Promise to the Magic Heart – Chapter 34

July 6, 2026 / / 0 Comments

How dare you say Trennis did not deserve the title of Hero! Because he wasn’t there when we went into the cave? We would not have made it to that cave if not for Trennis. Not just because he selflessly sacrificed himself to save us from those bandits Cull paid to kill us. Do you think it was only because of Selene we knew where to go? Selene knew the prophecies, but Trennis knew people. He knew who to ask and how to ask to get the information we needed to find Cull. Beyond that, it was Trennis who kept us together during the dark times. He motivated us, comforted us, counseled us. He kept the boys from killing each other on more than one occasion. – Lady Sonya, overheard in heated discussion with Lord Fal

PALLUS

Pallus watched the battle raging through Lisandra’s Outer City. General Lopanes and his staff were pleased with the steady advance. His formal training told Pallus he should be pleased as well, but his instincts were telling him something was wrong. Pallus moved the viewing crystal back and forth to different parts of the battle, hoping to find what was bothering him.

“Not happy with the course of events, Colonel?” Colonel Umbretti asked. Pallus considered the Mareian officer. Umbretti was reputed to be smart and insightful. He might see what Pallus was missing.

“Call it the professional paranoia from commanding the princess’s guards,” Pallus answered, dismissively. “With everything going as we expected, I keep waiting for the nasty surprise.”

“You think those things the Purists are building are part of a trap?” Umbretti asked, motioning to the wooden towers.

Pallus started to answer but was cut off by crashing sounds from the stairwell. Pallus felt Rin coming up the stairs through their medallion. Why was that fool here? And why was he making such a ruckus? Then came the unmistakable sound of someone clubbing one of the sentries just outside the Observatory. The officers in the room tensed and hands went to weapons’ hilts. Rin stormed into the Observatory with Morelli a couple of steps behind. Both men were dirty and bedraggled, but there was fire in their eyes.

“Rin, where have you been?” Pallus demanded. “Princess Illana was terrified something happened to you.” Rin stalked around the Observatory.

“Rin, what are you doing?” Pallus asked.

“Where is Illana, Pallus?” Rin asked. Pallus’s eyes went wide at the cold lethality in the human’s voice. He remembered hearing that same tone the night Rin put an arrow into Ela’s eye.

“She’s not here,” Pallus answered.

“I can see that. Where is she?”

“The Imperial Quarters,” Pallus answered, “She wasn’t feeling well, so she stayed there this morning.” For the longest moment of his life, Rin said nothing. As Pallus looked into those cold eyes, fear went down his spine like a serpent. Without another word, Rin spun on his heel and walked out of the room with Morelli right behind him. Almost against his will, Pallus followed him.

“Rin, what under the Light is going on?” Pallus asked as the trio marched across the courtyard to the palace.

“We ran into the Edess Kul when we went to capture Shafford,” Rin said.

“What? Why didn’t you kill her?”

“Because she told us the Purists have people close to Illana. They have her and they’re going to kill her.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Pallus said, “The Edess Kul lied to you.”

“Ela’s never lied to me before,” Rin said. “I don’t think she’s lying to me now.” Pallus nearly stumbled as he realized what Rin said.

“Ela? What are you talking about?” Pallus asked, “That’s impossible. The Purists killed her. We buried her.”

“I don’t know who you buried, but it wasn’t Ela. The Purists didn’t kill her. They recruited her. Think about it. What does this battle feel like?” Pallus stopped and thought. Suddenly, his misgivings about the battle came into sharp focus.

“Goddess damn it all. It feels like one of Ela’s traps. Make them look at one thing while you go for your real objective,” Pallus answered, flatly. “What are you planning to do?”

“Find Illana. Kill anyone who tries to stop me,” Rin said.

“Some of those might be my Crystal Guard,” Pallus said.

“If you don’t want me to kill them, then order them to stay out of my way,” Rin replied, his voice just as dangerous.

“And if I stop you?” Pallus asked. Rin stopped and spun, which caught Pallus by surprise.

“Do you think I would hesitate to put a bullet in you?” Rin asked. “The only reason I haven’t is because I promised Trennis I wouldn’t kill you unless I was damn sure you needed killing.”

“He made me swear the same thing,” Pallus said. The two men stared at each other for a long moment.

“Sergeant, we don’t have time for this,” Morelli said, breaking the stand-off.

“Fine,” Rin spat out.

Ward Manor Happenings – 07.02.26

July 2, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Rehabilitation Happenings – The Wife started her PT last week. They are pleased with her progress considering she’s a month post surgery. More exercises to do at home – which she is pretty diligent about. And she’s using the elliptical bike in short intervals. The trick is getting her to slow down and not push herself so hard she does herself a mischief. Of course, all this new activity has brought on new and exciting pain. We’re doing the best we can to support her as she continues through her knee replacement journey.

Prime Day Happenings – Between the slew of medical bills and rehab equipment expenses, we didn’t really have the play in the budget to really participate in Prime Day. It also didn’t help that Amazon pushed it up, which meant The Wife and I didn’t have the normal birthday monies to supplement our spending. We did purchase two things. First, we bought a new Vornado tower fan for The Wife’s side of the room. It was highly recommended and half-off. However, whoever decided the format and layout of the “quick instructions” should be fired. Really, we’re going to show black pieces being assembled on a black, glossy piece of paper. At least it was intuitive. The other thing we bought was some Bath and Bodyworks gift cards because they were selling $50 cards for $40. At Ward Manor, that’s called prepaying of consumables.

Family Happenings – The Brother came down last weekend, which is the first time we’ve talked in person for about a month. Normally, we try to have dinner once a week, but with The Wife’s recovery, that just wasn’t happening. It was good to see him and visit for a couple of hours. We also got to have lunch with BIL and SIL and have a nice visit. BIL is also going through the process of having both knees done, so there’s a lot of comparisons between the sibilings’ journeys. And on top of it all, The Wife’s Niece and the Grandniece made a surprise visit because they had a party in the area. Which the Grandniece spent a good deal of time on her tablet. I may have to do some hiding of that except for special blocks.

Sleepless Happenings – Our two older male cats have decided that nighttime is the right time for fighting. It seems like every night last week we were woken up by their war cries. Which involves me getting up, grabbing the air can, and running one of them downstairs. Then they decide to fight over the cat flap to the back porch. If they were capable of learning, they would have learned a bunch of new words unfit for polite

Toy Happenings – My preorder for the Takara Tomy Legioss finally showed up. So, of course, I wanted to compare this one to the Toynami Alpha’s I picked up more than twenty years ago. Except when I pulled out my Shadow Alpha, it fell apart in my hands. The Blue Alpha had parts fall off. WTF? Turns out, it’s a known issue with those Toynami Alphas. What I found amusing is when I pulled out my Toyanmi Alphas, The Wife commented that she didn’t realize those were toys. Anywhoo, I did take some photos.

The Declaration of Independence +250

July 1, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Yeah, I’m a little early. However, my routines hate deviation, so we’ll have our Ward Manor Happenings tomorrow and Friday B-Side.

But I didn’t want to let the 250 completely pass by, so…

Just listening to Morgan Freeman do a dramatic reading alone is impressive.

Monday Links Time

June 29, 2026 / / 0 Comments

It’s time once again for my sporadic Monday Links. One serious link, but the rest are more in the interesting side. And I’m ending with a video on the upcoming summer anime season.

First the serious one…

If you want a reason why I hate Greenpeace and the anti-GMO crowd, here’s a good example. Study showing that blocking the implementation of golden rice has cost the lives of 100,000 kids, with maybe another quarter million going blind. This was something that was going to be provided at no cost to the local farmers with no need to do any capital investments. It was simply an act of benevolence blocked by the anti-GMO bastards.

Now, that we’ve got the vitriol out…

A smart panel startup thinks there’s an alternative or complement to large data centers – use the spare electricity and internet capacity in private homes. Essentially, pay people to use their homes as distributed nodes. Our local electrician was talking to me about it as his company is looking to become certified. I will admit that I’m intrigued by what he told me. And I like market solutions to problems.

The Brother found this article on an extinct bird that once roamed Florida a few million years ago. It was five feet tall and looked like it could tear through the smaller fauna. And we joke that the sandhill cranes are pterodactyls.

The Brother also sent me this little web game to show you how good or bad you are estimating. Best to play it on something with an actual mouse rather than a touchscreen.

And finally, a video with all of the anime coming for Summer of 2026. There are a couple of second seasons that I’m waiting for and a couple of more that spiked my intrigue mark to put them higher on my “anime to watch” queue.

Ward Manor Happenings – 06.25.26

June 25, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Testing Happenings – The Wife’s Niece came over to take a test for a certification for her job. While she was doing that, we entertained the Grandniece. The Wife and MIL took the little girl to Five Below, which was a first non-grocery, non-medical expedition for The Wife. On another note, because of issues with prior tests, we decided to set The Niece up with a whole different workstation set up. Which is good, because that let me start putting together the components for the next Happening. And she said it helped – which was good because she passed.

Home Office Happenings – Based on discussions with the physical therapist, The Wife and I decided she needed to be able to go from standing to sitting. Yeah, a standing desk would be best, but that’s going to have to hold for a bit. Technically, the rolling table we bought last week is height adjustable, but not easily adjustable. Instead, we decided to set up a second workstation on the craft table since that’s the right height for The Wife.

Home Gym Happenings – Sunday morning, The Wife’s nephew came over for breakfast followed by assembling the elliptical bike we bought a couple of months ago. A couple of hours of working in the heat of the garage and we have a working home gym. Let’s just say I’m very glad I had someone helping – particularly someone who is a couple of decades younger.

We now have a fully functioning treadmill and elliptical bike. And the nephew saw the use of this electric cardboard cutter The Wife bought several months back when I turned the huge box into a stack of small cardboard squares.

Yes, I Am A RINO

June 24, 2026 / / 0 Comments

This post has been brewing for a while.

I’ve been avoiding doing political posts, because honestly, politics has become less about ideas and more about identity. And a lot of the time – it’s more about hating the other side because they are evil.

In a lot of my feeds, it’s all-or-nothing, and you must agree with all of one side’s positions. Granted, the radicals are the loudest voices in the room, because the moderates tend not to be loud. I’m just tired of the whole thing. I only keep my eye on it because it affects the day job and some of my hobbies.

If you look on my voter ID card, it says Republican. I’m only a Republican because first, Florida has closed primaries, and second, there are too many local races where if you can’t vote in the primary, you can’t vote for the office. If that wasn’t the case, I would be independent. Maybe back to the Libertarians to boost their numbers on the voter rolls.

I despise the cult of sycophancy around Trump that dominates the current party. I hate the cult of populism that runs through the party. I hate all of the executive orders instead of legislating. I hate the rejection of free trade policies. I hate the acceptance of taking stakes in private companies. I hate the tacit acceptance of antisemitic personalities. I hate the edgelord playing to crowd instead of trying to govern.

If you hate this so much, why don’t you go be a Democrat? Because they’re just as bad in their own way.

I despise their cult of identity. I despise their bent to more and more radical socialism. I despise their eschewing of personal liberty in the search for this mystical “social justice.” I despise their acceptance and promotion of anti-natalism, doomsday ecology, and personal fragility over personal growth.

Overall, it just feels like the politicians are valuing attention over ability. It’s more important to be shouting faces on the streams than being serious about the offices they were elected to. It’s more important to grab power to punish their enemies and reward their friends than be actual statesmen that guide this nation to a brighter future.

In the end, the blame lies with the voters. This is what the voters wanted. This is what they voted for time and time again.

Like I said above, I’m not fully withdrawing from watching politics. I can’t ignore it like many others do because of the day job and my guns. I watch them like I watch the oceans during storm season. I’m also not going to cut my friends who are into politics just for their politics.

Now I need to do something other than navel gaze and stew in my own frustrations. I think I’ll enjoy the company of my loved ones and my cats. And maybe play a little Civ.