The Axe Murder House

His companions found him stabbed in the chest—an apparently self-inflicted wound—called 9-1-1, and Laursen was brought to a nearby hospital before being helicoptered to Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha.

The Haunted Doll

The doll recited phrases from the movie Frozen and sang “Let It Go” when a button on its necklace was pressed.
“For two years it did that in English,” mother Emily Madonia said. “In 2015, it started doing it alternating between Spanish and English. There wasn’t a button that changed these, it was just random."
The family has owned the doll for more than six years and never changed its batteries. The mother says the doll would randomly begin to speak and sing even with its switch turned off.

Esquire Select

A Deadly Exorcism

“The family then set about attempting to ‘cure’ Kennedy through restraint and prayer over the next three days, the court was told.”

“It’s clear that thing was in him, what we believed was a demon because it was not natural. It was clearly trying to kill him,” he said.
“We had to restrain him for himself. It was clear if we didn’t restrain him, he could have tried to harm people in our family.”

While police were at the house Colin Ife allegedly carried out an “attempted resurrection” by chanting and praying for Mr. Ife.

Kenneth Ife told jurors he ordered his sons to take shifts and use "overwhelming force" but denied that an "association with cults, occults and secret societies" played any part in the death.

Dead Animals in the Walls

The dead animals were wrapped in newspapers from the 1930s and 40s and were among half-used spices, and other items.
After removing the items they sent hundreds of artifacts and carcasses to an expert in Kutztown.

Many of the spells deal with the care of livestock, finding water, or the treatment of minor ailments, reflecting the conditions and concerns of early American settlers.
But powwow also has within it a tradition of darker spells, and even of such things as conjuring demons.

To attach a dog to a person, provided nothing else was used before to effect it: Try to draw some of your blood, and let the dog eat it along with his food, and he will stay with you.

Florida Devil Worshipping

Danielle Harkins told the kids they needed to rid their bodies of demons as the group gathered before dusk Saturday around a small fire near the St. Petersburg Pier. They should cut their skin to let the evil spirits out, police said she told the children. Then, they needed to burn the wounds to ensure that those spirits would not return.
When Harkins held a lighter to one teen's hand, wind blew the flame out, police said. That prompted her to douse his hand in perfume before setting it on fire. The boy suffered second-degree burns, police said.
Another teen was cut on the neck with a broken bottle, police said. Harkins used a flame to heat a small key, which she then used to cauterize the wound.

Investigators said they've spoken to Harkins, but she didn't spell out what type of religion would require such drastic measures.
"She hasn't informed us exactly what she was trying to accomplish with this," Puetz [of the St. Petersburg Police Department] said.

The Death of Elisa Lam

"The shower was awful," said Sabina Baugh, who spent eight days there during the investigation. "When you turned the tap on, the water was coming black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal."The tap water "tasted horrible," Baugh said. "It had a very funny, sweety, disgusting taste. It's a very strange taste. I can barely describe it."But for a week, they never complained. "We never thought anything of it," she said. "We thought it was just the way it was here."

The tank has a metal latch that can be opened, but authorities said access to the roof is secured with an alarm and lock.The single-room-occupancy hotel has an unusual history. "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez, who was found guilty of 14 slayings in the 1980s, lived on the 14th floor for several months in 1985. And international serial killer Jack Unterweger is suspected of murdering three prostitutes during the time he lived there in 1991. He killed himself in jail in 1994.In 1962, a female occupant jumped out of one the hotel's windows, killing herself and a pedestrian on whom she landed.

An Exorcism in Indianapolis

According to Washington's original DCS report—an account corroborated by Walker, the nurse—the 9-year-old had a "weird grin" and walked backward up a wall to the ceiling. He then flipped over Campbell, landing on his feet. He never let go of his grandmother's hand.

The 12-year-old would later tell mental health professionals that she sometimes felt as if she were being choked and held down so she couldn't speak or move. She said she heard a voice say she'd never see her family again and wouldn't live another 20 minutes.

Utah Murder-Suicide

Friends and family told police that the parents were worried about the "evil in the world" and wanted to escape a "pending apocalypse." But most assumed they just wanted to move somewhere "off the grid." Investigators also found letters written by Kristi Strack to one of the state's most infamous convicted killers, Dan Lafferty, who was convicted in the 1984 fatal stabbing of his sister-in-law and her 1-year-old daughter. According to trial testimony, he killed the victims at the order of his brother, Ron Lafferty, who claimed to have had a revelation from God. The story became a book called "Under the Banner of Heaven."Police said Kristi Strack became friends with Dan Lafferty, and she and her husband even visited him in prison.

The Phone Stalker

The families say the calls come in at all hours of the night, threatening to kill their children, their pets and grandparents. Voice mails arrive, playing recordings of their private conversations, including one with a local police detective.The caller knows, the families said, what they're wearing and what they're doing. And after months of investigating, police seem powerless to stop them.

When the Fircrest, Wash., police tried to find the culprit, the calls were traced back to the Kuykendalls' own phones -- even when they were turned off.It got worse. The Kuykendalls and two other Fircrest families told ABC News that they believe the callers are using their cell phones to spy on them. They say the hackers know their every move: where they are, what they're doing and what they're wearing. The callers have recorded private conversations, the families and police said, including a meeting with a local detective.

"The Watcher"

Since moving in, the owners said they have received numerous letters from the mysterious person. "The Watcher" claimed the home "has been the subject of my family for decades," and "I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming," Castro reported.The new owners have several children, and other letters asked, "Have they found out what's in the walls yet?" and "I am pleased to know your names now, and the name of the young blood you have brought to me."

Issei the Cannibal

1. Junior Vet Technician and Senior Kennel Staff. / I’ve been working literally the second I could haha.
   
2. Marketing and Outreach Fellow for a non profit organization focused around Global Youth education and empowerment. (5 hours/week for a $200 monthly stipend). The next part of my volunteer work for this organization is as a class representative for the session I attended of their 2 week summer program. / I’ve been working with since since roughly July of last year
   
3. Researcher and Editor for the State of Global Youth Report (in progress). This is also under the global youth org, and it’s likely due to the amount of hours I’ll contribute that I will be deemed a team lead by launch. I am currently launching the survey we use for our primary data source.
   
4. Statewide Model UN Solo Delegate (It was hosted by a local university. It was my first ever, and to date only MUN, but I won awards. I am going to an MUN advanced overnight camp this summer.) / I did this sometime earlier this year
   
5. IGEM contestant (For this year, we just started and selected our project.)
   
6. Antkeeping
   
7. Refugee Service Ambassador (this is very loose, the organization I work with has the ambassadorship paused until next year.)
   
8. Animal Care (I have a vast variety of pets, including 2 snakes, 2 geckos, 4 dogs, 3 cats, a rat, an axolotl, ≈40 chickens, 5 goats. I often foster rescue dogs. Because of all of these animals relying on me, it’s very difficult to spend long periods away from home, significantly limiting my potential for learning abroad.
   
9. Historical and Fictional Geopolitical RPG developer
   

• Establishing my homeschool co ops MUN (I’m currently working with the director for that)
  
• Finding more bio competitions
  
• joining the board of directors for global youth org
  

• If, assuming that what Catholics say is true and after death we go to Hell or Heaven, would you rather, if you had a choice, go to Heaven or reject God and go to Hell of your own free will?
  Karol - If eternity were to consist in the fact that I should praise this God for all eternity, then it is not attractive to me. I hope that modern Catholics are right that the essence of Heaven is closeness to God, and the essence of the torments of Hell is distance from God. If the essence of the torments of hell (this is not traditional Catholic teaching, but post-conciliar, the modern one), but if it were, I would not mind, because this Christian God ... I simply cannot imagine, given the misfortunes, suffering such existential in its entirety, i.e. the fate that millions of people on earth had and have, already on this earth and then probably in Hell. I can't imagine... And it's not for their good yet, but for God's own good, because that's also important. It's not like Catholics say, "Maybe there's a reason why God permits evil, we just don't know it yet." That is not true. They say that and that's the strongest thing they can say, except it's not true because we know the reason why all this is happening. This is best explained in the first nine chapters of Romans. This is a great show in which God, for his own sake and for his glory, shows how bad it is in the world if someone does not submit to him. So I wouldn't want to spend eternity with a guy like that. If hell is about me not spending eternity with this type, then I'm absolutely not afraid. If hell is that they will fry me there for ages and ages, well then, what can I do? I will at least be satisfied that if I had to artificially, insincerely, spend eternity praising this God, well, at least suffering pain, I stay true to myself, I stay true to what seems decent to me, what I think would be decent about the behavior of this God according to its own standards and its requirements for us. Allowing yourself to be blackmailed, ... If we consider the option "I'm afraid of Hell where there will be suffering and I let myself be blackmailed by it and for this reason I start worshiping the Christian God" this is exactly the kind of tyranny, the kind of pathology that is simply unworthy not only of the almighty creator universe, but it is unworthy even of human relations. At the end of my being a Christian, I found out that the only reason I would really be a Christian and convince others to become Christians is so I don't go to Hell. And I realized how terrible it is. This is just blackmail. It's no different than a thug or some mafia fighter who says, "You've got a great life, it'd be a shame if something happened to it. It would be a shame for it to end." "You have nice skin with heat and pain receptors, it would be a shame if you spent eternity burning in Hell." It seems to me that this is the only reason why one should choose to... This is the only good reason, the only understandable reason why one should choose to worship the Christian God. But this is a terrible reason. This is a reason below human dignity in my opinion. This is a hideous reason, which is simply objectionable to me. Giving in to such blackmail means accepting the rules of this world based on violence, based on lack of concern for the weak, based on the fact that someone who is stronger has the right to force his will on others. Giving in to this blackmail means agreeing that such a world, arranged in this way, is something good, I approve of it and want to participate in it. I hope that I will never change my mind about the fact that I reject such an offer. I simply reject this type of blackmail. If God is happy to gain followers this way, then I don't want to spend eternity with such a God. It seems to me that a more dignified attitude is to refuse to participate in this type of blackmail. To this type of blackmail, answer that this is not the world ... I do not agree to such degradation of my person, even though I anticipate that it is associated with some very painful risk, but the prospect of laying my ears for eternity only because of this threat of hell, today it is more drastically bitter and intolerable to me than the risk that there really is a Hell.
  

1. My query is how hard is it gonna be for me to get a role at a Big4 in deal advisory or any roles as Investment analyst or valuations analyst there in UK, as I am not a native English speaker and do you guys think, working at a smaller firm for 1 or 2years is gonna have any bad impact?
2. If I its hard to get into advisory and I choose to go into audit, will I be having any chance given I don't have any previous experience in audit, and do they hire people with qualifications built up and advisory experience into audit as trainees? To add, I will be 26 this year. Is it going to be a problem if I were to start over as a trainee in audit?

The Book Of Life

Uni-verse. One song. That is what you are smack in the middle of. – The Art Of Focus

At One, Not War

The Intensity Threshold - Navigating The Unknown

• Have complete clarity on what you must do
• Have a tangible aspect of life that you are making progress in
• Don't want to do anything aside from "work" because work is the funnest thing you could be doing

Reaching New Baselines

The Supreme Law

The Problem

The Goal

• Do everything with Intune instead of Group Policy or Provisioning Package
• Auto logon to the built-in kiosk user without the use of a general login
• Delete all data on logoff
• Restrict the desktop environment to only the applications I select:
  • Edge
  • Chrome
  • Firefox
  • VLC
  • Read&Write
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader
  • Microsoft Word
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
• Restrict those applications in a way that's suitable for taking exams (disable browser login and Office app login, clean up the interface, disable first time user experiences etc.)
• Provision Microsoft Office apps with the device-based licensing. (This is different than shared-use! in that it does not require someone to login to the Office apps at all.)
• Allow access to the downloads folder
• Allow access to removable drives (THIS IS THE ONE THAT MESSED EVERYTHING UP)
• Provide shortcuts to both these folders in the start menu
• A customized full-screen start menu (this is part of the kiosk mode experience)

The easy way you should be able to do this

The Solution

• Configuration Profiles
  • Kiosk - Multi App - Access Center Testing Laptops (main one that configures kiosk mode)
  • Kiosk - Additional Settings - Access Center Testing Laptops (configures MS Office, Edge, Chrome and disables first logon animation)
  • Kiosk - Additional Settings - Firefox
• Special SCCM "Kiosks" task sequence
  • Does not include our legal text that normally appears on the login screen which would prevent an auto-logon (we set this with reg key not policy)
  • Installs all applications
  • Places computer into an organizational unit within AD
  • A device collection in SCCM syncs from that OU
  • An Azure group syncs from that collection
    • Intune config profiles are applied
    • MS Office device based licsening is authorized because this group is a member of another group that grants access from the Office 365 Admin Center

• Name: "AssignedAccess"
• Description: "Uses a custom-built XML file to enable Multi app kiosk mode on the machine."
• OMA-URI: "./VendoMSFT/AssignedAccess/Configuration"
• Data Type: String (XML File)

                                                   ]]>            

• Name: "Add to Guests"
• Description: "Adds the kioskUser0 to the Guests group."
• OMA-URI: "./Device/VendoMSFT/Policy/Config/LocalUsersAndGroups/Configure"
• Data Type: String (XML File)

1. My query is how hard is it gonna be for me to get a role at a Big4 in deal advisory or any roles as Investment analyst or valuations analyst there in UK, as I am not a native English speaker and do you guys think, working at a smaller firm for 1 or 2years is gonna have any bad impact?
2. If I its hard to get into advisory and I choose to go into audit, will I be having any chance given I don't have any previous experience in audit, and do they hire people with qualifications built up and advisory experience into audit as trainees? To add, I will be 26 this year. Is it going to be a problem if I were to start over as a trainee in audit?

I BEG YOU, KIND FELLOW AE FAN, PLEASE DO NOT POST SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTSBy that I mean any plot points or lore beyond the stuff prior to The Goddess of Time content

————— ORIGINAL timeline —————

• In the beginning, the primal forces of Order and Chaos fought. (That old chestnut.) The resulting Dimensional Vortex dispersed Chaos throughout the universe, while Order coalesced into matter, I guess. Chaos, in some sense, is still pissed about things ending up less than chaotic, apparently. (Another old chestnut.)

• In a time before written history, Titans rule the world. They create a mystical sword out of mystical rock, as people are wont to do. (It eventually winds up in the hands of a human, King Parsifal.)

• ~ 20,000 y.a., Antiquity consisted of various human tribes getting along just fine — which is how you know this is fiction — and the planet’s power came from the four Elementals: Salamander (fire) Sylph (wind) Gnome (earth) and Undine (water). [Note: If there had been a “heart” elemental, they could have summoned Captain Planet.]

• At some point, they must have expired, scattering Prisma: shards of their corpses which contain fragments of their power. [The reason for this would be altered to be the Elementals sacrificing themselves to stop Phantom.] The four Elemental Arms are also created from their leftover energy.

• King Palsifal declares war on another nation, or else they declare war on his nation first. During the course of the war, a guardian of the forest, is killed. This drives his wife, formerly the Green Witch, Reptires, mad with grief. She becomes the Dark Witch, being taken over by the malevolent spirit of the Shadow Witch.

• Reptires, holding a grudge against King Palsifal, slays his wife and son. His grief is immense. Failing to stop the royal family's doom, Cyrus - a royal retainer from the East - is defeated and cursed with the form of a frog.

• Over thousands of years, it seems likely that some humans grew closer to nature - growing to resemble beasts (beastfolk) - while others used Prisma to build modern civilization to mimic the cities they’d known prior to the Elementals’ destruction. This caused considerable friction between the humans and beastfolk, the former valuing the power of Prisma and the latter having some innate elemental power.

• ~ 3,000 years before the present, the Ogre Clans - led by Zennon atop Ogre Spike - and the Thunder King make war. The war may well have started when the Thunder King "stole Zennon's girl," Feiona (which I take to mean either Zennon's wife or daughter). Together, they have a son, Alfaldo. (Methinks I know where Feinne and Aldo's respective names derive from.) At some point, Feiona passes away.

• During the course of the war, Alfaldo is slain by the ogre clan. The Thunder King kills Zennon with Palsifal's holy blade. In this moment, the collective rage of the ogres slain that day attach themselves to the king’s sword, possessing it - transforming it into the cursed blade Ogre Rancorem.

• At some point after the war, Ogre Rancorem was placed at the base of the World Tree, turning it into a malevolent plant, for some reason. In response, people build the Dogma Tower was built to prevent the tree from growing above ground and spreading evil.

• 1 AD, the Kingdom of Miglance is founded, apparently beginning the current calendar. Seven kings into the family's reign, we reach the Present Day.

• 300 AD, the Present. I suppose Aldo and Fienne were not originally a part of this era’s original timeline. [In the updated timeline, obviously, The Player Timeline goes down when the Beast King makes off with Feinne.] However, come to think of it, the cat - Sorik - that would be Kyros did wander into an inexplicable portal from that time period. (I guess that really kicked everything time-altering off. Whether that event is part of the Original Timeline, I guess is up to interpretation.)

• ~700 AD, Prisma in general began to noticeably lose power. So, Xeno Prisma was invented 400 years before the Future era. Therefore, it would have been around 700 AD.

• The surface of the planet, now absent working Prisma, loses the ability to sustain enough energy to support civilization, becoming inhospitable for human beings. (What became of the Beastfolk is difficult to say, but it’s hard to imagine they weathered the change well, tied to nature as they were.) Luckily, with Xeno Prisma, humans figure out how to lift islands into the sky. They subsist there amidst the clouds, with increasingly futuristic technology, for about four centuries.

• Xeno Prisma works well for about four centuries, but its synthetic nature meant it was a solution with an end date. And the end date would result in the destruction of all space and time: the Timequake.

• 1100 AD, Geo Prisma, the proposed solution Professor Chronos devised to prevent inherent time-quake set to materialize from Xeno Prisma’s destruction, was invented.

• At some point, Chronos created the Synth Humans as well. He created two prototypes, Galliard and Helena, formerly human lovers. Their memories are wiped in the process.

• Chronos married Professor Madoka and had two children, Eden (EE-den) and Cecile (siss-EEL). Sorik the Cat inexplicably arrived via a wormhole from 300 AD. Chronos names it Kyros and it forms a bond with the family as its pet.

• Eden, and years later, his newborn sister, Cecile, are implanted with Alpha Geo, bits of a prototype of Geo Prisma. Cecile’s bit is developed three years after Eden’s, and is seen as an improvement.

• Despite the professor’s best efforts, the Geo Prisma doesn’t work as planned, and a time warp occurs, (though at least it wasn’t the bigger, universe-ending type). Chronos, his wife, his two children, and his cat are thrown across time and space. (I may be imagining this, but I could have sworn Chronos would later say that the time warp in question was initiated on purpose so that Chronos could go back 20,000 years to study the Elementals directly.)

• If one imagines the original timeline going on after the Chronos family time warp, it must not have lasted too much longer as the Xeno Prisma would have shortly failed and destroyed everything. If not, the timeline ends after the Chronos family exit via the time warp. I suppose it doesn't matter for our purposes.

————— NEW Timeline —————

• Chronos lands in Antiquity, and there sets about his plan to destroy the future timeline in order to prevent the destruction of all space and time. (His wife, Madoka, I don’t know - I think we’re to assume she died, but I highly doubt that.)

• Eden saved Cecile and Kyros, somehow, during the time warp, dooming himself to 16 years of isolation. During that time, he was transformed by chaos (I think) into an evil titan monster: Chronos Menas. You know how it is.

• Cecile and Kyros together arrive in 284 AD, in the Moonlight Forest, and taken in by the Mayor acting as their grandfather — but not before Cecile turns Kyros into a human who resembles her brother, using the power to the Alpha Geo imbeded in her. In doing so, Kyros loses his cat memory, because as every alchemist knows, creation can only come from sacrifice. The Mayor names the boy who resembles Eden “Aldo” and Cecile “Fienne”. (AHL-do and FEE-nay.)

• A few years later, when Fienne is a young girl, she was picking mushrooms in the forest and met Altena - part of the beastfolk royal family - who had sprained her ankle. Feinne healed it with her Alpha Geo powers, and she and Altena become fast friends. Only later, after Aldo had to break up a confrontation between them and some village bullies, are they told to not see one another anymore.

• At some point prior to 300 AD, a young Aldo comes into possession of the corrupted sword Ogre Rancorem. The details are sparse, but apparently the beast within harbors some special hatred for Aldo. Rancorem, unhappy that an alternate version of the holy sword it inhabits exists in this same timeline, decides to play the long game and someday use Aldo to bring Zennon and the other ogres, along with the Thunder King, into this timeline. Why? To make it that the holy sword is destroyed, and, in the process, to have its revenge against the Thunder King.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

{GAMEPLAY BEGINS}

This is the updated timeline, which is to say the series of events from the perspective of Aldo, time-hopping as he does. In other words, from here on, I’m writing about the sequence of events that follows the game’s events as one plays through them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part 1: The Cat Beyond Time and Space

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• It’s 300 AD and Aldo (formerly the cat Sorik/Kyros, now physically an Eden clone) is a guard of the town of Baruoki in the Kingdom of Miglance. Somehow, he has come into possession of Ogre Rancorem, and even though he’s unable to unsheathe it, he takes it with him everywhere. “Cecile,” now going by “Feinne,” doesn’t remember anything from the original timeline, either, owing to her having been an infant during the time hop. Feinne’s role in society is to collect mushrooms and make Aldo lunch.

• Their cat, Varuo, wanders into a random portal (much as Sorik did in the Original Timeline). Aldo follows, meeting the Dream Master at the Gallery of Dreams. He takes this all in stride, considering what a massive discovery it is.

• The Beast King, Guildna, and his henchman, Vares, barge into the Mayor’s house and kidnap Feinne in order to use her dormant power to rule the world. (Somehow! The Mayor is the most powerful fighter in the game! He trains Aldo, afterward! How is no one finding this odd?) Vares breaks some poor guy’s neck during the course of all this, but I guess no one knew the guy because no one mentions him ever again.

• Giving chase, Aldo is easily defeated by Guildna. Needing Aldo alive, Ogre Rancorem awakens in order to defend him. While it is not enough to win outright against Guildna - despite going of far as to awaken the Another Force power - the Beast King spares Aldo “in deference” to Ogre Rancorem.

• After his grandfather, the most powerful character in the game (Hello?), teaches him some fighting techniques, Aldo is accosted by Vares in the Moonlight Forest. Though Aldo wins the duel, Vares summons a couple chimera to hunt him down. Mysteriously, before the monsters can attack Aldo, a portal appears just in time to transport him to safety.

• Prior to Aldo’s arrival in Elzion, things proceed much as they did in the Original Timeline. As a reminder: the Prisma lose their power, the earth spoils, Xeno Prisma is invented and allows humans to exist on floating islands, then Xeno Prisma begins to dangerously lose power around 1100 AD. Professor Chronos and his wife, Professor Madoka, begin to construct Geo Prisma to counteract Xeno Prisma’s world-ending destruction, they put Alpha Geo bits into their children Eden and Cecile, and the whole family - including their cat, Kyros - is sucked into a dimensional vortex.

• After the disappearance of the Chronos family, the Synth Humans, apparently discriminated against and mistreated by regular human meatbags, violently revolt, led by Galliard. Initially, he only targets the human military, and only enough to attempt to force peace talks.

• The Rebellion Circuits - implanted in many Synth Humans by the mysterious Cardinal Vestige - activate and drive Synths mad with rage for humanity. The Cardinal Vestige, a clandestine group with the goal of humanity's survival no matter the cost, initiated the rebellion so that humanity would fight with Synth Humans instead of fighting amongst themselves (as humans are wont to do).

• Though Helena and Galliard were not implanted with Rebellion Circuits, the latter decides to not abandon his chipped comrades. (Galliard and Helena seem to be aware of the inevitable timequake that will occur when Xeno Prisma fails, and perhaps also fight to prevent this, but I'm unsure on that point.)

• Around this time, before or after the rebellion begins, the Administrator is chosen to lead Elzion by a quantum computer.

• During a Synth Human raid in 1090, Amy's mother is killed. Amy, a blacksmith's daughter and bad cook, swears revenge. She eventually becomes the star fighter for humanity.

• In 1100 AD Elzion, Aldo - arriving out of the wormhole from 300 AD - meets both Amy and KMS android Riica. With help from Amy's brilliant friend Sebastia, the granddaughter of KMS's chairman, they go on to defeat the leader of the Synth Humans, Galliard. Helena mourns his death, but chooses not to fight the party, desiring as she always has a peaceful co-existence with humans.

• The future timeline is suddenly erased, along with Amy and everyone else. As Aldo gazes across the ruins of humanity, the Phantom appears and tells him that it’s essential that Aldo travel far back in time to stop someone from accomplishing this destruction. Aldo agrees to do so, and enters the portal that the Phantom generates for him. Little does Aldo know, the Phantom is an agent of Chaos, and they want the deteriorating Xeno Prisma to destroy all of time and space.

• Professor Chronos, working in Antiquity, is the one who has built a quantum computer in order to erase the Future Timeline, thereby preventing the Xeno Prisma from blowing up… at the small cost of the existence of countless thousands of people.

• Aldo and Riica wind up in Antiquity, about 20,000 years ago, and dispel a black miasma controlling the elemental Salamander. The elemental tells the pair that he senses a darkness coming from Palsifal Castle.

• Indeed, the king has lost his wits, having been led astray by the Oracle/Chronos. To reiterate: the professor is working to erase the future in which Xeno Prisma destroys all of space and time. “Difficult problems call for difficult solutions” type, he is.

• King Palsifal won’t hear Aldo out because he wants his wife and kid back, and most likely wants to change the timeline to prevent their untimely deaths at the hand of the crazed witch. He teleports Aldo and Riica to a swamp, where they meet Frog Cyrus, the former human royal retainer who has been transformed an amphibian by the aforementioned witch. He joins the party in order to try and make the king see reason.

• The three head to the Tower of Time, an invention of the Oracle/Chronos, and find it is both a synthetic living organism and the quantum computer mentioned earlier. (“Visus,” it’s called, for some reason.)

• They permanently shut the computer down, ruining the Oracle’s schemes and restoring the Future. The Phantom then reappears and thanks Aldo making things so that the Xeno Prisma can eventually destroy all of time and space, which shocks the party. He also calls Aldo “kit of Chronos,” which everyone takes as the Phantom saying that Aldo is Chronos’s actual kid; the Phantom is in fact being literal and saying the short form of the word “kitten.”

• The Phantom generates another portal, transporting Aldo, Riica, and Cyrus to parts - and times - unknown.

• The party arrive at the Spacetime Rift - specifically, Time’s Forgotten Stop - and meet Master, a mysterious bartender who speaks in riddles, both claiming to know and not know Aldo. He informs them about the pillars of light, effectively portals themselves, and the party use one to travel back to the Present, 300 AD.

• King Miglance tells them that his father (the previous king) and Aldo’s grandfather had “valor” when they were young, confusing Aldo, but the topic quickly becomes that of the invading beastfolk army.

• The party volunteers to take a break from trying to prevent the destruction of all space and time to help guard Miglance. On the way to destroy a scouting party, Aldo and company instead meet Mobecha and Pepori, beast friends of Feinne. They warn Aldo about Ogre Rancorem’s true nature, and the party repels its attack. The Ogre agrees to obey Aldo and reverts back to sword form, which it claims is now at full power for Aldo to command. Not for the last time, everyone is pretty forgiving of the sword trying to kill them, possibly because Another Force is too valuable to give up.

• As the beast army attacks Miglance, the party catches up with Guildna, cornering the Beast King atop the castle. Amy fortuitously arrives to help, having been restored thanks to the party’s adventures in Antiquity. After finally defeating the Beast King, he seems to die. (He disappears in green light, suggesting Alpha Geo interference.). The party then goes, as Aldo says, “back to the future” (™️) to find Professor Chronos.

• Sebastia, a gifted friend of Amy’s, reveals that she knows the Administrator, and is able to secure an audience for the party. The Administrator grants them access to the Xeno-Domain research structure through the Babel Elevator. There, they view a hologram recording left by Chronos and Madoka intended for one, or both, of their children. Since Aldo is effectively a clone of Eden’s, the recording is triggered anyway. (Kyros, in cat form, can also be seen in the picture if you look closely.)

• Upon reaching the Xeno and Geo cores, the Xeno Prototype orb begins to somewhat malfunction. While it is not yet bad enough to trigger the timequake that would end all time and space, it’s bad enough to open three red portals to the Corridor of Time Layer, connecting Antiquity, the Present, and the Future. Professor Chronos appears (somehow!) and asks Aldo - the person he believes to be his son - to travel into the Corridor and use his Alpha Geo to dissipate the timequake. Too bad Aldo has no Alpha Geo within him, as he is not actually Eden.

• The party almost stops the destruction, too, those meddling kids. But the Phantom appears and demonstrates how he’ll just use a spare floating island to create the quake with the tremendous force of its impact.

• The island, transported through time, arrives in Antiquity, but the Four Elementals sacrifice themselves to destroy it, sending pieces of their corpses flying around the world, falling at random. This, in the updated, current timeline, is the reason why Prisma is dispersed across the world.

• However, the Phantom can claim a partial victory, as all this only delayed the destruction of time and space. A Dimensional Vortex forms, and it is only a matter of time before it sends everything into oblivion.

• Having been time-warped to the Future, 5 days pass there, and Aldo stands on a beach like a moody teen, being all defeatist and mopey. Then the Gallery Master shows up and gives him a pep talk, Aldo acting as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Aldo then promptly finds Riica, Amy, and Cyrus and joins them once more.

• They reach the Synth Hydra Riftbreaker airship, newly created by the Synth Humans with leftover Chronos tech, which travels through time. The party is unable to enter it, however.

• Helena, though nominally a pacifist, joins the party. (She fights them first, making an exception due to lingering resentment over Galliard's death, I guess.) She aids them in gaining entrance to the airship.

• Together, they convince the other Synth Humans to join humanity’s cause. (They do this by using the effective, time-tested strategy of beating the shit out of one’s enemies until they see things your way.)

• The gang meets with the Oracle/Chronos who takes them to the Tower of Stars. There, he reveals that he and his family had entered the portal willingly, in an effort to go back to Antiquity to study the Elementals in order to find a solution to the timequake. But a gust of time-wind (time weather is a thing, it seems) arrived en route and blew the family their separate ways.

• However, Chronos just now managed to complete the fruits of his labors: the Geo Metal. The professor’s face was scarred from years of radioactive exposure, and after King Palsifal deals him a fatal blow, he and Aldo get a Vader-Luke moment as he asks his mask to taken off one last time. Also, Palsifal, defeated by the party, dies. (No one seems to care; Cyrus doesn't react, that I recall. Odd.)

• Aldo then receives the Primeval Gem, which is made of remnants of Order or something, and it’s effective against Chaos. But since the Synth Hydra needs time to power it up, and Vares randomly somehow arrives on the airship somehow and invites Aldo to come die trying to rescue his sister (lol ok), they decide to go rescue her.

• At the Beast King’s Castle, after the party arrive in the throne room, Feinne unintentionally starts freaking out due to her Geo Prisma power by collecting the the energy of other worlds. Geo Angurius forms from a union of Feinne and Altena, calling itself the perfect fusion of Geo Prisma and Elemental. But the party mortally wound it, and Altena decides to let Feinne go so that Feinne, at least, can survive. Altena then “dies” the same way as her brother, in a green light, suggesting Feinne’s Alpha Geo powers somehow preserves her.

• Using the Primeval Gem’s power to fuel a cannon blast from the airship, the gang punches a hole through the Dimensional Vortex. The ship can’t quite make it all the way, so the party travels to its core on foot.

• There, they meet Phantom once again, and defeat him (?) in battle. However, the Phantom survives and reveals Chronos Menas, a titan monster who is extremely angsty and made of dark flesh and fire. This gigantic monster uses the Alpha Geo power. But how can that be? His real identity is revealed to be: Eden! (If you’ve been reading all of this from the beginning, you knew that, but remember the first time you found out? Wow!)

• It is revealed that Eden made sure to save his sister (Cecile/Feinne) and his cat (Sorik/Kyros/later Aldo) from the time-wind gust 16 years ago. While his sister and cat ended up in the Present, he was stuck in Chronos’ Umbra - the heart of the Dimensional Vortex - for these past 16 years. There, in the darkness of the abyss, he was driven mad. His imperfect Alpha Geo was further warped in the void, becoming, basically, Chaos.

• Aldo accepts his cat origins fairly quickly, compared to how I would have taken the news. (Side note: if one goes back and watches the game’s initial cutscene, one can - barely! - see Kyros in the bushes behind Cecile’s baby basket. The clues were there the entire time! It is revealed Aldo is both “Another” version of Eden and the titular Cat Beyond Time and Space!)

• The gang rush in and battle Eden, all the while trying to get him to see reason. Eventually, only Aldo (Kyros), Feinne (Cecile), and Eden remain facing each other. Through the power of love and remembrance - and Aldo transforming back into a cat and running full force into Eden - they are able to bring Eden back to his senses. He tells his sister it’s time to give up their Geo Prisma powers, and in doing so they deus ex machina everything back to normal. Also, however, is nowhere to be found. (I wonder where Kyros is now, though,” wonders Amy. “Did he merge with Eden, or what?”)

• In a green flash (Geo Prisma power, seems - Eden’s will, in this case?), Kyros reappears inside the Mayor’s house. He then transforms into Aldo (perhaps also via Eden’s wishes). He and the others to resolve to look for Eden.

~ OGRE WARS (ver. 1.5)

• In 300 AD, after the events of the The Cat Beyond Time and Space, the game devotes itself to something so important that it gets its own version number - 1.5 - but so unimportant that it doesn't amount to version 2.0 ... The Ogre Wars! [Note: I'm told this is because the events were initially to be included in 1.0, but it was decided that would have made The Cat Beyond Time and Space too bloated. I concur.]

• The Mayor tells our heroes (as a refresher: Aldo, Feinne, Amy, Riica, and Helena) that there are rumors of the site of an ancient battle, where eerie screams are heard. The group decide to investigate to see if they can locate clues as to the fate of Eden, Guildna, and/or Altena, all of whom met their supposed ends involved in some ways with Geo Prisma.

• Sure enough, both Altena and Guildna are revived via Feinne's Geo Prisma. Finding it awkward to have a deutero-antagonist with the blood of thousands of people on his hands joining the party, Geo Prisma brings back Guildna in his young adult form - the Guildna that existed at the start of the game’s very first cutscene, in fact. So, prior to his having committing acts of atrocity. (Geo Prisma likely running the same software that turns cats into clones of humans.) It yanks him out of the original timeline just before he meets the infant Feinne. Guildna meets his (now older) sister on Snake Bone Island.

• Ogre Rancorem temporarily frees itself of Aldo's control and opens up a massive portal in the sky. Out descends the Ogres Spike, transported there from about 3000 years ago, prior to the defeat of the Ogres. With them, the human Thunder King and his soldiers, as well - wielding his own version of Palsifal's holy blade. Ogre King Zennon reveals himself, too, though he retreats with his minions. Lastly, Ogres Spike is encased in an impenetrable shield.

• Beneath Miglance Castle, the Mirror (mirror on the wall, as it literally is) recounts the story of Ogre Rancorem possessing the sword of Palsifal around 3,000 years prior... adding the detail that the sword was created out an ancient magical stone by Titans, long vanished from this world. (Weirdly, the king of Miglance has the original, uncorrupted Palsifal blade, despite being from the same timeline when it was transformed into Ogre Rancorem.) The Mirror then tells of the Elemental Arms, ancient weapons connected to the Four Elementals from Antiquity, saying the Ogres had sought them out.

• The party is informed that a huge black-winged monster has been seen on Snake Bone Island. Traveling there, they reunite with Altena and the younger, reformed Guildna, and everyone puts their... edited pasts aside. They also reunited with Vares - revealed to be a smaller, kinder blue dude - and meet his twin sister, Myra. (It appears that the fact Vares snapped an innocent Baruoki man’s neck in Chapter 1 has been forgiven and/or forgotten.)

• Guildna asks Aldo and friends to accompany him to find the island's Genesis Dragon God to acquire a power-up, and they agree. They stop by the former Beast King's castle for a mandatory side quest, and afterward finally arrival at the Dragon God's heart. There, the god's vassal appears and is initially skeptical that Aldo is pure enough to save the world when he wields an evil blade. Aldo proves how pure he is by violently beating the vassal, and is given the power to increase his strength many-fold if he can collect an absurd amount of items by farming dungeons.

• Zennon kidnaps Altena. He tells our heroes to bring him the four Elemental Arms in exchange for her life. (One of these being Guildna's Crimson Blade.) This ends Part 1 of Part 1.5, if you're keeping track.

• Part 2 of Part 1.5 begins with Guildna confirming that his Crimson Blade houses the power of Salamander. Cyrus suggests the group travel back to Antiquity so that they may ask his associate, Dummy, what next to do. Somehow, the group thinks thinks that sounds right, and they depart.

• Cyrus's friend Dummy is - without explanation - literally a straw dummy. It reveals that phantoms of the Elementals can be found at Purgatory. Purgatory is a bardo-ish place in the world one can travel to and talk with dead people, somehow.

• Here's a sentence I never imagined I'd type: A straw dummy transports the team to Purgatory using astral projection.

• In Purgatory, the team fights the spirit remains of the Four Elementals, which is fine thanks for the Elementals saving the universe from annihilation in ver. 1.0. They gather the Four Elemental Arms: Earth Spirit’s Ax, the Wind Spirit’s Lance, the Water Spirit’s Katana, and the Fire Spirit’s Sword.

• Zennon, it turns out, cannot be trusted. While handing over the Elemental Arms, he briefly “frees” Altena only to use her as a biological base for combining the Arms, creating one giant, dark sword. He could kill everyone in an instant, he claims, but he chooses to do the villainous thing and leave the protagonists with time to think of a plan to defeat him.

• Amy has the bright idea to visit Sebastia to see if she has a bright idea. She googles and finds out the Ogre Key. It was at the Macminal Museum, but it was abandoned. Aldo and Amy manage to get it reopened by time-hopping, but “neohumans” Amy used to know, Clughorn and Mildy, steal the key. (Amy dated a guy named… Clughorn?) Neohumans are mutants, in the X-Men sense, with psychic powers.

• The pair of Neohumans hide out in Toto Dreamland, an amusement park. The protagonists confront them and defeat the monster the two channel. Mildy and Clughorn retreat, leaving the Ogre Key. Mildy, remarkably, calls the new Neohuman organization the Chrono Clan.

• The fellow from the Gallery of Dreams shows up out of nowhere and "sharpens" the twin blades wielded by the Thunder King and King Miglance. Also, in secret, he switches the blades. This sort of becomes clear, later.

• Ogre Key in hand, our heroes return to 300 AD to do battle with the ogres. The key disables the forcefield around Ogres Spike, and the combined armies of Miglance and Thunder attack from three sides.

• After avenging the Thunder King's son, Alfaldo (awfully similar name to Aldo), killed years ago in the Thunder King's timeline, Ogre Rancorem takes control of Aldo. The sword-ogre threatens the life of the Thunder King, but Aldo's friends beat him mercilessly until he is freed from its control. Ogre Rancorem promises not to do it again, and everyone is satisfied, somehow.

• Everyone comes together and defeats Zennon, the killing blow struck by the Thunder King. However, as Zennon dies, the souls of the ogres that day slain converge on the Thunder King's sword - it turns into another version of Ogre Rancorem. (Aldo's version does its best to explain the situation.) This way, since the Thunder King's sword remained uncorrupted, they all end up with two Ogre Rancorems instead of three. Follow so far?

• King Miglance gives the Thunder King his own Palsifal's holy blade, uncorrupted as it is, and the Thunder King and his troops return to their own timeline. Since the Thunder King has both the uncorrupted *and* the corrupted version of the same sword, the timeline remains in such a way that both Aldo and King Miglance will someday come into possession of their respective versions of the same weapon in the same timeline.

• Ogre Rancorem apparently planned out the whole thing - summoning the Ogre Spike into our timeline - so that our timeline would be altered to the extent the holy blade of Palsifal would not exist, but things played out differently in the game's timeline, thanks to us. (Aldo: "My head's going to start hurting if I think anymore about this." Mood, Aldo, mood.) Altena is returned to normal.

• Ogre Rancorem sets up a sequel by saying "the Goddess of Time" would soon return and that he'll have need of Aldo when she arrives.

~ EPISODE: The Closed-off Open World and the Azure Rebel (ver. 1.9)

• Leongrantze Figaro San - "Leo" - the youngest company officer at KMS, becomes very bored and decides to put into motion a complicated plan to make business dealings with mysterious forces in an alternate world. (I guess they luckily use the same currency, or else there's an exchange rate that I can't possibly understand.)

• Becoming smitten with Sebastia, the granddaughter of the CEO of KMS, he finds her old school project schematics and begins mass producing... well, it's basically a gundam. He decides that's what he'll sell, but he does so behind the backs of his fellow KMS leaders.

• KMS invents LeA-BAK, a rogue Synth Human created by KMS, modeled on Galliard. Leo enlists it to further his plans by enticing it with rumors of something called the Chronos Report, supposedly filled with secrets Professor Chronos catalogued.

• LeA-BAK contacts Helena. He makes some vague threats and leaves the party to wonder how to proceed.

• Through a series of events that may or may not be directly important to understanding the overall story (I'll update if necessary), our heroes resurrect Galliard and he is informed about all that transpired since his death. This was also orchestrated by Leo in order to possibly locate the Chronos Report.

• Biaka, nominally an agent of the Administrator, is revealed to be working for the Cardinal Vestige, the mysterious masterminds behind the Synth Human Rebellion. Pointing the party towards one of their secret bases, they learn of the plot to obtain the Chronos Report. Though they accept help from the Cardinal Vestige this time, Amy and the rest declare that there will be a reconning with the shadowy group controlling everything from the shadows.

• LeA-BAK is defeated by Leo's gundam, commanded by Leo, who declares his intent to discover the contents of the Chronos Report in order to unlock the "Sealed Garden," using his control of the "Time Layers," whatever that means. However, after dying again, Galliard is resurrected by a kiss from Helena, (...) and saves the party from certain death at the hands of Leo and Sebastia's gundam. Sebastia then destroys about 100 mass-produced gundams - they being based off her schematics, she had included a self-destruct option.

• The party - and LeA-Bak, saved by Galliard and Helena - escapes the building that housed the now-destroyed gundams, and Sebastia is narrowly saved by none other than Leo.

• Despite everything that transpired - world-ending level subterfuge and the attempted murder of the party and all - the pair decide to be on decent terms. (What?) Leo reveals that KMS found out about his schemes but was overall impressed by his boldness. However, they decide to stop attempting cross-time transactions.

• Galliard cryptically mentions "the stars" are at least somewhat in control and that the preceding events have shone light on the mysterious "Over Technology." Meanwhile, LeA-BAK is shown utilizing a wormhole to travel to times unknown.

• 3.81 average gpa
• Volunteer work at a high school for students wanting to go to college
• Volunteer work at a grieving center for people suffering with loss
• student employment as a peer academic advisor
• taken 5 courses from a national academic advising association and got certificates for those
• student employment as a writing tutor
• involved in a leadership honor society
• associate’s degree in liberal arts w/ a concentration in Business and Technology

• 3.81 average gpa
• Volunteer work at a high school for students wanting to go to college
• Volunteer work at a grieving center for people suffering with loss
• student employment as a peer academic advisor
• taken 5 courses from a national academic advising association and got certificates for those
• student employment as a writing tutor
• involved in a leadership honor society
• associate’s degree in liberal arts w/ concentration in Business and Technology