Book 1 of The HEL Jumper
Year 2 of The HEL Jumper
Year 3 of The HEL Jumper
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“You alright? Physically, I mean,” Russell asked as he and Thantis returned to the village alone on the shuttle that had brought them to the Forge. “The old ticker’s not going to give out or anything?”
Thantis blinked a couple times as he extracted himself from the depths of whatever train of thought had occupied him for some time. Needless to say, the trip back had not featured lighthearted education regarding the nature of Mara’s core. “It was certainly a stressful situation, wasn’t it? I thank you for doing all of the heavy lifting, Winters.” He left out the fact that they both knew he’d have been left behind otherwise.
“Don’t mention it. That’s literally the sort of thing I trained to do and you’re lighter than a fellow soldier. Would have been really nice to stick around and take a dip in the hot springs, but something tells me that goes against the new ‘don’t interfere with the planet’ policy.”
‘Not that you didn’t enjoy them to your fullest before the rest of the crew got here,’ Io reminded him with a pointed gaze. Russell cleared his throat and let that particular memory lay dormant.
“A day of rest will be more than enough. But you’re sure everything’s alright on the inside, Thantis?”
“You are kind to ask, Winters. Thankfully, my difficulties at the moment remain in the realm of the mental and spiritual. Much happened that I am having difficulty making sense of.”
“You’re not the only one,” Russell assured him as the shuttle shuddered almost imperceptibly, a friendly reminder that they were traveling through air instead of gliding through space. “At least we didn’t break the place.”
‘On the outside, you mean,’ Io clarified in an agitated tone. She was equally as upset about the day’s events as Thantis. ‘We have no idea if anything is left standing on the inside, not to mention that the robot will likely never re-activate even if the facility didn’t self-destruct or otherwise dangerously terminate its own functions. This is the worst day for science since the Lancer was lost. And that was a very bad day for science!’
“You mean other than the fact that we can get home and tell the rest of humanity what happened here, along with everything else we’ve discovered?” Russell observed sharply. “Let a team of archaeologists deal with it. Later.”
Io, who was using the B-MASS in order to be present for both Winters and Thantis, looked to the side and let out a long breath, acknowledging that the current moment might not have been the best time. ‘Yes, later is a good idea, sir. I think we should all give thanks that we will not be giving Veera or Gentia any reason to weep this evening.’
Russell and Thantis shared a look, agreeing that even if Io’s words were true, that wouldn’t be the end of it. The Jumper cleared his throat. “Yeah, no tears. But that doesn’t mean she won’t be mad as hell.”
“You are forgetting a healthy helping of ‘I told you so’,” Thantis added, finally allowing a real smile to shine through the clouds of his tested faith. “A word of advice, Winters?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Cave early and cave often,” the Cauthan said with a wink, giving Russell a hearty chuckle as Io nodded approvingly. “Among other things, I find that’s been a constructive cornerstone of my long life with Gentia.”
‘While I’m very much in agreement regarding the capitulation to the needs and wants of the important women in one’s life,’ Io began, batting her eyelashes at Russell as though he needed some sort of reminder that she was such a woman. ‘Gentia and Veera may need to wait. I just received word from the Admiral, sir. He’s on his way to the village and intends to meet us there.’
“For what purpose?” Winters asked curiously. Io made a little show of opening a letter and reading the message within.
‘In his words? Examining primary sources.’
-----
True to his word, Natori was there to greet them when Russell and Thantis’ shuttle set down just outside the western gates. Thanks to his arrival there was already plenty of commotion, adding to the hectic Cauthan harvest season as males and females both hustled to and fro in the fields, plucking ripened produce just before the point of spoilage. The tall, ebony skinned human offered his hand to Thantis as the shuttle’s doors opened upward with an audible hiss. “I am glad to see you are well, my friend. Would you believe that our esteemed colleague Qul’Roth sends his regards and wishes you ‘good health in the name of the Order’?”
‘I wouldn’t,’ Io replied immediately, nevertheless allowing Thantis to answer on his own.
“That is very kind of him. If you would convey my thanks when you return?”
“Happily, Thantis. It sounds to me as though the two of you had quite the little adventure. Lieutenant,” the Admiral addressed Russell and the two men exchanged salutes.
“That’s certainly one way of putting it, sir. What can we do for you?” he asked, waving to a villager who called out in greeting as he passed, a wooden tool for unearthing dato in his paws.
“I believe we speak to Antoth first. I admit that I may have spooked him a little by returning to the village so soon after my last departure. All that I could tell him was that something unexpected happened at the Forge, but that the two of you were unharmed. While I wait on the lead researchers and Lance Corporal Mendes to pen their official reports, I figured it might be wise to hear of events the old fashioned way. Shall we?” he suggested, sweeping an arm behind him towards the village. A particular striped Cauthan was, of course, awaiting them there. She was not pleased.
“Ah, perhaps an explanation for your wife is in order too?” Natori suggested, understanding that his presence was likely a significant contributor to Veera’s serious demeanor.
“If it’s the same to you Admiral, I think it’s best I handle this alone,” Russell replied, leaving Thantis’ side and walking up to Veera. She tilted her head slightly to maintain eye contact, her expression one of expectation as she waited for him to begin. “Listen Veera, I know it looks bad but-”
“Did you know that Fenrir’s figured out where all of the meat is stored?” she demanded suddenly, causing Russell to stick his neck out and cock his head in confusion.
“I’m sorry, he what?”
“He found me on patrol this afternoon with a chesko sausage hanging from his mouth and a very pleased expression on his face,” Veera explained, a hand on her hip. “I had to go to the temple of Valta and compensate them!”
“Oh boy. I’m sure Ratha was thrilled,” Russell responded, a nervous pit in his stomach as he considered how much mayhem Fenrir could get up to.
“She’s going to kill him if this continues!” Veera insisted. “Just please tell me you didn’t teach him to do this!”
“Why would I teach Fenrir to steal meat from the one place in town that would get him riddled with arrows?!” Russell demanded, feeling he had some small, slight justification for taking offense.
“Because sometimes you do silly things!” Veera replied as though it were obvious before visibly deflating. “We have to do something, Russell.”
“We will, sweetie. We’ll give him a bit more food at meals and maybe see about keeping some sort of muzzle on him when he’s around town. I can take him hunting again soon too,” the human suggested, silently forgiving his wife her mild hysteria. Ratha’s opinions regarding Veera and hyrven were both well known. His proposal mollified her, and she embraced him to welcome him home.
“I knew everything was alright the moment you and Thantis showed up unharmed. I suppose the Admiral being here means you will have some meeting with Antoth, but I’m glad you’re alright,” she told him. He hummed in her ear and left a quick kiss on her cheek.
“Yeah, things didn’t go as planned but everyone made it out safely. If it’s all the same to you, I think when this is done I’d much rather focus on making sure our pet doesn’t become a pelt,” he replied.
“As long as you admit that I told you so,” Veera said. “That place was obviously nothing but trouble from the very beginning.”
‘Are we going to continue overlooking the part where we can safely travel back to Earth now?’ Io demanded, having observed the married ‘spat’ for long enough. Veera’s eyes widened in surprise.
“We can… you did it?” she gasped.
“I sure as hell didn’t,” Russell clarified quickly. “But something happened that deactivated whatever process was going on in there. Io’s right. The warp point is clear and at some point soon I have to imagine Natori is going to take his ship home.”
Veera found herself caught flat footed by the news, looking down at the earth beneath her feet as a sudden trepidation struck her. They had talked about Russell’s eventual departure many a time over the seasons she’d known him, but it was always a hypothetical, an occasion far down the line. That line seemed soon to end. “So I… have to leave?” she questioned.
“Veera, I need to go meet with Antoth and the Admiral. When I’m done we’ll sit down and have a long talk about this, ok? If things have changed and you really want to stay, there may be a way to do that,” he explained.
“But your family! Your parents!” Veera exclaimed before cutting herself off, noticing Thantis and Natori waiting at a polite distance for them. “You’re right. Please don’t take long.”
“We won’t. Where’s the little troublemaker now?” Russell wondered.
“I sent him off into the forest after his little snatch and grab. So he’ll probably be back for dinner.”
“Count on that hyrven to never miss a meal. Alright love, I’m glad you and he are ok. See you soon?”
Veera took his hands in hers and nodded. “Offer Antoth your guidance, Russell. You are the only human he can trust.”
Though Russell’s first inclination was to protest, he couldn’t help but acknowledge the fact that even someone as forward and open as Natori could possess his own interests and agenda. He hummed low in his chest and agreed with a nod of his head. “I will, Veera.”
-----
“Walk me through it one more time?” Antoth requested, running a hand through the feathers atop his head as he, Thantis, Russell, and Natori were seated within the temple of Kel. Xan was there too, finding himself in the position of scribe as Thantis was an involved party in the Forge incident.
“As I said, Antoth, the Cauthan made from metal visited us while we were exploring the main chamber,” Thantis recounted. “It was clearly female, given the plumage, but how such a thing could possibly exist is beyond me. I am unsure whether it was a servant of Kel, Tyrdus, or neither. While there were many of us there, it chose to approach me specifically and attempted to communicate. I, regretfully, did not understand anything it said to me, either with its voice or its feathers.”
“Yes, I got that part,” the chieftain clarified in a patient tone. “It is what comes afterward that puzzles me.”
“You’re not the only one,” Russell agreed before allowing Thantis to continue the tale from his perspective.
“I attempted to speak to the metal being, requesting information about its nature, which of the gods it served. I believe I mentioned Kel and Meylith specifically, Antoth. When it replied to me it was no clearer than when it first spoke, but I do believe it was a reply instead of some unrelated statement.”
“Because it repeated the word Kel to you,” Antoth finished.
“Precisely. That is when a great many things began happening all at once. Spirit Io tells me that some sort of invisible disturbance began within the Forge, something powerful. The entire place began to shake violently, and the great weapon that the humans believe was causing the corruption plummeted into the abyss below. It was then that the metallic being collapsed. I attempted to revive it, or at least ascertain what had happened but the humans deemed the situation too dangerous at that point. Winters carried me from the facility as I was unable to move fast enough.”
Antoth glanced over at the Jumper. “I find myself in the position of thanking you yet again, Winters. However, given that Thantis would have never been in danger in the first place if not for your discovery, I will not go so far as to say either of us are in your debt.”
“That’s the least of my worries, Antoth, but thank you,” he replied as Natori spoke up.
“Antoth, I believe that certain subjects we have discussed in the past must now be brought to the fore again. While departure is not imminent, as soon as my crew determines we can safely leave your planet we will begin preparing a timetable to do so. Assuming your invitation to my crew regarding your harvest festival still stands, I think it would be a crime to pass up such an opportunity for cultural exchange. Once it is concluded, I cannot envision a scenario where we remain much longer.”
“I understand,” Antoth said, adjusting his posture as he stretched and stood sternly near one of Thantis’ many shelves full of dried herbs and scrolls. “My invitation to your people remains, however I reserve the right to revoke it at any time if I feel there is a need. I think we should table that discussion for another time. Right now I need to ruminate on the situation at hand. Kel refused to open his gate to your people, even Winters, but he did so for his servant among our own. This is… a curious omen.”
Russell shook his head in discomfort as Io began to practically vibrate with excitement, causing a bit of feedback in his earpiece. Having dealt with her, he addressed the two leaders. “Antoth, I’m happy to stay if you wish but I should get home if not. It sounds like Fenrir was up to no good today.”
“I don’t know about it and assuming the situation is under control I’ll be happy not to know about it,” Antoth replied, making it clear in his tone that he expected Winters to exert said control over the situation. “If Thantis and I need to speak with you we will find you.”
“Understood. Admiral Kaczynski, sir?”
The Admiral instead looked at Antoth. “Is there anything else you wished to discuss so long as I am here?”
“The food situation,” Antoth replied immediately, glancing at Xan. Natori nodded.
“I must admit that over the short period of time since we last spoke I have not received any updates myself. However I would be happy to escort Xan or someone else from your village up to the Event Horizon to inspect the current crop personally.”
“Then you should go, Xan. If we will not receive armor or weapons we should at least ensure this food is suitable when grown far from Mara’s soil. Will there be any issues?” he finished on a considerate note.
“No Antoth, I’d be happy to. I should grab a couple of things and let my family know where I’ll be though,” the young scholar explained.
“Very well, you are dismissed.”
“My shuttle will be waiting at the western gate,” Natori advised the young Cauthan. “First Lieutenant, I do not wish to keep you too long but I would appreciate it if you and Io would accompany me that far.”
“Yes sir,” Russell replied, seeing no reason to protest. “Selah, Thantis. Today was quite the adventure.”
“I shall remember it for the rest of my life,” Thantis agreed, his customary demeanor returning as a ‘smile of knowledge’ spread across his muzzle. “And while that may not be a particularly strong statement, I am sure that you will as well. Go in peace, everyone. Selah. Shall we summon the others, Antoth?”
“Not yet. Let us speak privately,” the burly Cauthan requested, indicating that he no longer needed the other three individuals in the temple. Xan packed up the scroll he’d been scribbling on and departed for his family’s home to the north while Russell and the Admiral headed west.
“Is your wife the only Cauthan with an understanding of English?” Natori began.
“So far as I know, sir,” Russell replied in a guarded tone.
“Excellent, then we can dispense with some of the secrecy. What is your opinion on taking this village back to Earth with us?” he wondered. Io was visibly restraining herself from answering for the both of them, but her opinions on the matter were obvious. Russell was more defferential.
“I think that’s a little bit beyond my pay grade, sir. On that subject, however, I need to know if there will be any problems in taking my wife aboard when we leave.”
“Yes well, if we take them all along with us I see no reason she couldn’t come too!” Natori replied in an almost obnoxiously upbeat tone. “The formalities and paperwork will be handled either way in her case, Lieutenant, I assure you. But I do not wish to discuss formalities and rules today. I can do that with men like your father once we return home, and I get the sneaking suspicion there will be quite a few of those conversations. Your gut feelings on the situation will suffice.”
“I’d be worried about them if we left them here and I’d be worried if we took them along, assuming such a thing is even possible and they agree to it” Russell replied. “For every Cauthan like Gentia or Thantis who might jump at the idea, there will be Cauthan like Ratha who will surely object.”
“Undoubtedly,” Natori agreed. “But the conditions are such that they will be forced to answer that question, assuming my staff comes back to me and deems such a mission possible. From a human perspective, it is a clever workaround of many of the objections from our Ghaelen guest, objections that will be more difficult to ignore once he is returned to his people.”
‘Since simply removing the village from existence was his enlightened idea in the first place,’ Io quipped, using vicious air quotes to append the word ‘enlightened’. Natori chuckled heartily, waving cordially to a couple of farmers who looked their way at the noise.
“In defense of Emissary Qul’Roth, I am not sure I want to know what happens to Ghaelen who defy the Order,” Natori suggested. “But per your evaluation, Io, I see no reason not to make it our enlightened decision instead.”
“A decision to do what, exactly? Take them home and just turn them loose in a random city? Keep them in an HEL compound for years?” Russell demanded. Kaczynski stroked his chin.
“I need a shave I believe. And count on the Jumper to immediately identify all the ways in which a situation could go wrong. Before you object, I approve of the approach. Though if you’ve already moved on to that point I presume you would generally be in favor of the translocation?”
Russell organized his thoughts as the two men passed through the central square of the town, considering what it might look like in various settings he’d visited back home. “At least if they came with us and needed help I’d be able to do something.”
Natori looked at Winters out of the corner of his eye. In truth, the Jumper was not used to speaking with people taller than him. An uncomfortable reminder of days gone by being scolded by his father gave way to a desire to see the man again. “May I ask what you were planning to do upon returning to Earth, Lieutenant? If you remain at your current post I’m not sure you would be any more able to aid these Cauthan than if we left them here.”
That feeling of familial absence returned as Winters shook his head. “I didn’t give it much thought when I was aboard the Lancer, sir. Once I was here, worrying about it seemed pointless. I guess now’s the time to think about it again, but life’s already moved past that. Not sure I’ll leave the HEL, but when we get I’m going to turn in my wings, so to speak. The Jumper corps don’t need fathers. Doesn’t mean I’m not proud to have served as one of humanity’s most heavily armed bachelors.”
Natori laughed earnestly at the description. “Children really do change everything, don’t they?”
“You would know far better than I, sir. I’m just making assumptions. I want Veera to come with me, and that if she does I need to come home each night for several reasons. I normally wouldn’t talk to someone like you about these things, but I’m sure you’ll be in charge of accepting or denying that request when the time comes,” he added, trying to keep his tone from being standoffish. Natori seemed to find the comment entertaining, so he figured he’d succeeded.
“Yes I suppose it was a deviation into rather private affairs. You have my apologies, Lieutenant. You and your sister are so different, but I can see your father in the both of you. I cannot make any guarantees, but I will do what I can if you’ve decided that your future lies outside of the Jumper corps. If things play out the way I expect them to, you and I and Io may have a mutual interest in such an arrangement, lest you think I’m somehow trying to play father.”
“Thanks for the assurances, sir,” Russell replied shortly, only broadening Natori’s smile.
“Youth is wonderful, is it not? In any case, you have something like six months to consider these questions, plus however long it takes us to get our affairs in order and depart this planet. With the threat from the alien installation apparently gone, my curiosity as to its nature has only increased.” Natori paused for a moment before snapping his fingers as he remembered something. “I need an after action report from you within the next twenty four hours, Lieutenant. I am aware that you have duties that go a bit beyond those of the average Event Horizon crew member, but given the magnitude of the event you just bore witness to, I need to review evidence from every angle, every perspective. There is no telling what the twenty or so of you might have seen or not seen.”
‘Done,’ Io replied, making a show of procuring the necessary video and audio files along with a written report that literally materialized atop her open palm. ‘Anything else?’
“You’ll let me review it first before it’s sent to the Admiral,” Russell insisted in no uncertain terms. “And later, I want you to make sure Xan is alright when he’s aboard the Event Horizon. Veera and I need to talk things over.”
‘Yes I suppose you do,’ Io agreed, filing away the materials she’d produced for his review. She waved politely at Natori. ‘Admiral, I will speak with you again some other time.’
“A pleasure as always,” he replied before her projection winked away. “Thank you for your time, Lieutenant. I will be fine waiting for the young apprentice before heading back. In the coming days and weeks I hope you will keep in mind that I value your opinion as an expert on the Cauthan, even if I make decisions that conflict with your sensibilities.”
Russell took a moment to think through his reply, knowing well enough that the Admiral was not trying to patronize him. Natori took that time to look up at the gatehouse, nodding appreciatively at the construct of wood and packed dirt. “As long as you aren’t making decisions to appease the Ghaelen, sir, I can’t see myself raising any objections.”
Kaczynski hummed shortly in reply. “Fair enough. You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.”
Winters saluted silently and turned to head off along the road to the north, wondering how many more times he would walk along the rows of crowded homes, blockhouses, and rough drainage trenches.
----
The evening’s dinner preparation was a mostly silent affair. The crackling of firewood and the sound of a knife against wood, vegetables, and meat were comforting as he reviewed the full contents of Io’s report on the Forge incident. Every so often he made annotations, correcting Io’s propensity for flourish and embellishment. It had been a long time since he’d had to deliver such a report, and Io obviously found military language to be boring and trite. Between the two of them they soon had an acceptable product to send up to Natori’s bridge, along with the footage from his helmet cams. Task completed, Winters was free to address the question that had been hanging over both him and Veera for the entire afternoon. She was clearly as eager, or perhaps as nervous, as he, and he found her scrutinizing him from over the cooking pot.
“Hey there, I’m all finished,” he began, standing and moving to her side. “Do you need any help?”
“No, all of the heavy lifting is done. Just need to let it simmer for a while,” she told him, knocking a wooden spoon on the rim of the pot before taking a seat on one of their chairs. He joined her. “Your people will leave soon, and you’ll have to go with them.”
“Yeah, they will,” Russell agreed, taking her hand in his and giving thanks that they wouldn’t be beating around the bush. “I do want to go back, Veera. I haven’t seen my parents or my two other siblings for…”
Veera watched as her mate fell silent, his face looking far older than his actual age of twenty five as he counted the months. “It’s been too long, hasn’t it?” she asked compassionately.
“The Admiral managed to get them here in about three months, but I don’t think he would push things that hard on the return trip. All told, even if we left tomorrow and didn’t make any detours, it would probably be more than two years total by the time I get home. And for at least half of that time they’ll have lived without knowing whether I’m alive or dead.”
“It was clearly very hard for Alice,” Veera agreed, recalling the tearful scene from the bridge of the Event Horizon. “And she got to see you long before they will. You know I’ll still go with you, my love.”
“I know,” he affirmed, looking at the flames as they licked at the blackened exterior of the pot that had served them well for many months. “But I know things have changed here too. I know there’s a lot you would leave behind now so… I think we should talk.”
“About what, Russell?” she inquired. “I’m happy to talk about anything with you. We even vowed to do so in sight of the Mother, but it sounds like our path is already set.”
“Maybe, but when we get to Earth things need to change,” he explained. “I can’t… I won’t get sent off on another mission like this. Even if you weren’t pregnant there would be a question, you know? But now there’s no way I want you following me around on military ships, and no way I’m going to leave you after you give birth. So… I’m going to have to figure something else out. Even cabins in the mountains don’t build themselves, and the life of a recluse isn’t the sort of thing I’d want for our kids.”
To Russell’s surprise, Veera purred and nuzzled his cheek. She teased him gently. “Look at you trying to plan out our entire lives. I would never say no to you being in less danger.”
Russell placed an arm around her shoulder and rested his head against hers. “Is there a ‘but’ in there somewhere?”
“I was trying to be accommodating,” Veera pointed out. “But I would feel awful if you gave up something important on account of my pregnancy. It’s not like we planned for this.”
“No, we didn’t,” he agreed seriously, sitting up in his seat and rubbing the back of his neck. “But that doesn’t change the fact. Besides, there aren’t many people who remain soldiers forever. Even people like my father eventually take non-combat roles and desk jobs. It might not go exactly the way we expect, but I’m sure I can work something out within the HEL if the civilian life just isn’t for me.”
“Then it sounds like we don’t have much to worry about in terms of our family,” Veera summarized in a relieved tone before casting a glance at their entryway. “I will miss them, though.”
Russell exhaled and looked over at Io, taking up her usual perch at the foot of their bed. He raised his brows at her and she shrugged in return. “I might as well ask your opinion on it then,” he said.
“On what?”
“This is something Io and I have been thinking about for a while but never with any seriousness. Apparently Alice started thinking the same way and made a proposal to both Natori and Antoth the last time the two of them met.”
“Is that where you were called to?” Veera wondered quietly, taking a spoonful of stew and blowing on it until it was cool enough to taste. Satisfied with the blend of flavors, she grabbed two wooden bowls and began serving them both. “What is it that Alice was contemplating?”
“From the sound of it, taking you and every single Cauthan in this village back home with us to Earth isn’t a flight of fancy,” Russell explained. Veera paused with a ladle full of stew halfway between the kettle and her bowl.
“I- what? Is such a thing even possible?” she demanded aghast. Russell nodded, propping up one ankle on the opposite knee.
“Way I understand it, the Event Horizon is running with a skeleton crew, at least so far as non-military personnel are concerned. When they learned they were coming after me, that my ship had been lost, a lot of people who could chose to stay behind. There’s plenty of space so long as your people can handle space travel. Obviously we’ve already experimented with that a bit.”
“But why would they take us in the first place?” Veera asked suspiciously. “Here, eat while it’s hot.”
“Smells wonderful, thank you,” Russell replied, making sure to take a large bite and savor it for her edification before going on to explain some of the reasons humanity might see a vested interest in taking her village along. “From what I can tell it would actually resolve a sticking point with the Ghaelen regarding human influence on the village. The other reason, honestly, is that we want to.”
“And when we can no longer feed or clothe ourselves because we have left Mara we will be at your mercy,” Veera pointed out suspiciously. Io felt the need to step in at that point.
‘That is true, Veera. However what humanity can offer you in exchange would far exceed what you would lose. Imagine a world where one Cauthan, in someone like Anita’s position, could grow enough food to feed the whole village!’
“That sounds like a good excuse to sit around and grow lazy and fat, just like Vash,” Veera spat. Io recoiled indignantly as Russell waved his spoon her way.
“She’s got a point there, you know. Hey boy, get over here and sit! I heard you were bad today!” Russell commanded, distracted as none other than Fenrir chose that moment to arrive home, having no doubt followed the smells of cooking fires throughout the village. He ruffled the hyrven’s fur roughly before providing him with a plate of pre-cut chesko meat. It was a bit bourgeois to cut their pet’s steak, he knew, but both he and Veera considered bite sized pieces preferable to Fenrir flinging his dinner about the house like a barbarian intent on painting the walls red.
‘Now that the beastie has his dinner and I can defend myself, I can tell you that many humans choose to work jobs like those found at the temples of Tyrdus or the Twins, making things instead of growing things. That might not be a difficult transition. Even more choose to live like Thantis or Alice, devoting their lives to knowledge and its pursuit. And yes, per your conversation with Russell all the way back when you first met, there are some who engage in creating pornographic material and every other profession in between. Based on the amount of garbage I’ve scrubbed from the Event Horizon’s intranet there will be a market for Cauthan smut when we return to Earth one way or another, but I’d rather space my main processors than ruminate on that for too long. You are right, Veera. Being lazy, indolent, and fat is a temptation when you live in a land of plenty, but I think it is better than starvation, death by raider, succumbing to treatable illnesses, or freezing to death.’
“Not to mention there are plenty of human communities who prefer to keep to what they consider to be the ‘old ways’,” Russell added. “I’m not saying anyone’s given the logistics serious thought, but the idea is out there now and it’s not just me and Io who would want to see you all paid back for letting me live here and keeping me alive.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that we would be giving up our freedom and putting our lives in your hands, Russell,” Veera pointed out. “I choose to do so on account of our bonds of marriage and because I consider you to be a male who does not think in such terms. That doesn’t mean that this village will be treated the same way.”
Russell was unable to brush her concerns away, knowing that he was far from the most senior HEL individual in the system anymore. He didn't foresee any issues with the Admiral honoring the union he shared with Veera, but he hadn't exactly married the rest of the village. "I know, but it's not like Io or I would abandon them. I'm not worth much, honestly, but you've seen what Io can do when she doesn't get what she wants."
'I resent that,' she told him. 'You act as though I saw the Event Horizon and thought give me the shiny ship.'
Russell and Veera looked at Io quietly, chewing over tenderized pieces of chesko. She eventually backtracked. ‘Well don’t blame me for having the ability to do both at once! Besides, it’s not even that shiny.’
Veera laughed pleasantly as she reached over to scratch Fenrir between the ears. Between the slowly waning cooking fire and his dinner the hyrven was already headed for dreamland. “I appreciate the sentiment, Io. I know that you and Russell would not abandon us, but that will not make it any easier, especially for people like Ratha and Antoth.”
“That’s a bit of an understatement. I wouldn’t be surprised if it proved necessary to drag Ratha kicking and screaming into a shuttle,” Winters added, finding the image amusing. “Ah well, like I said it’s really not a decision that any of us get to make. I just wanted your perspective. I guess it’s probably a scary concept more than anything.”
“Yes, it is,” Veera agreed quietly. “And unlike me, they do not have someone like you to lean on.”
“Fair enough. Hopefully we can get a few set up like Xan, familiarize themselves with the ship at least. Sounds like Natori could use help and you all have five fingers, an opposable thumb, and are of approximately human height,” Winters reasoned. “Speaking of which, why don’t you head on up, Io. He should be aboard already. I think we’re just going to clean up dinner here.”
Veera waved her feathers in understanding as Io nodded and killed her projection. ‘I suppose I could check back in on my various VI monitoring subroutines as well. As you say sir. I will return later tonight.’
-----
“By Kel this place is big,” Xan complained, walking through corridor after corridor aboard the Event Horizon. He’d returned to his normal weight so he figured he had to be somewhere close to his destination, but with every turn he only seemed to find yet another sign featuring vibrant green and yellow symbols showing him the way to the hydroponics bays. The Cauthan let out an audible groan of relief when he stepped into a larger hallway and found a sizable green arrow pointing at a set of bulkheads several times his size. He could not yet read the human runes painted within it, but he recognized the location well enough. Clearing his throat and composing himself he walked up to the doors and made to knock, but found his plans foiled as they simply opened on their own and a synthesized, female voice faintly reminiscent of Io’s own welcomed him to the hydroponics bay. “Hey, Anita?” he called out, facile enough with English to use at least one word. He smiled as she poked her head around the corner of the door to her office, her long ponytail hanging most of the way to the floor from her seated position. She was confused to see him, which confused him in turn.
“X-Xan?” she stuttered. “What are you um, doing here?”
The Cauthan leaned heavily on his cane, putting two and two together before letting out a long sigh of realization and clicking a talon on the floor. “You know, if you’d prefer to work for someone who doesn’t enjoy surprises, Antoth would be happy to have you if you can grow food for us. He’s a similar color too, so that wouldn’t be much of a change, right? He wanted me to check in and see how things are going up here. Guess Natori didn’t give you a warning?”
“No, he didn’t,” Anita confirmed quietly, unsure whether to find humor in the idea of working for Antoth or trying to explain to Xan that it was the height of rudeness to remark on someone’s skin color in such a way. In the end she sat in silent embarrassment as her stomach betrayed her and growled audibly. Even with his mangled left ear Xan was able to pick up on it just fine.
“I have a place to sleep up here so maybe let’s get food first? Not like I’m in a rush or anything. Well, I actually can’t rush much of anywhere these days,” he quipped, pointing to his gimped leg. “I don’t really know my way around so… or was I interrupting something?”
Anita couldn’t bring herself to say no, so instead she zipped up her jumpsuit, grabbed her tablet, and ensured the automated subroutines were all green before tucking her chair neatly away at her desk. “So, ah, how have you been, Xan?” she asked politely, leading the way from her usual haunt to the hallways that would take them to the civilian canteen. The Cauthan kept a sure pace, his cane accentuating his progress. He chuckled to himself as he summed up the events of the prior cycle in one word.
“Busy.”
-----
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The leader of the fivefold-envoy, this Taebon who should tower over me but can't, really, not with a dragon standing at my shoulder, he looks down at me and straight across at Hope and slowly nods. "A lot to discuss."
His echo of my words doesn't seem directed anywhere in particular, sort of just thrown into the collective thought of the ten people in the room. Nine humans, one dragon. And all those men and women with slings up above, but I don't think they'll be needed now.
"Yes," I say, and glance aside. Hope catches my eye, and I feel a flood of warmth. Good. I can do this, I can go on. "We were in the middle of a council meeting when you arrived. Listen, I know the usual thing would be to find a private room and talk things over, just the ten of us, but this isn't a usual time, and I think this all needs to be done in the clear view of all our people."
Taebon looks at me a long moment, his big dark eyes appraising now that the shock has worn off. "You're taking them to war, aren't you? Official leader or not. And something this big, that's going to mean you're taking all of humanity to war, or at least those of us who live in the ruins here. And I do mean 'at least,' there's a good chance this will spill out beyond the old city limits, far far beyond. The fey aren't just going to ignore a…" he trails off a moment, incredulity pushing a slightly choked chuckle past his lips, "...a dragon, an actual functioning fighting dragon. It's going to be...Hells, I don't know. Something we've never seen before, not in centuries at least."
A murmur of assent from behind him. There's no hostility in it, no hostility in his words either, just fact and reasonable caution and the awareness of the enormity here, the lines that have maybe already been crossed forever, the lines we'll almost certainly sprint past in the near future.
"Yes," I say, and again I'm surprised at the calm in my own words, the certainty. Maybe I've been thinking more about this in the back of my mind than I fully saw, here in the front of my mind where I admit things. "It's going to be war. I don't claim to be some kind of expert on what that will mean, for all of us, but I've studied the past maybe as much as anyone alive. It's how I found Hope. It's at least partly how I hope we'll survive all this, have some kind of future. Knowing the old mistakes, and not repeating them."
"Hmm." Taebon sighs out the sound after a deep breath and an even longer pause. "You're right, we all should hear this. First of all, though, we have to ask: is this place entirely...safe? Our scouts didn't see anything from near the perimeters, but a place like this…"
He doesn't need to finish. I glance back at Hope, and she hears me, answers.
Facility is free of detectable Otherwhere presence. Cannot guarantee full safety in other respects. Area no longer technically Torn but has been since before war's-end. Military facility, abandoned mid-use, much that is hazardous likely still present.
A measure of tension leaves Taebon's broad shoulders, and he gives a careful nod. "We know how to handle the dangers of old abandoned machinery, so long as the...other things have been entirely taken care of."
With respect, facility is not like other ruins most familiautilized by current human groups. Subjective time elapsed since Collapsing War substantially shorter than any location those present are likely ever to have visited. Believe risk to be acceptable, given clear potential reward, still, heavy caution advised.
A long silence at that.
"I suppose we'll have to make sure Hope is always present when a new building is opened," I say. But we should discuss all this when—"
Apologies. Should clarify immediately, believe this would be unwise.
I blink, and look back at Hope, who is indeed wearing what I can only describe as an apologetic smile.
Do not wish to sound selfish, but DRAGON unit is not replaceable asset. Possibility of automated base defenses. DRAGON unit far from helpless against ancient human weapons, but primarily designed as anti-magic weapon. Would remind that DRAGON until predecessors were destroyed by human weapons stolen and used by fey.
She doesn't sound afraid, just matter-of-fact. I wonder fleetingly whether she's capable of real fear. Probably? Maybe? At least she's got some healthy self-preservation going on.
"We'll have you train us on procedures for opening new areas, then," I say, and she bows in assent.
One of the women standing behind Taebon steps forward slightly and speaks. "Do you have enough, ah, safe areas within the compound to hold all of us for now?"
I glance right as I sense a flicker of movement. It's Kether, moving to answer her. "That depends. How many of you are there?"
The members of Taebon's fivefold-envoy turn in toward each other. "It's been a while since our last full count," Taebon says, "but we've got about twenty-two hundred people in total."
I stare, and I can almost feel three other stares coming from behind me, and from Hope a sort of surprise at our surprise. I suppose a group of over two thousand humans might not sound like all that many, to her.
Another movement, this time to my left. Paunea's voice. "That's...how have you managed that? How long have you all been together?"
Taebon shrugs. "Generations. As long as we can really remember. There's another heavily-Torn place a few miles northwest of here, up the rise. High walls, with guard towers. The fey haven't come anywhere near it in living memory. That's where we've been. We send out trade delegations sometimes, always composed of people with the will and skill to lie consistently and effectively. And we do take in newcomers from time to time, we're not totally isolated."
"But isolated enough that you can ignore the Rule of Nine," I say.
They all nod, solemn and maybe a bit proud. With good reason; the fey are fond of draconian measures for most things to begin with, but the population limit of nine hundred ninety-nine humans in any one place is enforced with especially vicious zeal. If there are "too many", they will reduce your number by killing the youngest women of childbearing age until the population is "safely satisfactory" and unlikely to "reoffend." And "too many" doesn't have to actually mean more than the literal Rule of Nine dictates, just not "safely satisfactory."
Most human groups don't dare pass five hundred.
Voice on my right. Kether again. "Forgive me for saying so, then, but are you sure you know what you're getting into here, with the fey, if you've not had real contact with them in so long?"
They all look at each other again, and the same woman who spoke before says, "We remember the old stories well enough. And we hear new ones from our trade delegations. And the central buildings of our camp are full of horrors that keep the fey away, yes, but are also a constant reminder. The whole place is a constant reminder. We live in fear. We're tired of it. We have been for as long as we can remember, generations past."
I feel a frown form on my forehead, press itself into my lips, followed by a thought I can't quite grasp. I ask the closest question I can come up with.
"What exactly was your homestead, before? Do you know?"
Taebon inclines his head. "Yes. An internment camp."
"For humans?" Paunea asks from behind me. "After the war was lost?" There were plenty of those, from what the stories say, thought they're usually called "death camps" rather than "internment," and for what seem like very good reasons. And I've never heard of one that was Torn, that all happened during the war, not after it.
"No." The woman again, her voice flat and serious. "For fey. That's why it's Torn, we think, and why none of the Extrusions ever venture outside the central buildings. That's where the human guards were, so that's where the Fey bound their Othermancy."
This is extraordinary. Hope's voice contains a touch of cautious curiosity. Othermancy is/was almost always desperation measure to at least some extent, and not known for precision/easy control. Must have been improbably lucky in this instance.
The woman shakes her head. "Not quite. We had to clear away some...remains that were...had been...clearly fey, at some point. I suppose whoever actually, ah, did the Tearing must have thought that an acceptable risk, and then sealed up the, ah, excess afterward." The pauses in her speech sound strange, almost unfamiliar to her, as though this is one of the few subjects able to make her stumble like that.
I put a hand on Hope's neck, feeling her small smile in my head as my gaze tends up toward the ceiling, thinking before I speak.
"How long ago must that have been? Clearing away the remains, I mean, if you've been there such a long time?"
All but one of them, the one other man besides Taebon, grimace.
"Before my time," says the man, who does look quite a bit younger than the others, "but not before theirs. Back when there were fewer of us, we simply avoided those parts of the outer camp. But we needed more room for hydroponics pots, so…" He shrugs.
"Okay." I don't know what else to say, and it does seem totally inadequate, maybe a bit dismissive though I don't think there's any of that in my tone. "We're all going to have a lot of stories to trade and a lot of organizing to do. I suppose we should get to the question, though, the one that really matters: are you willing to join us? Can you speak for all of you?"
I can feel that question teeter at the peak of some impossible height above us, threatening to fall one way or another, promising some kind of immense impact no matter where it lands.
Taebon slowly shakes his head, and I breathe in, waiting to hear exactly what he means by it. "We can't promise it will be all of us. We can't speak for all of them. But we're the fivefold-envoy that was agreed upon, and I think our decision will be accepted by most. Nearly all, I hope. Some may stay, though I can't imagine how long that will last." He smiles—a thin, grim thing—then continues.
"We can promise you this, though: whoever does decide to stay back at the camp, they'll never leave again, any of them, unless it's to join us here. On pain of death. It's harsh, but that's the price to be paid. We can't make them come, but we can't let them endanger the rest, either."
I let out a small amount of breath that feels like it's been held in my lungs for about a century. "So the answer is yes."
Taebon glances at the rest of his fivefold-envoy. They say nothing. He turns back to me. "We agreed before we came that if the reports were true, we'd ask to join you, unless we found some truly momentous reason not to. We haven't." He shrugs, laughs, lingering disbelief in his voice. "This is madness, we know it. I think you know it too. But it would be a greater madness to think we could stay away and outside of it."
"We're pleased to welcome you," I say, and I know I have no real right to it, to the welcome, to the decision, but here I am with Hope right behind me and I'm doing it anyway, and if they accept it, accept me, accept us, me and Hope, I suppose it doesn't matter how things used to be.
But it's terrifying, and it feels absurd, arrogant. Audacious. But I could maybe say the same things about the years-long search that resulted in the warm dragon-scales now under my fingers, and here I am, welcoming them, like I do have the right.
Here I am, and no one is doing anything to stop me.
"Thank you for your welcome," Taebon replies, and he holds out his hand to me, just like Hope did to him. I take it, warm and rough and slightly sweaty, shake, let it fall away.
"We're going to have to figure out how to organize all these people," I say, and I want to laugh and cry and maybe turn back time, if I could, find some way out of being who I need to be here and now.
"Yes," he says, looking at me, something I can't quite read in his eyes. "We'll send for them, and as you said at the beginning, this will be done in the clear view of all our people. We'll work out how to put our peoples together, but I have to say: standing beside a dragon as you are, standing beside your Hope, it's you they're going to want to follow. For better or worse."
He pauses, and this time holds his hand out to Hope, who offers a claw in hand, and he shakes it. "I, for one, dare to hope for better. You and your Operator both carry a lot on your shoulders, Dragon Hope."
~
Come on by Magleby for other elaborate lies
Looking for a long finished story? Here, have a novel.

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​
The leader of the fivefold-envoy, this Taebon who should tower over me but can't, really, not with a dragon standing at my shoulder, he looks down at me and straight across at Hope and slowly nods. "A lot to discuss."
His echo of my words doesn't seem directed anywhere in particular, sort of just thrown into the collective thought of the ten people in the room. Nine humans, one dragon. And all those men and women with slings up above, but I don't think they'll be needed now.
"Yes," I say, and glance aside. Hope catches my eye, and I feel a flood of warmth. Good. I can do this, I can go on. "We were in the middle of a council meeting when you arrived. Listen, I know the usual thing would be to find a private room and talk things over, just the ten of us, but this isn't a usual time, and I think this all needs to be done in the clear view of all our people."
Taebon looks at me a long moment, his big dark eyes appraising now that the shock has worn off. "You're taking them to war, aren't you? Official leader or not. And something this big, that's going to mean you're taking all of humanity to war, or at least those of us who live in the ruins here. And I do mean 'at least,' there's a good chance this will spill out beyond the old city limits, far far beyond. The fey aren't just going to ignore a…" he trails off a moment, incredulity pushing a slightly choked chuckle past his lips, "...a dragon, an actual functioning fighting dragon. It's going to be...Hells, I don't know. Something we've never seen before, not in centuries at least."
A murmur of assent from behind him. There's no hostility in it, no hostility in his words either, just fact and reasonable caution and the awareness of the enormity here, the lines that have maybe already been crossed forever, the lines we'll almost certainly sprint past in the near future.
"Yes," I say, and again I'm surprised at the calm in my own words, the certainty. Maybe I've been thinking more about this in the back of my mind than I fully saw, here in the front of my mind where I admit things. "It's going to be war. I don't claim to be some kind of expert on what that will mean, for all of us, but I've studied the past maybe as much as anyone alive. It's how I found Hope. It's at least partly how I hope we'll survive all this, have some kind of future. Knowing the old mistakes, and not repeating them."
"Hmm." Taebon sighs out the sound after a deep breath and an even longer pause. "You're right, we all should hear this. First of all, though, we have to ask: is this place entirely...safe? Our scouts didn't see anything from near the perimeters, but a place like this…"
He doesn't need to finish. I glance back at Hope, and she hears me, answers.
Facility is free of detectable Otherwhere presence. Cannot guarantee full safety in other respects. Area no longer technically Torn but has been since before war's-end. Military facility, abandoned mid-use, much that is hazardous likely still present.
A measure of tension leaves Taebon's broad shoulders, and he gives a careful nod. "We know how to handle the dangers of old abandoned machinery, so long as the...other things have been entirely taken care of."
With respect, facility is not like other ruins most familiautilized by current human groups. Subjective time elapsed since Collapsing War substantially shorter than any location those present are likely ever to have visited. Believe risk to be acceptable, given clear potential reward, still, heavy caution advised.
A long silence at that.
"I suppose we'll have to make sure Hope is always present when a new building is opened," I say. But we should discuss all this when—"
Apologies. Should clarify immediately, believe this would be unwise.
I blink, and look back at Hope, who is indeed wearing what I can only describe as an apologetic smile.
Do not wish to sound selfish, but DRAGON unit is not replaceable asset. Possibility of automated base defenses. DRAGON unit far from helpless against ancient human weapons, but primarily designed as anti-magic weapon. Would remind that DRAGON until predecessors were destroyed by human weapons stolen and used by fey.
She doesn't sound afraid, just matter-of-fact. I wonder fleetingly whether she's capable of real fear. Probably? Maybe? At least she's got some healthy self-preservation going on.
"We'll have you train us on procedures for opening new areas, then," I say, and she bows in assent.
One of the women standing behind Taebon steps forward slightly and speaks. "Do you have enough, ah, safe areas within the compound to hold all of us for now?"
I glance right as I sense a flicker of movement. It's Kether, moving to answer her. "That depends. How many of you are there?"
The members of Taebon's fivefold-envoy turn in toward each other. "It's been a while since our last full count," Taebon says, "but we've got about twenty-two hundred people in total."
I stare, and I can almost feel three other stares coming from behind me, and from Hope a sort of surprise at our surprise. I suppose a group of over two thousand humans might not sound like all that many, to her.
Another movement, this time to my left. Paunea's voice. "That's...how have you managed that? How long have you all been together?"
Taebon shrugs. "Generations. As long as we can really remember. There's another heavily-Torn place a few miles northwest of here, up the rise. High walls, with guard towers. The fey haven't come anywhere near it in living memory. That's where we've been. We send out trade delegations sometimes, always composed of people with the will and skill to lie consistently and effectively. And we do take in newcomers from time to time, we're not totally isolated."
"But isolated enough that you can ignore the Rule of Nine," I say.
They all nod, solemn and maybe a bit proud. With good reason; the fey are fond of draconian measures for most things to begin with, but the population limit of nine hundred ninety-nine humans in any one place is enforced with especially vicious zeal. If there are "too many", they will reduce your number by killing the youngest women of childbearing age until the population is "safely satisfactory" and unlikely to "reoffend." And "too many" doesn't have to actually mean more than the literal Rule of Nine dictates, just not "safely satisfactory."
Most human groups don't dare pass five hundred.
Voice on my right. Kether again. "Forgive me for saying so, then, but are you sure you know what you're getting into here, with the fey, if you've not had real contact with them in so long?"
They all look at each other again, and the same woman who spoke before says, "We remember the old stories well enough. And we hear new ones from our trade delegations. And the central buildings of our camp are full of horrors that keep the fey away, yes, but are also a constant reminder. The whole place is a constant reminder. We live in fear. We're tired of it. We have been for as long as we can remember, generations past."
I feel a frown form on my forehead, press itself into my lips, followed by a thought I can't quite grasp. I ask the closest question I can come up with.
"What exactly was your homestead, before? Do you know?"
Taebon inclines his head. "Yes. An internment camp."
"For humans?" Paunea asks from behind me. "After the war was lost?" There were plenty of those, from what the stories say, thought they're usually called "death camps" rather than "internment," and for what seem like very good reasons. And I've never heard of one that was Torn, that all happened during the war, not after it.
"No." The woman again, her voice flat and serious. "For fey. That's why it's Torn, we think, and why none of the Extrusions ever venture outside the central buildings. That's where the human guards were, so that's where the Fey bound their Othermancy."
This is extraordinary. Hope's voice contains a touch of cautious curiosity. Othermancy is/was almost always desperation measure to at least some extent, and not known for precision/easy control. Must have been improbably lucky in this instance.
The woman shakes her head. "Not quite. We had to clear away some...remains that were...had been...clearly fey, at some point. I suppose whoever actually, ah, did the Tearing must have thought that an acceptable risk, and then sealed up the, ah, excess afterward." The pauses in her speech sound strange, almost unfamiliar to her, as though this is one of the few subjects able to make her stumble like that.
I put a hand on Hope's neck, feeling her small smile in my head as my gaze tends up toward the ceiling, thinking before I speak.
"How long ago must that have been? Clearing away the remains, I mean, if you've been there such a long time?"
All but one of them, the one other man besides Taebon, grimace.
"Before my time," says the man, who does look quite a bit younger than the others, "but not before theirs. Back when there were fewer of us, we simply avoided those parts of the outer camp. But we needed more room for hydroponics pots, so…" He shrugs.
"Okay." I don't know what else to say, and it does seem totally inadequate, maybe a bit dismissive though I don't think there's any of that in my tone. "We're all going to have a lot of stories to trade and a lot of organizing to do. I suppose we should get to the question, though, the one that really matters: are you willing to join us? Can you speak for all of you?"
I can feel that question teeter at the peak of some impossible height above us, threatening to fall one way or another, promising some kind of immense impact no matter where it lands.
Taebon slowly shakes his head, and I breathe in, waiting to hear exactly what he means by it. "We can't promise it will be all of us. We can't speak for all of them. But we're the fivefold-envoy that was agreed upon, and I think our decision will be accepted by most. Nearly all, I hope. Some may stay, though I can't imagine how long that will last." He smiles—a thin, grim thing—then continues.
"We can promise you this, though: whoever does decide to stay back at the camp, they'll never leave again, any of them, unless it's to join us here. On pain of death. It's harsh, but that's the price to be paid. We can't make them come, but we can't let them endanger the rest, either."
I let out a small amount of breath that feels like it's been held in my lungs for about a century. "So the answer is yes."
Taebon glances at the rest of his fivefold-envoy. They say nothing. He turns back to me. "We agreed before we came that if the reports were true, we'd ask to join you, unless we found some truly momentous reason not to. We haven't." He shrugs, laughs, lingering disbelief in his voice. "This is madness, we know it. I think you know it too. But it would be a greater madness to think we could stay away and outside of it."
"We're pleased to welcome you," I say, and I know I have no real right to it, to the welcome, to the decision, but here I am with Hope right behind me and I'm doing it anyway, and if they accept it, accept me, accept us, me and Hope, I suppose it doesn't matter how things used to be.
But it's terrifying, and it feels absurd, arrogant. Audacious. But I could maybe say the same things about the years-long search that resulted in the warm dragon-scales now under my fingers, and here I am, welcoming them, like I do have the right.
Here I am, and no one is doing anything to stop me.
"Thank you for your welcome," Taebon replies, and he holds out his hand to me, just like Hope did to him. I take it, warm and rough and slightly sweaty, shake, let it fall away.
"We're going to have to figure out how to organize all these people," I say, and I want to laugh and cry and maybe turn back time, if I could, find some way out of being who I need to be here and now.
"Yes," he says, looking at me, something I can't quite read in his eyes. "We'll send for them, and as you said at the beginning, this will be done in the clear view of all our people. We'll work out how to put our peoples together, but I have to say: standing beside a dragon as you are, standing beside your Hope, it's you they're going to want to follow. For better or worse."
He pauses, and this time holds his hand out to Hope, who offers a claw in hand, and he shakes it. "I, for one, dare to hope for better. You and your Operator both carry a lot on your shoulders, Dragon Hope."

Hi rpa,
I wrote a short mini-guide for companies getting into RPA (it's for a side project of mine).
I'd love your feedback! What did I miss, did I get something wrong? I'm especially interested in hearing about (public?) cases studies that didn't go so well, as I want my piece to cover both sides of the story. I intend to keep this piece relatively short, so obviously I cannot include everything.
Text includes links to other resources which are not mine, but intended for those who want to dig in more!
---

A mini-guide to RPA for businesses

​
Why do we need automation to start with?

• People are best suited for collaboration, creative tasks and decision-making. When performing mundane and repetitive tasks we are slow, make mistakes and get bored.

​
How does RPA help?

• Automate the routine digital tasks with software robots. Free up precious time for doing more work with added value.

​
How can we get started?

• Adapt automation to your mindset. Start a habit to look for tasks that are repetitive, high-volume, rule-based and prone to human error.
• Start low-risk, start small. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) provides this approach. Integrating existing software systems might be expensive or even impossible. RPA fills the gap especially when it comes to legacy system interactions.
• Apply this 4-step approach:

1. Start to automate micro-tasks first. The simpler, the better.
2. Look for processes where you can gain a lot of value by automating.
3. Map out the processes step-by-step. Then create the automations and test them.
4. Measure results. See if the initial ROI justifies larger investments.

• Decide whether you want to go the commercial or the open-source route (see Tools-section below).
• Remember also scripting, macros) and APIs. RPA is just one of the tools in the automation stack.

​
Tools
Commercial

• UiPath
• Blue Prism
• Automation Anywhere
• Power Automate
• WorkFusion
• Kofax
• SAP RPA
• Aito

Open Source

• RPA Framework
• Robot Framework
• OpenRPA
• RoboCorp
• taskt

​
What does the future look like?

• Everyday automation is increasingly making headway. In over half of occupations, 33% of the repetitive tasks have potential to be automated.
• Software robots could become commoditized in the future. With increasing competition, prices will be driven lower. As prices go down, RPA will extend its reach from big enterprises towards small-to-midsize companies.
• Automation departments will emerge in organizations as everyday task automation increases. The need for a Chief Automation Officer (CAO) becomes apparent.
• As CAOs emerge, so will citizen developers. Done right, they can help scale an automation initiative. Done wrong, they will produce heaps of technical debt to be handled.
• Existing automations are still highly procedural. Some character reading and computer vision capabilities exist. The future will likely see prebuilt blocks of machine learning, natural language processing and computer vision used inside automations.

​
Company case examples

• Wärtsilä got their first automation running in 3 weeks. They have now 400+ processes automated and over 5,000,000 € saved.
• Coca-Cola automated 50+ processes across multiple SAP systems. Workers redeemed 16 hours a day / person for more valuable tasks.
• Posti (the Finnish postal service) used RPA together with machine learning to automatically process 3000 purchase invoices monthly.
• First Home Bank used bots to help process over 6,000 PPP loan applications in a few months. The bots were 30x faster than humans.
• Lyse automated submitting applications for government approvals. 20,000+ work hours saved annually.

​
What are the challenges?

• Immediate resistance from your team is likely to occur. Onboard the team and management early on to embrace the change.
• Typical other pitfalls:
  • Automating processes that are too complex or too many decision points
  • Selecting processes that have insignificant business value
  • Deploying dozens of automations without proper dev or IT support
  • More lessons learnt can be found from research.
• Community editions let you get started for free. When scaling further, bigger investments are required. But there's always the open-source option.

​
More resources

• RPA in 5 minutes - An excellent 5-minute non-technical primer on RPA.
• AI Multiple - What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)? - Dive deeper with this in-depth set of articles.
• RPA ROI Calculator - See if RPA makes monetary sense for a business case.
• Formulated Automation Podcast - Weekly podcast about latest developments in RPA.
• RoboCon - An annual global online software automation event.

​
Takeaways

• Pilot automating with a low-risk, low-cost approach. Build micro-automations first and measure success. Continue from there, IF feasible.
• Let professionals develop enterprise-wide, mission critical automations. Utilize trained citizen developers for creating simple automations at scale.
• Ensure that your organization embraces the change rather than fighting back.

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Interested to hear what you think!

Read full story: medium.com/verasity
On the 4th of February, we hosted an AMA with Verasity Founder R J Mark. Thank you to everyone who joined, we answered a lot of community questions in depth (39 in total!). If you missed it, below is the complete transcript. Exciting information in this, make sure to read it all. 👀
Hello Verasians. I am Bhav, the marketing manager at Verasity and I’m joined by R J Mark, the founder of Verasity. Thank you for joining us for this AMA! :smile:
Mark: Hello everyone.
We will be answering all of the pertinent questions that the community have sent in throughout the week. Once these questions have been answered, I will open up the chat so you can ask further (non-repetitive please) questions, the chat will then close once more for Mark to answer. The transcript of this AMA will then be posted on our Medium.
Let’s get straight into it!
Q1) There will be no deadline on the swap so there is no rush and no fear of losing your tokens. They can be swapped at any time. Is that right?
Absolutely right. There is no deadline on the swap For more details read:
VRA Token & PoV update
Q2) Regarding the ERC777 Token Swap, you don’t need to withdraw to VeraWallet on the day of swap? Can I do it later?
Correct, take your time, there is no rush. You can do it at any time. There is no deadline or end date for the swap. We are making this as seamless and easy as possible for everyone.
Seamless and easy. That’s the way forward ✅Q3) Will we see more movements from the Foundation wallet. What is this about? The Swap?
That is correct. In anticipation of the swap company wallets’ tokens are being swapped via VeraWallet. See the article about this:
VRA Token & PoV update
New Foundation wallets will be created to replace the old ones.
Q4) Any plans to keep staking beyond the 31/12/2021 deadline?
We have not made a decision yet but liquidity mining is very much in play and could replace staking after Dec 2021. We will announce mid-year.
Q5) All the tournaments are free to join. How does that help the company to generate revenue? Is there a place or example where users/players are actually using the VRA token to get a product/service?
_Great question!_The tournaments are free to join since we are focusing on adoption and scaling the number of users we have globally. Bringing as many people to the platform is our priority right now. As we expand and offer user-generated prize pools we will take a commission on the total jackpots as a revenue stream. In addition, other revenue flows will become available to us as we build our user base and launch our video player this Q1.
We will monetize our esports content through our video player within Esports Fight Club by serving ads from our ad partners:
Advertiser Partnership Update
Esports Fight Club will require players to use VRA to purchase subscriptions via several payment systems: VeraWallet, PayPal and Credit Cards (although some tournaments are free for promotional purposes). Winners receive VRA for winning tournaments. Soon players will also be rewarded VRA for watching ads. Verasity profits from the purchase of game credits, subscriptions, tournament prize pools and ads. This is an entire ecosystem all within Verasity.
See our revenue forecast here:
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
Adoption and scale are key to the success of Esports Fight Club. We’ve made a lot of progress on the platform and are confident we will continue to see further growth in terms of users and a ton more exposure to the platform, and our token $VRA.Talking about adoption and scale… the next question will answer that!~Q6) What is the current Marketing Strategy? How do we differ from other tournament websites?
After creating mass-scale events around the world, we are focusing on adoption and community this year. Spending $10,000 on a big one-time prize pool to attract 1000 teams sounds good in theory. But, after careful planning, forecasting and testing, the results show that the best way is to spread the tournaments out so we reach a larger number of audiences. This consistency and large reach will attract much more than just 1000 teams over a period of time. The best place to do this is by sponsoring streamers and influencers, who each have thousands or even hundreds of thousands of fans.
For the past week, for example, we’ve been running a Valorant Community Tournament with Esports Fight Club’s first partnered streamer, Mika Daime. The turnout has been massive! Qualifier 1 was filled up with the max slots so quickly, that we had to create a Qualifier 2 just to fit all the teams in.

1. Most streamers we aim to partner with can easily bring in 64 or 256 teams to a community tournament hosted by Esports Fight Club, for a fraction of the price
2. With the same budget as a big tournament, of the $10,000 we would have spent on a single tournament, we can obtain approximately 540% more users by repurposing that budget for the influencer and streamer tournaments.

For a full list of upcoming features such as the Marketplace and VoD section read our full Marketing and Adoption post:
Marketing, Adoption, Tournaments 2021 (Updated)
It’s key for people to understand what we aim to do with the tournaments in terms of marketing. We read a lot of comments about the “low prize pool” when we announced the Mika Daime tournament, hopefully the answer Mark provided sheds light on that!Everything we do at Verasity is calculated. 😊Do check this out if you wanted a full read on our Marketing and Adoption post for 2021. 👍🏼If you think you’re good at some of the games we have available on Esports Fight Club, join in! The partnered streamers we have will be hosting a lot of community tournaments, such as Mika Daime!Q7) How often shall the revenue estimates (status update) be updated and is there any new estimation?
We will update the community every six months on revenue forecasts. There are no updates from our last announcement which can be found here
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter with notifications turned on, so you can get all the updates as they come through!https://twitter.com/verasitytech
Q8) Have you changed your business model? Because at the beginning it was mainly about publishers.
Our fundamental model has not changed: Video publishers attract audiences to watch video content and ads. Users are rewarded for it, thereby increasing engagement and monetization.
This model has not changed. What has changed is the type of video publisher we are pursuing. Prior to COVID-19, we pursued traditional publishers. With COVID-19, we saw the opportunity to pursue gaming publishers and more specifically esports publishers. More importantly, we created our own tournament platform: esportsfightclub.com. This allows us to control our own environment, launch our own proprietary video player, own our video content, run ads on our player, and charge subscription fees as well as take tournament fees.
But actually publishers and content are publishers and content whether it’s gaming or news.
It’s great to see how Esports Fight Club will have it’s own video content up on the website so that users will be able to watch the content to earn $VRA by using our own video technology, then use the $VRA to join tournaments, or buy hardware from trusted partners 👀Exciting stuff!Q9) Where can I find info about the Founders token unlock schedule?
Tokenomics and Founders token unlock schedule can be found here:
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
Q10) Does VeraWallet speed handling withdraws scale up painlessly when user amounts boom? And shall there be enhancements to user experience if we for example have tens or hundreds of small reward withdraws daily?
We are adding automated withdrawals for small amounts to the roadmap but first have to complete the swap and add the security protocols. We won’t risk our users’ investments.
We simply don't want to risk our secure environment.
Q11) Are there any plans for compounding rewards for the VeraWallet staking?
No, absolutely not. The simple interest we are paying now is already high.
Q12) Bit confused about the VeraWallet staking rate after March. Can you clarify?
The staking reward rate is 0.1% per day (36.5% per annum) until 31 March 2021 when it becomes 0.07% daily (25.55% pa) until 31 December 2021.
Q13) When can I instant stake with BTC?
Good news, BTC is already available in VeraWallet for Instant Stake together with ETH, BNB and USDT.
Try Instant Buy and Stake out for yourself here:
VeraWallet - Official VRA Wallet
Instant Buy and Stake has been a really popular update to VeraWallet. Great to see the community loving it. 👍🏼Q14) With the recent developments on Cardano, and the ease in which ERC-20 tokens can migrate to this superior to Ehereum platform, are you considering following suit of great projects like Celsius to move VRA over to Cardano? I know we are still a bit hurt with Binance VRAB. I understand it is not an easy decision. Just interested in what you think about the future on Ethereum.
We gave this a lot of thought and investigation and as the community knows we have experience with token migrations :)
Please see our latest update on the VRA token swap to ERC777 and Proof of View:
VRA Token & PoV update
As to Cardano — the liquidity is really small compared to ETH alts. For example on Kucoin it’s volume is less than $2m per day. Even on OKEX it’s only $3m. 50% of Celsius’ volume is on Uniswap which is the majority of the liquidity and is not on any Tier 1 exchanges. Aside from the lack of features that we need for PoV, after our last experience, we are very reluctant to join with mainnets that are generally illiquid. Celsius’s solution is to provide the liquidity themselves through Uniswap which is limiting in our view. We believe sticking with Ethereum is the right way to go and the market seems to agree with this as well.
Q15) The new VOD platform, when is it going to be finished and in use?
We are working on it now and expect it to meet the roadmap target of Q1: see verasity.io for the roadmap.
Can’t wait for it to be released! 🚀> Yes, this is a huge milestone for us and opens us up to so many possibilities.Q16) Is liquidity mining still in play? Will this replace the staking rewards after December 2021?
Good question. Yes, liquidity mining is very much in play and could replace staking after Dec 2021. We have not made that decision yet but will announce as soon as we do.
Q17) Are there new partners/publishers in the trend of gaming for the ad stack?
Yes, FB, Google and others. Please see:
Advertiser Partnership Update
In total 17, many specializing in gaming.
I don’t think today there are many ad networks that are not into gaming. It's such a huge audience sitting at home during Covid.
Q18) Micro tournaments: could you arrange tournaments yourself, like a national tournament for example?
The Esports Fight Club platform is fully self-managed, so yes, you could set up large tournaments and be the admin and sponsor. We would definitely like to see this happen by our community members. This quarter, our admins and developers are focused on A/B testing different tournaments with multiple communities to see if we are missing any critical features demanded by gamers. An article will be coming next week about micro and partnered tournaments. We will explain how these increase platform adoption which benefits both influencers and Esports Fight Club.
If anyone does host some tournaments, message me! I’d be happy to join a few… dust off my skills. I heard Rob (Our Finance Director) was a bit of Counterstrike wizard in his day… 😂Q19) Why are the tokens bought via the instant buy taken from a pool which dilutes the total supply? This is like raising new capital for $VRA at every buy instead of us token holders getting a price increase.
These are not purchased from a pool. If you mean that Foundation tokens have been transferred to VeraWallet, see the article:
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
In the Total VRA Supply, line 9, this VRA is already taken into account as part of both total supply and circulating supply. It does not increase either. I think this is really clear.
Q20) Asking about the “Instant buy and stake feature”. If someone buys $VRA using this system, there is no transaction on the blockchain. You say you buy directly on exchanges but no proof.
Buy backs of VRA do not happen instantly and we don’t announce buy backs in advance to avoid speculation. We don’t share our VeraWallet addresses as we have stated before. We are not going to provide speculators with tools to make a margin on each purchase.
Q21) Do we stay on the Ethereum network?
Yes, see the article:
VRA Token & PoV update
We are swapping our current ERC20 tokens to ERC777 which is essentially an upgrade to a more modern and fuller feature set Ethereum token.
For anyone just joining the chat, make sure you read the article above! Tons of important and exciting information.Q22) From the Foundation wallet tokens have been unlocked in the last 50 days and added to the circulating supply. How is our token deflationary?
If you mean that Foundation tokens have been transferred to VeraWallet, see the article:
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
Foundation tokens are not locked and the article clearly states they are unlocked. In the Total VRA Supply, line 9, this VRA is already taken into account as part of both total supply and circulating supply. It does not increase either. We specifically provide for ALL Foundation tokens, allocated and unallocated, as part of the current circulating supply so this is NOT adding to the circulating supply.
Q23) Asking about adoption figures. You claim to have had 8M people looking at your gaming videos (mostly fakes views as the counter earned millions in hours).
The adoption figures were not fake or exaggerated, it is important to understand that this number is a combination of different metrics, all of which ensure one thing: People viewed our live tournament page. This number includes:

• Unique gaming viewers landing on our page to be able to find the stream in their native language (English, Korean, Hindi, Mandarin and Nepali)
• Social media followers and curious gamers who landed on our page after subscribing to our contests, looking for airdrops or just by following our different marketing campaigns. These account for the steady and regular growth of our landing page as we ran these campaigns all-around the globe and 24/7 at the end of the tournament. The livestream was embedded onto the homepage of the website, so everyone who visited our website was also able to watch the tournament
• Lastly, the contestants, productions and influencer’s traffic from sharing our streams was what mostly caused big traffic, especially during the play-off and later stages of the tournament.

Although it was difficult to collate all the viewer statistics we believe them to be accurate and fair.
To see the full statistics of Ultimate Warrior Showdown 1, read here:
Ultimate Warrior Showdown Tournament Round-Up and Adoption
Hope that clears up some FUD! 👍🏼Q24) Asking about partnerships. You say you have partnerships with
Stripe, Tencent Games, PayPal. The truth is any website can integrate these payment/connexion modules without partnership. You just need to read their website and implement it on your website.
Of course, you can add Stripe and PayPal to any website, but try adding them to a crypto-based website and see how far you get. There are no crypto products websites or related services (other than specific financial services) that are supported by Stripe and PayPal because they are not allowed. To obtain these payment services, you need to have special permission and follow a rigid protocol. And Stripe expressed interest in working with Esports Fight Club to reach out to video publishers with EFC to give us access to video publishers worldwide.
As to TencentGames, you need to get their specific permission for certain tournament events and follow their rules. We would be unable to use their logo and name in our marketing material without this. It’s not simply signing up for them. So yes we consider this a partnership because they plan on additional events with us which they now support.
Working with major brands including PUBGM, Tencent, Athena Gaming and Warmania gave us the clout to include major esport teams in our tournaments who will participate in future tournaments as well: FaZe Clan, Orange, T1, Elementrix, Nova, Onic and others. And now because of the history, Blizzard is prepared to provide licenses for all their major games.
We are also in discussion with peripheral manufacturers to support our marketplace launch later this year. As soon as agreements are reached, we will jointly announce sponsored product peripherals that will be rewarded in our tournaments.
Q25) Some things on your roadmap get pushed forward. Why did do you do this?
Our development team has been together doing projects for over ten years. This is normal in large scale development projects. For example, we decided after the large Esports Fight Club tournaments we put on that we needed to finalize and launch the Video sharing platform prior to some other features on the roadmap because without it we would not be able to take advantage of many opportunities including monetization opportunities of the exclusive VOD content that only we could re-publish and add ads to. This pushed certain product features into Q2. Another example is PoV. Initially we thought we would go with proprietary blockchain because there was no other solution that would allow us to support PoV. That changed with the release by Ethereum of ERC777. As a result PoV timeline targets changed so that it corresponds to the release of ERC777 as well as the ability to use it for the Video sharing platform. So in effect, the video-sharing platform came in _much earlier than expected_which pushed out other features/products to accommodate this change. Business decisions and external events impact on the roadmap and it would do Verasity and the community an injustice if we just blindly followed a roadmap that becomes slightly outdated every quarter and greatly outdated every year. It is this flexibility that allows Verasity to take advantage of new information and technologies in real-time. And to push out new products earlier in the roadmap such as the video-sharing platform.
Q26) Proof-of-View™️ so nice!
When will it be a Patented POV?
The average time for a patent to be granted is 3 years. We’ve just started our third year as a pending application so we hope it will be in 2021, however our patent lawyers have told us to expect further delays due to covid. Fortunately this won’t stop the release of Proof of View which can go ahead with ‘patent pending’ protection.
Update: The patent was granted a few minutes after the AMA ended!
— @verasitytech
Q27) Will there be an app for download on your phone soon? For Staking. Feeling a little insecure have it online on your website
Actually, our mweb and web applications are much more secure than a mobile app. Mobile apps are much easier to hack. Although we have not been hacked, some users have been hacked via their mobile phones but because we have a manual delay, we were able to stop the loss of tokens. The good news is that now with the swap to ERC777 we can disable any wallets that have stolen VRA and return the VRA to the original user. We do have mobile apps on the roadmap but won’t likely support staking because of the security issue and it is not a priority for us.
Q28) Not try to fud here, but would like to get an answer in AMA to suppress all fud in the future 😁
Financial status company. There have been coins sold for listing on an exchange (still to come?). Was this something that was not planned (like extra opportunity to get listed) or are funds becoming empty?
Current resources held by Verasity fund the project roadmap for the next 12 months. We forecast reaching profitability in 2021 which will finance the continuing runway thereafter. As you point out not all listing opportunities were included in the forecast and we stated that: “In the future, additional listings and expenses may require sales of VRA from the Foundation Reserve”. See the funding update here:
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
Q29) The VoD update is a little bit unclear for me. Maybe you can tell some more about it. To the looks of it, it is a mix between YouTube and twitch but with PoV to earn $VRA.
PoV on VODs is a key feature for us and for our large ad-stack network. While we are growing our partnerships with community tournaments and adding more games and influencers on EsportsFightClub: we want our reruns to be monetized, available at all times on our proprietary platform and browsing page. Think of it the way Twitch highlights previous streamer’s lives automatically but on a larger and customizable library for viewers to earn VRA and for Verasity to monetize via its ad stack.
And we own several terabytes of gaming and esports video content which will launch with the new video platform in Q1. This is actually massive, because on launch we will have a ton of video content to monetize!
Q30) You seem to have many products but I don’t understand how they work together?

• The Esports Fight Club platform — lots of features already available including global and tournament chats, user created tournaments, detailed tournament customization options
• Proprietary video player — in internal beta for launch Q1
• Proprietary ad stack — in internal beta for launch Q1
• Our own esports content — all the content rights from the tournaments and other gaming content owned by EFC &Verasity — this VOD will be monetized on launch of the video platform in Q1
• Our belief that we can drive large streaming numbers via esports tournaments
• Rewarded Video for these users to watch our content and ads on Esports Fight Club and not on YouTube or other platforms by utilizing VRA to engage and monetize
• A large number of ad networksthat include Google AdMob — Signed on
• Proof of View smart contract view verification (on-chain) — now a reality with the swap of ERC777 to fully build out PoV with all its features on the network.
• VeraWallet as a payment system (together with Stripe &PayPal) throughout the Verasity network.
• In Q1’2021, we will put many of these parts together to start scaling our own video player with our ad stack, producing ad revenues in addition to our other revenue streams.

Q31) What games does Esports Fight Club support now?
PUBG mobile, Free Fire, Counter-Strike GO, Valorant, PUBG and Ludo is about to be launched.
🚀🚀🚀 Great game selection, so far.Q32) Any near-future plans to expand your marketing?
At Verasity, we have a large marketing team that devotes itself behind the scenes to increase our awareness in the cryptocurrency community and reach as many people as possible.
Although we have community groups in more than 10 languages, our local group managers translate all the news, updates into their own languages and publish them in local forums and groups in real time. Thus, we significantly increase our chances of reaching communities that do not speak English. Verasity Spanish, Verasity Korea & Verasity India are already large groups and growing.
We will continue to use media sites, influencers, and all other advertising sources to spread our news in the future as in the past. Gamification marketing opportunities are very important to us as can be seen in LunarCrush.
In return for these efforts, we have gained a great community support that grew slowly but surely. Our marketing efforts will continue to scale. Our goal in this regard is to continue without stopping until every individual in the cryptocurrency community speaks about Verasity.
Our social media metrics have seen a consistent and phenomenal increase over the past year due to our marketing efforts, read here to find out more in detail:
Verasity Social and Adoption Metrics
For us the most important metrics to see how we are doing in socials is LunarCrush:
VRA - VERAsity Insights | LunarCRUSH
LunarCrush Altrank is the best stats measure of Alts social marketing success out of 2100 popular Alts. We tested many marketing ploys to rank highly. When something works, it’s clear in LunarCrush. Competitions like AltWars simply work. This is the meaning of crypto exposure when the Altrank increases in LunarCrush which measures all social volume, % change per 24 hours, and social score. Even with our volume which only ranks 550 out of 2100 Alts, our Social Volume pushes us in front of much bigger tokens such as OMG, DOT, LINK, CHSB and others. Clearly our marketing is working.
The community support has been phenomenal. It’s been great to see how supportive the Verasians have been. We wouldn’t be anywhere without you guys! So thank you from the team.Especially during the AltWars contest recently… we owned! 👍🏼 Power of the Verasians. 🤝Q33)Have you heard about gaming projects Exeedme and Crowns and how can you compare them to Verasity?
We did! Exeedme is an exciting project revolving around gamers personal skill and players betting against themselves (user-centric) that is just at its very inception. They are not competitors as our model (Community, content and tournament centered) has broader purpose and we dont and wont support betting because it will be rejected by many of our partners.
Crowns Token, from Seascape, is a DeFi economy blockchain made for developers building their own online games but who cannot/don’t want to focus on the technical transactional side. Although they are very promising for simple browser and other types of games, they are just not targeting the Esports market and offer, at best, support for upcoming indie-browser games studios.
We would not be able to partner with Exeedme because of betting restrictions but Crowns could be interesting if the games developed are popular with our viewers.
Q34) Are there any plans in the near future (next several months) to list on an exchange that allows full KYC trading for US citizens (e.g. Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, Binance US, etc.)?
This is hard for us. The regulatory environment in the US is not friendly. Since we are not regulated in the US, the risk of listing on a US exchange and the SEC bringing a claim is quite high. At this time we are avoiding this. Lets see what happens with the new SEC Chair who is quite familiar with blockchain. Should he articulate straight forward rules that can be followed and which will not be changed every couple of months, we will consider it then.
Q35) What is:
1. Business structure
2. Marketing plan for next year
3. Customer acquisition costs
4. Execution plan on tech side to deliver
Business structure of Verasity:
Development team structure is flat with these functions:
Blockchain developers, Backend developers, highload & security developers, Full stack Developers, web/mobile frontend developers, mobile only devs, Testing & QA, Finance.
For more about the Verasity business model and forecast see:
Tokenomics , Forecast, News Update
Marketing plan for next year can be found here:
Marketing, Adoption, Tournaments 2021 (Updated)
Customer acquisition costs
We will provide CAC when we are profitable.
Execution plan
See the roadmap on verasity.io
And finally. the last question on the list…🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁Q36) Do you have an update on exchanges? The one that was hinted end of last year and more to come?
Very important issue for us and the community. We fully appreciate the necessity for additional volume and liquidity. After the last exchange hack and issues with OKEX, we were thrown off balance but had expected to list on a new exchange by now. Mistakenly we announced prematurely and then ran into the necessity of completing the VRA token swap before we list on a new exchange. Obviously, we want to now avoid having to swap tokens on a new exchange. So right after the majority of the current exchanges we are listed on complete the swap (this month), we will continue with our listing plans. We are well on the way with 2 exchanges but don’t think it’s prudent to provide more information until they announce the listing themselves. The expectation is still for at least one exchange in Q1. Please bear with us on this. We will get there.
Been a great AMA so far. Cleared up a lot of questions and hopefully made you all as excited for the future as we are. Tons of great new updates to Esports Fight Club coming this year and a prosperous year for Verasity is definitely ahead.Thank you Mark!Will be now opening the chat for the Verasians to ask some additional questions.Will be closing the chat shortly after and we can get some more answers out. The gates are opening! 😁
Additional questions
Q37) When the Verasity Game Jackpot price will be held again? We are waiting for so long.
New jackpots are coming onto the platform but for upcoming games like Ludo which will be announced later this month.
Q38) Is it possible to create something like a create your own tournament where I can play a 1vs1(or 2v2 5vs5) against another player(s) in any game anytime (like in 30 minutes) and where I can set for example a winning price of 100k VRA. and both players have to send 50k before the game to a smart contract and afterward it automatically gets sent to the winner?
Esports Fight Club allows users to create their own tournaments choosing from the available games list. We are constantly working on expanding the list of available games and are open for suggestions. The players deposit VRA to the Esports Fight Club account and use these funds to send money to the prize pool. It's quite simple to set up and you can do it for any amount and any number of players and as admin, you have complete control of the size of the pot, how it is shared in % for winners when to start, etc. Its a fully self managed platform that works now. Just go in and set it up today!
Q39) Hi Mark, regarding the plans for in-game advertising and in-game rewards this year, could you describe your vision on this? Is Verasity currently discussing this topic with certain game companies, and how exactly would it work in practice once achieved? Any details you can share with us would be highly appreciated!
The way we view in-game ads is our ability to provide our logo or some other image that would be part of the game interface, such as the floor or walls. This already exists and is popular. We are in discussions now with game developers to add Verasity/VRA. This is a high powered marketing tool that will get our name into many gamers’ faces. These are native images in effect. For advertisers that want to use native images inside our broadcasts or VOD, they get stitched into the ad server in parallel to the stream and we get paid for the ad inventory. In-game rewards are still in development but the vision is for users to be able to click on an object in the game and get rewarded for doing so, not dissimilar to clicking on an add and getting a higher CPM.
About Verasity.tv
REWARDS BASED PLATFORM FOR ESPORTS, GAMING AND VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT
Verasity provides proprietary technology uniquely rewarding gamers, viewers and publishers. Verasity is a crypto-based platform with the VRA token that aims to revolutionise the online advertising business. With its innovative Proof of View system, advertisers are able to guarantee their video ads are seen and not ignored thanks to smart contracts on the Ethereum chain, while viewers are able to earn VRA simply by watching the content they already consume. Verasity has a focus on gaming publishers and esports.

• The first platform to provide user-generated esports and prize pool tournaments supported by both Fiat &Digital Tokens.
• Video gaming content monetized by Verasity Ad Stackand Proof of View (PoV)
• Enables tokenized rewards(VRA) as well as loyalty schemes within the video player VeraWallet
• Supports over 2 million video publishers with our SDK products(overlay on video players) to increase engagement and revenues by 35%. See example publishersand videos here.

Verasity revenue streams include:
Game subscriptions, prize pool commissions and video ad revenues. Read about the tokenomics, forecast, buy back and burn here.
📖 Read our latest adoption metrics and one page overview
📈 Find where VRA (ticker) is trading onCoinMarketCap
VRA can be staked for 36.5% annual interest at https://verawallet.tv.
Follow Us:
Medium: https://medium.com/verasity
Twitter: https://twitter.com/verasitytech
Website: https://verasity.io
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What a ride. I posted previously before I took my test so here is some background on me:
Background
In 1999-2000 I started off as an outsourced dell tech, then outsourced "@home" cable internet as Tier II, Tier III, and then into management (working management) in 2002. Then went to supporting business T1, DS3, etc for as a 2 telecom companies (XO Communications might be the only one people recognize). Throughout all of this, also managing a team of usually no less than ~10-15. A senior manager from that company brought me over to a nationwide pathology company that has 4000 employees to start up a proper help desk since theirs was a hodgepodge from 10 previous acquisitions. So in 2005 I was a manager (working still) of that internal helpdesk. This is where I was introduced to the world of ITIL, change control, and most importantly, HIPAA. Towards the end started to be a "hybrid" sysadmin as well. 5 years later, the infrastructure director brought me along with him to a marketing company where I was the Systems engineer to the entire company (only a ~150 people) He left and then I became director. After 2 more companies of being the Director (working director as so many are familiar with) which included being the only engineer, network admin, security officer, and manager to the local support techs and windows admins I was put in the spot two years ago to orchestrate our company getting SOC 2 Type II certified. So within the last 2 years I have been named VP of IT and have had to also learn the world of Risk Management, developing a Security policy, beef up the AUP, create a BCP, create a DRP, create every policy from SOP, infrastructure/asset standards, security baselines, chair 4 new committees, etc. I feel like I could reach the character maximum to explain all of the items I owned out of our ~145 control SOC 2 Type II.
​
Pre CISSP
So in the past 3-4 months I have been entertaining the idea of going for the CISSP. I started by going through the entire training campaign on CBT nuggets while skipping through tons of stuff because I felt like I already knew many of these items. I started doing the Kaplan tests that comes with CBT nuggets and first 150 question test scored like a 60%. Then I came here and found out the true formula. 1 is wrong, one is even more wrong (by being ridiculous or using big words), 2 are right. If both are technically right, but one of them leans more to protect your CEO, pick that one. Don't get lost in technical arguments in your head. You are there to report and protect the company, not to make technical decisions.
So I want back at it and immediately scored a 75%. This was ~2 1/2 weeks ago. I decided at that moment just to sign up for it. If I fail I fail. At least I get to see the test. I'd rather not pay $700 to see an exam but based on my experience and results, I should have a good shot at passing.
After 3-4 more tests and learning the stupid things like which class fire extinguisher is Class B in the states but C in UK, things like ISO27001 vs 270002 and where and who produced it, Legal proceeding, and some programming concepts that aren't part of my world at all, I started passing with 85-90%
I went and bought Boson ExSim-Max and keep above 80% in that. After signing up for the test I see they give me practice tests there. I go their practice tests and get 80% or better.
Last week I decided to sign up for Cybrary subscription for the Kelly Handerhan's CISSP boot camp. Beyond a few new analogies and a couple of CISSP specific answers that would be wrong on other tests, I felt the class was redundant. If I had to pick between Keith Barker (CBT Nuggets) and Kelly (Cybrary), I would pick Kelly. Slightly better CISSP specific way of presenting things. Definitely dont miss her explanation of kerberos. Definitely helps me with the way I explain it to my employees and others wanting to learn.
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Day before the CISSP
I was finishing up the Kelly Handerhan's CISSP boot camp. Another 2x 100 question tests. Scored over 90% on both.
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Day of CISSP
I finally finished the Kelly Handerhan CISSP boot camp at 8AM. CISSP scheduled for 2:30 but have to be there by 2pm. I then decided to start taking the BOSON exam tests PER domain and not mixed. Went through every test (each domain) at 75 questions per domain except one that only had 20 questions though. Passed all at 85-90% except development security which I scored a 75%.
It's ~1:15pm, time to drive to the testing center!
​
The CISSP
The day of the test, I got to the testing center and get all set up with my handprint, escorted to the testing booth where the exam was started up by the attendant after the diligent security checks. 1st question: what? 2nd question: Who? What? 3rd question: What is going on? It's like I've been placed in the wrong Boson Examsim. I look up to make sure this is CISSP. 4th question: ok.. easy. 5th question: ok pretty easy. 6-90 I am just blazing through this thing. "I know my stuff" I'm thinking in my head for pretty much 6-90 building confidence as each question passes. Question 90 or so comes and shoots me to Pluto. What are they asking me? Why are all 4 of these correct? By question 100 I was HOPING the torture would stop and they would pass me based on my significant performance in questions 4-90. Nope. 101. now I am scared. The test is continuing to bring me into a world of pain. Now there are basically 4 right answers and 2 of the right answers are still right. It became me thinking.. "End game".
What is the answer? The one that answers towards the betterment of the company as well as all the tenants set forth by ISC2. Out of all 150 questions, not ONE was a question you would find on any practice exam. At least it didn't for me.
​
My opinions of ISC2:

1. Every one's test seems like a thumbprint. I had tons of technical questions while everyone else doesn't. I didn't have as much DRP, BCP as others. I don't know what this test does in the background except for learn your fears and exploit YOUR vulnerabilities. Too many people confused at the end and many convinced they have failed only to walk up and be told they passed. I think this test wants to test something more than just technical knowledge and your ability to digest and regurgitate information. It tests your intuition. It tests your priorities.
2. If I did not have the 2 decades of technical experience in so many domains, and the last 2 years wasn't spent doing all of the Risk assessment, BIA, BCP, DRP, etc etc, for my current company I would say this test definitely needs more than 2 1/2 weeks or so of studies. If you are in a position that you have the technical experience, and the security/audit/management experience just go for it. Do your practice exams a ton. Brush up on only the areas you are doing worse and go take that test. You got this.

I feel like there are 4 types of people going for the CISSP.

1. A person who is just getting started in IT and wants to get this cert because it will give them a huge boost in hiring for the start of their IT career. They don't have much REAL technical knowledge regarding security or infrastructure outside of a book.
2. A person who is or wants to become someone in a security position. Maybe a little experience. Maybe someone who is pivoting from IT engineering to security and wants to move into the security aspect of IT.
3. A person who wants to be security auditor or even more advanced, a penetration tester.
4. A person who wants to supplement their resume and "prove" that they know what they are talking about when it comes to all of the domains of the CISSP.

Out of those 4 type are 2 types

1. The ones that know the material not because it is "material" and because it is what they have done. Understanding the technical and the business aspects of IT as a whole regarding the topics of security, Confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy.
2. The ones that want to regurgitate a bunch of buzzwords that they could cram into their brain so that they could prove they are capable of being in a security role.

First I'd say, I don't think any are wrong. Just identify who you are so you can be truthful to yourself on how much time it is going to take to comprehend this vastness. Do you even want to comprehend it or do you just want to add CISSP under your signature, or get that job that requires it? I have SOC 2 auditors I've seen that don't ask the right questions at all and when you start to challenge the impossibility of a specific request, it takes one of the senior auditors to step in and agree with me. It is because they DO NOT KNOW the technical parts or are unable to put it together to have the knowledge to be an effective auditor. If you want to be in security auditing, don't be that person. KNOW what you are saying. As an example, don't say IDS and IPS interchangeably.
I feel like I was a #4 + #1 person. NONE of the questions I saw on that test had I ever seen anywhere else. I still felt confident in my ability to rule out 3 out of 4 to get to the right number because I know the material. Not just the material but I live in the material on a daily basis.
As far as when the test turned on me, it seems to do that to everyone. It was frightening.
All I can say is don't give up. If you make it past 100 and you haven't failed or passed, the next 50 will be very important. be aware of your time when it gets there. If you have the time, go take a unscheduled break (the clock will keep ticking) to go to the bathroom. REMEMBER, you will have to go through all of the handprint and security station stuff to get back on your computer so a 5 minutes break could easily turn into a 10 minute.
Beyond that, you can do it. If you take your practice tests=, score 80%+, and you score that way because you can accurately tell someone exactly why the other options are wrong YOU GOT THIS
If you find yourself scoring well on the practice exam but you cannot in confidence say why 3 of the 4 are wrong, Keep studying until it "clicks". when the bridges are made in your mind that allows you to better understand the concepts and technical aspects, you GOT THIS.
Did I mention you got this?
​
Edit: Even though I mentioned experience, let me be specific because it seems to be relevant
Technical 5 years Telecom (first 1-2 years, residential cable. Then business T1/DS3 internet so configuring, troubleshooting Cisco 1800/Adtran fractional T1 routers with customer's equipment) 5 years Internal Help Desk (break/fix national helpdesk) manager but was the mentor as the manager usually is) 1 year junior sysadmin (for free sysadmin dirty work. Backup custodian, ) 10 years Systems Engineer, Network Engineer, Telecom Engineer
Management 4 years telecom help desk management (Team of 18 Tier 2 techs) 5 years as help desk management (Team of 14 help desk techs) 7 years of Infrastructure and Help Desk management (2 of those VP managing sysadmins/helpdesk team of 5)
As you can see I am a "working VP". The love and passion for my job comes from the parts that allow me to develop new solutions and find answers to complex problems . From little Powerapps, power automate, utilizing API's to pull data and make quantifiable assessments regarding the IT dept, the budget, the time utilized, throughput, etc etc. I am blessed with a love for the job that I do. On a daily basis I am excited for the challenges that face me whether technical, administrative, or anything in between. I'd like to think that's why so many of us have chosen the life we lead.
​

I would like to think my FI journey has been unique. I’m a super spender in every sense of the word. I’m also pretty much in the middle of the FIRE journey and that isn’t something I see written about often. There are lots of stories of those in their last year, should I or shouldn’t I pull the trigger, those in their first few years of full retirement, and beginners. However, I’ve noticed a lack of those that are pretty much in the middle, maybe not even that serious about FIRE as a driving goal, but instead use the principles to be a better capitalist.
My story has nothing out of the ordinary beyond some rational choices and being overly conservative with our money, and an overwhelming desire to build businesses. We may not make it to FIRE early in life; we are having children and FIRE is not our number one concern or priority. As I’ve earned more I’ve absolutely let lifestyle inflation happen and we are 100% ok with that. The reason I wanted to tell my story was to tell the story of how these principals will always improve your situation at nearly every income level and I dream of a society (American) that can begin to see beyond the now.
\Before we begin, anytime I write something that shows I had/have extreme privilege, I promise I feel it and much as you see it. It would just be exhausting to call it out every time so consider this my one acknowledgement that I have had it WAY better than almost everyone in human history and I do feel guilty about that most of the time.*
I’m 35 years old and my wife is 30 and as of today we are roughly 60% of the way to FI/RE with a baby on the way.
I grew up in a lower middle class household in the midwest in a town you’ve never heard of but you’ve seen dozens of them. Both my wife and my childhoods were pretty traditional for the time in middle America, but most of this post will be from my perspective. For middle America it didn’t feel like we had much, but we had enough at all times. We were absolutely paycheck to paycheck, but there was some excessive spending and a gambling addiction. Divorced Parents when I was young enough to have really vague memories, but all in all I would say it falls right at an average American childhood in the 80s-2000s
My exposure to money was basically watch and learn. I had a bank account setup when I was old enough and told to save some everytime I made money “pay yourself first”. Something my parents didn’t really do much of, but at least they knew enough to try and teach me that. From there I was on my own and learned some bad habits, even though I always knew I shouldn’t be spending I just did it anyway. No matter how insane a purchase I made felt, there were others out there doing it way stupider, but being praised for it more. I began to embrace the research process to get the best thing that’s also the best value. Cars had a sweet spot at 4 years old from lease turn ins. I learned I could buy a 4 year old, low mileage lease, drive it for a year and sell it private party a year later for what I paid. My average age for owning a car must be like 9 months, but I have only had 1 or 2 instances where I lost a lot on a car. I began applying these principals of Capitalism to everything from bikes, to lodging (sleeping in my car), to growing my own food vs buying it. Nothing was off limits in the pursuit of living a life of luxury that was outside my income. See I wasn’t trying to live frugally for the sake of living frugally. I was doing it for the purposes of getting all the best and most luxurious things cheaper than the average consumer pays for the ordinary.
Some perspective, because frugality is a spectrum and I’m on the extreme end (spendy).
When I’m into something I go for the absolute best, every time. Some examples of things I bought before I was 25 while never making more than $50,000 a year and sometimes way less:

• Almost the best gaming computer you could buy at the time - pretty much didn’t hold back here. I wanted a VR racing sim and I got one, but I spent months researching all the most cost effective components for the money.
• Between 8 and 11 different cars from age 16-25 - see description above
• High end triathlon equipment - The sweet spot for bikes is pretty much anything other than new. I can’t think of any market that has a worse resale value than bikes. Buy it 1 year used from some dude on pinkbike and you’ll pay 40% of retail.
• Registrations for races some at $500+ events, plus travel for 2-3 days, multiple times each year. - Slept in my car a lot before these races. Even would make sure and stick around to the end of each event and offer to take home the unused food. Each race I did I would average - 1 weeks worth of bananas, tons of granola bars, as much as I could carry of some sponsor that had a new product they wanted people to try. There are some races I did where I brought home more money in food than the entry fee of the race.
• Designer furniture barely used (picked it up in my old van from the biggest house I’ve ever been in. My wife and I were terrified moving it for fear of breaking something we couldn’t afford to replace) The 2 couches we bought retailed for over $10,000. We paid $800….. In cash. Still have them in a rental unit today. They look great for their age as they are extremely well built.

I was starting to think that nothing made sense. For the most part, I knew what my friends made; most of the time it was more than I was making and somehow I always had more, newer and cooler stuff than them, but they were the ones struggling with money. I almost never struggled with money even for the years I was near the poverty line for my income while taking on student loan debt or during a 4 month stretch of job loss where I was denied unemployment.
I really only saved for the short term. I would save for a goal, buy whatever that goal was depleting my savings or investments then repeat. I learned early on that having cash on hand would always get me the best deal and therefore made my meager salary go farther.
It wasn’t until I was around my mid 20s when a conservative and rich aunt told me about Dave Ramsey that I really started to embrace what FI/RE was and could be.
It’s hard to explain my relationship to DR, but what he was saying was truly life changing, but not for the reason that most people say DR changes their life. DR didn’t teach me a new way to look at money, he was simply the first person to even think remotely similar about money as I did. That at almost every income level, spending less than you make is really all that matters. If you live by that principal and apply a loose plan you should at least be able to survive in our current society. Up until this point in my life I felt I was the only person who felt I was doing well with money and I didn’t think I was doing that well. I always felt my spending was out of control and I could be so much more frugal. I actually remember the exact event that made me stop having debt when I was at my lowest NW.
I went to sign up for the Pigman triathlon short course, it was my favorite race and they did it twice a year. It was 90 minutes away from home so it was a perfect weekend trip for me. I went to register and didn’t have the $65 to write a check (yep, I’m old). I was going to put it on my credit card, but couldn’t find my wallet. I knew the number was printed on the statement so I went and opened the mail it was in. The amount of interest I was paying that month was something like $71. I got so pissed that if I had no debt I would have had the money to go do my race. I swore off debt at that moment and never looked back.
I was learning the FI and Dave Ramsey principals through an expensive trial and error process, but it was when I read DR’s book that it gave me justification that my instincts had been right about money and this guy proved to me that it works. I felt he was wrong about a few things, namely his aversion to credit cards never made any sense to me; later his conflicts of interest with investing. I hate debt far more than is rational, but credit cards are not debt and making 2% on every purchase for no additional effort? That’s foolish because it requires no additional effort in my daily life and has an immediate return.
From there I went on to Mr Money Mustache.This was my guy. Not only did I agree with him on a lot of stuff, but he was cool. Even if I was not making all the same choices he suggested I could at least follow his logic of thinking on nearly all of them. His suggestions always made me have an internal question of “Yeah, a minivan is the most logical vehicle for money savings” That’s how I ended up with a Honda Odyssey. However, I still was using these savings to be able to afford a more expensive lifestyle in the hobbies I loved and luxury is the rest of my life. From there I dove in deep into FI/RE blogs and knew that my next savings goal to add should be early retirement, and while it wouldn’t always be the number 1 goal or even a major priority, it would always be on the list. That was 9 years ago and is as close a start date as I can guess.
After digesting all the information I could I decided to go the “large income route” to achieve FI/RE. I love buying shit too much to lean fire so I knew the only shot I had was to get my income way up. It basically needed to double. When we decided to start my wife was still in college and I was working a lower paying accounting job and working part time at a running specialty store. I had also just started an additional part-time contract job timing races across the midwest. Between us we were making around $40,000 a year. Still living pretty large on that in our small, but insanely affordable condo.
Since I sorta had a gig economy work/life including one that was a 40 hour a week full time job I knew that going all in on working was my answer to FI/RE. I was not short on opportunities to make money, and I just needed time to do them all. I started with my accounting job. I was still pretty new to the accounting field with only 6 years of experience up to that point. Rather than try to earn more I took the gamble of working for a non-profit for $26,000 a year. In it for me was being 25 years old and having the title of Accounting Manager, managing a multi-million dollar budget, reporting to a board of directors, and having a small staff. From where I am today in my accountingcareer I can draw a direct line back to accepting that very low salary for a position I was under qualified for and figuring it out as I went.
The person I replaced was retiring so the systems were…..ancient to say the least. After learning the way the old guard did things I immediately began automating everything; tuition payments, contributions, tax documents to donors, reporting to the board, and anything else I could automate I did. This had the surprising effect of making me bored as hell most days.
It took me about 6 months to turn a 40 hour a week job done by hand into about 12 accomplishing even more tasks. In the beginning I fucked around but that gets old quick. Playing Hearthstone or Diablo for 6 hours a day in your office isn’t as fun as it sounds, trust me on that. I was working a couple part time jobs at this point, all of which were in my passion topic of racing, running, and outdoors. The problem was that I was so bored during the day that I wasn’t motivated to do much of anything the rest of the time.
It was important for me to always be in my office during business hours to help or answer questions, but as long as I met all my deadlines and my Board was happy with my performance, always made the non-profit the priority when I was there; then I felt comfortable spending the rest of my time there focusing on starting my own business. If it became too much I would drop the business before my boss even knew something was happening or off.
I applied all this additional time into focusing on Race Timing and Race Management. I had spent the last 7 years or so racing at these events any chance I got. It was one of my favorite places to be so the idea of being able to be PAID to be there? I was very entranced by this line of work. Through some connections I had made at events I started working for a guy who was kind of a prick but had the industry knowledge I needed. I worked for him for pretty cheap - $250 per event that I worked. This meant that I would leave after work on Friday, drive between 2-4 hours, sometimes stay overnight (slept in car), would work the event by myself and drive home to be back to work Monday morning. I was learning a lot and especially a lot of what NOT to do in business from the company owner. He was the definition of small business. It was just himself and sometimes he would hire friends or family to work these events with him. He hired me as a contractor on a per event basis and for the entire time I worked for him he only ever hired a couple of my friends when I said I needed help.
This guy was very smart and knew the technology better at the time than I do still almost 10 years later, but he was a fucking trainwreck. Here are some of my ‘favorite’ highlighted memories:

• At a charity event for a Lung Cancer charity he got into a screaming match with the Fire Chief who was the top fundraiser - he was never allowed to return and I still work this event to this day.
• He would send out new “employees” with almost 0 training. This was at a time where learning to time a race was a very difficult process where you must follow precise instructions. My first event I worked for him I had a 1-30 minute training session at his house and was told to call him if I had any trouble. He was working a race that same day and had no cell service. Results should take minutes to produce - took me 2 hours that day and it was basically me stumbling through some very old help documents.
• He would never invoice - eventually I took over this part for him as an accountant. He had some clients he hadn’t invoiced for 18 months.
• He never responded to clients and would be SUPER rude. They would ask something simple in an email like “Will you be bringing a clock we can use?” His response would be some swearing and then a response like “NO, if you would read the contract we charge an additional $50 for a clock.”
• My tally of annual, good money, contracts he lost for being a total dick was 11.
• Likely the same contracts lost for not communicating or forgetting something the customer ordered or some other catastrophic failure (ex. Inflatable finish line, clock, equipment that would break because he didn’t maintain it, etc)

I learned almost everything I know about how to run a business and the way I operate today from watching him during this “apprenticeship”. I was taking races every weekend they were available cause $250 was a lot of money and working a bunch had the added benefit of not spending as much. Once I started to do his accounting I learned this guy is making FUCKING bank. This bumbling fool is making north of $200,000 a year in this business and he can’t even invoice people or just be polite. One event a year that we did together I was getting paid $250 and he was clearing $15,000.
This motivated me so much. I saw the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The curtain had been pulled back. I saw a hole in the marketplace and I was going to fill it.
I was saving as much of my timing money and running store money as I could. I went from saving $0 for retirement at 24ish to saving about $8,000 a year. I knew it wasn’t going to be enough and so I just kept committing to working more and more, and at this point I was just saving to start a business. FIRE principles applied to our life, but really only for the goal of investing in a business. After a few years of some job moves in Accounting to timing more events, to doing the finances for the running store I had gained a sizable amount of knowledge and set forth on a huge life change.
I was going to start my own race timing business and move to where the races are, where I’ve always wanted to be, Colorado.
We made the move happen in a frugal way, staying with family here while my wife stayed with my folks for 6 weeks (she’s a saint). This was the only way we could afford this move, and was to save every penny possible along the way. We sold our beautiful house in Iowa for $150,000, exactly what we paid and bought a $300,000 fixer up that when the wind blew made the whole house shake. Double the money and a way worse house.
I quickly found a full time job that would pay the bills; one I was also able to automate and optimize to give me more time throughout the day. From there I spent all my free time building another new race business. From everything I learned from my ‘mentor’ I knew everything I didn’t want to do so I decided to model the business around some basic principles:

• We will not compete on price - we will never be the cheapest option
• We will do anything a client asks, if I cannot do it, I will find them a referral I trust(within reason)
• We pay our staff at least double the industry average
• We are always available to help by phone, text, email (within reason)
• We will do everything in our power to make your event as good as we possibly can
• We only bid on events we want to do or believe in - Currently we only bid on about 50% of RFPs we receive

My theory was simple. If we charge way above the amount where everyone is fighting over margins, we can hire the best and afford to give each client a ton of attention to detail. An event planner is busy, they don’t want to think about the timer. If they are worrying about you then you fucked up.
We started slow, but my margins were strong enough that I was squeezing out around $50,000 a year my first year. I bought all my equipment for cash based on my hatred of debt. This allowed me a ton of freedom to pick and choose the work I wanted to do. It also started my reputation of “They are good, but you’ll pay for it.” A compliment I could not be more proud of.
All along the way I’ve always had an accounting job full-time to which I follow the same plan I’ve done for the last 12 years.

• Find a full-time job and be open with them on expectations
  • I own a small business
  • This full-time job will always come first when I am here
  • I will never miss a deadline, appointment, or commitment for this job
  • I have avoided large companies for this reason. My accounting life has been in small businesses and nonprofits. I’ve found those to be the most understanding and flexible. If you find the right small business owner they won’t dislike you having a side business; they will respect you for being a motherfucking hustla.
• I learn the job and then spend all my time automating and simplifying every task, down to small and seemingly insignificant.
• Now with a reduced time load at this main source of income I focus on other money making pursuits.

All along the way I was still involved at the retail store I discussed earlier. Since I’m never one to turn down someone paying me for work I did accounting and consulting for this retail store. Through a series of circumstances I took full ownership of this company in November 2019. (I did pay for it, but it was the result of an untimely death of a close friend. A situation that I wasn’t planning on for many years to come.)
As of today FIRE principles have helped me build a very privileged life. My events business is 100% shut down, but it doesn’t matter. I was able to pay my employees a sizable lump sum each for not working this year and since I run the business with no debt we only have $800 a month in liabilities. Compare this to some of my friends in the industry who have multiple leases on cargo vans,a warehouse they rent, six figure debt on equipment; I don’t think many of them will survive this.
The Running Specialty store I now own is in the exact same situation. Our one competitor in town is struggling because they have very high rent and are part of a franchise. I purchased our building and we pay cash for our inventory. My fixed expenses are very low and since my front line staff is working during a pandemic I just gave raises to everyone, averaging about 20%.
As of today I’m about 50% of the way to FI. I could likely just quit my accounting job and live from my businesses but I see no reason to do that. I’m having too much fun and have really been enjoying my money. I think the uniqueness of my approach is that I embrace a lot of modern culture but just attempt to do it in a more frugal way. Like most 30somethings that get a taste of success I made sure to buy a sports car. I’ve been into cars my whole life and it’s my greatest weakness for sure. Rather than go to a dealership I bought an immaculate 2004 911. After fixing some mechanical issues which made the purchase price cheap I only have about $30,000 in the car. It’s worth about $35,000 now. I think Mr Money Mustache would beat the shit out of me for buying that, but I got the dream car I had on my wall as a kid AND it’s costing me very little compared to my income, net worth and the fact that I learned everything I could about the 911 market and bought something worth more than I paid.
The major changes that have happened in the last 6 months are really what motivated me to write all of this down, because so much of what I knew in FI/RE has changed, and it feels like it’s all for the better.
There is no denying I’m a workaholic. The only thing I can say is that I really do love the grind. I’m friends with most of my clients at this point and owning a running store is like the coolest thing in the world. What changed in the last few months was my approach to investing.
As my income has risen, and there have been no new businesses for me to start since my time was pretty optimizely spent; my investments just kept growing.
6 months ago I was sitting on $200,000 in pre tax and $300,000 in after tax and savings.
I always felt that I can quit my accounting job and focus on my businesses when I hit $1,000,000 net worth. The thing that doesn’t get discussed much is that $500,000 in investments is a super boring spot to be.
For a person like myself who likes to be in charge of his own destiny seeing that $300,000 in after tax move with the market was annoying. I wanted it to go faster, but also I just felt so not in control. COVID has proved to me that I’m comfortable with the market for long term goals, but it’s dog shit for an entrepreneur that likes to see their money work. I believe in the market 100% and I’ll always keep my pre-tax money in low cost index funds, but I also believe in myself and it turns out I believe in myself way more than I believe in the market.
I have had rental properties in the past and was very happy with how I did. Even had some major issues that I fixed, appliances broke, water heater flooded and I needed to replace the floor, etc. No big deal, YouTube these days and you can do almost anything and just hire a pro when it’s something critical like electrical work that I’m not comfortable with.
One of the reasons I avoided real estate for so long was the HCOL here in Northern CO. It’s stupid here and you won’t make money unless you get in the vacation rental business and that’s just not for me. I’m a lazy workaholic at my core- I look at maximum return for the least effort. At the time I was trying to solve this problem I had a new creeping problem. The running store I owned was 13 hours away in my hometown and I was getting tired of coming back to work staying at either of my parents. Not because we don’t get along, it’s just a lot to ask of older parents. Plus there is an obligation to do a lot of socializing when I’m there to work plus working remote for other jobs it’s just better to have some space of my own.
I do not make enough to afford a proper second home. Also, that would defeat the entire purpose of purchasing the running store in the first place. Why bother if there is a 3 year break even just to afford a place to stay when I’m there, doesn't make sense.
Looking at non-traditional options I found a cabin in the woods that was fully furnished for $55,000. It was adorable, secluded, hard to access, right on the water and perfect. A house in my hometown at $55,000 would have been an absolute shit hole likely with bullet holes. This is in amazing shape, a 55 minute peaceful drive to my store and everything I love about nature.
The drive is not a big deal since I’m only there roughly 6 weeks a year. We also decided that is where we will spend 100% of our family vacations. I’ve spent the last decade travelling for work. Unlike most FI/RE folks I have little to no interest in travel to foreign lands. My own little slice of secluded land where I can hunt and fish is all I’ll ever need. Henry David Thoreau once wrote “I quite think I would enjoy a quiet life in the woods.” We paid cash.
Owning a property near my hometown and the location of my business opened up an opportunity to work my savings even better. I immediately started looking for rental properties. Applying my rules of least effort for my return and looking at many properties I settled on a beautifully remodeled 3 br condo, a $130 a month HOA fee to do all maintenance and made a cash offer of $122,500. Yes, it is mathematically better for me to leverage into a mortgage, trust me I know this I’m an accountant. My decision to pay cash is a risk aversion strategy to the max. Limiting how much I pay in interest goes back to that guy who couldn’t register for a race because I had to pay interest. Now, if it takes me a couple months to find a tenant at some point it doesn’t matter to me financially. That has value to me and it’s more valuable than the leverage a mortgage provides.
A little digging found that when these do come available to rent from other investors they are getting $1,300-$1,400 a month in rent for ones that are not remodeled. I’m confident I’ll be able to get these amounts which will earn me almost a 4x return over the rental market where we live in CO. Sure, a conventional life wouldn’t be to live in the mountains full time and have your cabin in Western Illinois, but it’s the most cost effective way to have both. I’ve found most people have their vacation homes or second homes in the opposite scenario financially. They live in the less desirable places and spend big bucks on the vacation home.
6 months ago I would have never guessed all of that was the plan, but the power of saving money has opened up so many opportunities for success in my life. As of today I’m casually looking for rental property number #2 in that area and I may try to learn how commercial financing works by putting 50% or more down while keeping the entire amount in a bond fund to pay off if it gets uncomfortable for me.
FIRE is no longer my primary goal. It would be nice to be able to walk away from my CFO position at some point; for now I like the insurance, salary and it’s a super fun job, so why leave? My goal now is diversification as that is what has worked for me to survive this pandemic and in nearly every life situation I’ve experienced.
If I had only done my events business when it got very successful I would be in trouble today as we have 0 clients, 0 revenue and no horizon for when that ends. Instead, we ran the business with FI principles and that business can just be dormant.
Same thing happened when retail was shut down. The month of March is usually our 2nd best month of the year, and this year we only did orders over the phone and delivered them, we were down 90% for 8 weeks. However, since I operate with no debt, we own the building and pay for inventory in cash we bled far less than our competitors. In fact, it has allowed us to take advantage of savings on reduced price inventory.
The last 2 months has seen me getting heavily into real estate from my after tax brokerage account. We were able to get a beautiful cabin by being the buyer who offered cash. There were other offers, some for more, but they all needed financing. Being overly conservative and having a large cash cushion is such a large contributor to success. It allows you to act from a place of confidence and action. When the deal is available, whether it’s business or personal you will be able to act and act first.
From here we are back to our usual ways. Every month we max 401ks & 457s, and then save whatever we don’t spend to keep buying more rentals. At some point I’ll stop buying them, but I can’t tell you when.
Whatever is left we spend on whatever we feel like. I’ve gotten a little out of control on vehicles lately. I keep talking about how much we spend and while I really don’t keep track here is one example so you know i’m not lying:
Current cars - I don’t count these in my networth but totalled it’s around $120,000
2004 911 4s
2016 Tesla Model X P90D
1987 Volvo 760 turbo
2017 Toyota Sienna Limited
I’ll be honest, even listing those out on a FI forum is embarrassing, but before 2020 we have never made more than $100,000 in a year. I just always save up for what I want, pay cash whenever possible and put significant effort into getting the best value.
I’m not as frugal as most of the people here, and I’m very comfortable with that. As long as I’m maxing my retirement accounts and investing in my businesses then I enjoy buying luxuries, toys and conveniences all the time.
Since it’s my favorite buy on my FI track here was my process from my “Should I buy a 911” spreadsheet.
Buying an exotic sports car is unheard of in the FI community, but it shouldn’t be. If it’s truly a hobby you love then my 911 is a steal.

• 911s are the most practical sports car - back seats, total cost of ownership, community with the Porsche club of America, can be driven on track with no modifications
• 911s are very reliable compared to almost any other exotic
• 911s really hold their value after their initial depreciation
• Mine (2004 the 996 generation) is the cheapest by far of any generation and the reason is pretty much only because the headlights are ugly. 50% off compared to all other generations because of headlights…..it’s a thing, google it.(ok maybe the IMS, but it’s also fixable)
• The market bottomed out a few years ago and prices are steadily rising, making it worth even more than I paid for it
• It’s not an investment, but some research and knowledge let me punch way above my income levels for my mid-life crisis-mobile
• It’s awesome. In high school I had a picture of the 2002 Turbo 911 ripped out of a MotorTrend held up with a magnet in my locker.

I’ve owned that car for almost a year, and spent almost a year researching before purchasing it and as of today I could sell it for roughly $5,000 more than I paid. Along with that I’ve had a blast every time I drive it and spend a lot of free time enjoying it. In every purchase I make I feel it’s important to maximize your value. So far the 911 is a great example of excess American consumption done right.
If we just keep our investments on auto-pilot I shouldn’t need to work anywhere (other than rental properties) in 10 years or less, at age 45 and 40. We could do it much sooner if we really wanted to adjust our lifestyle but for now, that doesn’t seem necessary. To me that’s the beauty of the FI/RE movement. It’s personal and no matter how much or little you embrace, every little change you make will improve your financial life.
Reading individual stories is my favorite part of this community and I sincerely hope you enjoyed mine.
****I was somewhat vague on details, but at some point I gave up and figure if someone wants to figure out who I am it won’t be tough****
TL;DR - Took FI/RE principles and applied them to become a very efficient spendy pants and will still finish early.