t have them.
Remember to test them.
Put a spare detector with your prep heat/cook source if it uses combustion and you might use it indoors.
Get your stove/furnace/boiler serviced at appropriate intervals, usually yearly.
Stay healthy and stay prepared,
Dr. Prepper
Video: https://youtu.be/aPKEdpcDY34
Article: https://askdrprepper.substack.com/p/headache-dizziness-and-stumbling
See prior post or the About page on Substack for proof of my credentials.

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