I'll make this short, because I can really find no criticism of your work other than how good it is, so...more please.
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I'll make this short, because I can really find no criticism of your work other than how good it is, so...more please.
The problem I have now, is so much misery and dismay follows the Quinta around like a restless ghost, so I can't see how this gift won't turn sour soon, something bad is bound to happen.
I think we can safely say that, "The Nowhere Legion - The Movie" will not be a Disney production!
Excellent writing as ever.
No good can come of this "gift" surely. I cannot help but feel some great calamity awaits the men sent to retrieve it.
Wonderful chapter as usual :)
Short but sweet! And thank you, McScottish - praise from an AARtist such as yourself is always welcome! p.s: I forgot to mention your Agora reference earlier touched a chord: I have written TWO plays about Hypatia before that damned film came out - Helen Mirren should have played her at the end really, though, I thought!
Well they say never look a gift horse in the mouth (there might be Greeks inside!) - but if any legion can slog through trouble it has to be the legion founded on Caesar's Day by Octavian himself and named after the Macedonians of Alexander? What tougher legion can there be?!
Fear not the men in the desert, robinzx, but the men left in the fort . . . :whistling
Master Vergilius (SBH)!......I can already see the big gate of 'Inferno'.....my fear grows! But I'll follow you, I must follow you on this difficult and arduous and frightening journey!
A most suspicious gift I daresay! Has it been left there in order to slow down the cohort, and give time for the Kalb's men to ransack their fort? Is it a distraction, is it a stratagem?
I can't wait to find out!
Do you want a good exemple of 'Porta Nigra', but a very, very good and magnificent 'Porta Nigra'?
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The march back to Nasranum began with the morning sun cresting the long dunes and the kites high above moving in long lazy circles. We knew they would descend soon after we had left that bitter oasis to peck away at the shallow pits. Our dead were not deeply buried and the tang of burnt flesh hung over the air from the adobe building in which the Saraceni had been thrown. The kites would fall, ravenous, and none of us wanted to be there to see that. Orders were given and with the sun licking the far dunes like a river of flame, we assembled in our various units and snaked out and away from the Merchant’s Bane. It was a muted march - more so from the sore heads and full bellies than anything else. Deep amongst us, the slaves and impedimenta moved slowly as if drunk - we had not carried such a weight of annonae and supplies in a long while. Around our flanks traipsed the Arabum numeri - what was left of them - while ahead and to the rear lolled the Clibanarii, now out of armour and lounging in their saddles in nothing but tunicas and loose cloaks. No trouble was expected on the three day march back to the fort through the Black Desert and orders had trickled down from our Dux, Cassianus, that this was to be a victory march - more a parade than a battle column through enemy territory - and so the riders were lax.Bitter Down The Wind Flow My Tears
Even among the Quinta and my own lads in the Second, there seemed to be no real tension. Many were sore and bore light wounds - and a few, more seriously injured, were being hauled across the backs of the mules or thrown on the few carts now covered in this ‘gift’ of the Kalb. It had been a grievous battle and one only just crowned with the laurels of victory. Out of a hundred and sixty fighting men in the maniple, I had no more than eighty odd left who could stand to the shield, as they say. Over fifty were among the wounded and would eventually stand again with us but some thirty lay interred in the sands of the Harra however - now nothing but food for the kites. Others in the legion had borne similar casualties. Even the Clibanarii had suffered dreadfully in that fighting on the dune above the oasis. The worst had been the Arabum numeri though. We had had three of their units with us - the fourth being left under Aemilianus at Nasranum - two arcuballistae and one skirmisher numeri. They were now only enough men of the arcuballistae to effectively field a single numerus. Cassianus had ordered them to fold together into one unit and now they toiled up along the dunes in long thin columns, cradling those tiny wooden weapons as if they were their only possessions and meant more to them than an emperor’s donative.
It was approaching midday and orders had drifted back down the long column to halt for food and wine. I had detailed Octavio to deal with the men as they all sprawled out in the sands and among the black rocks while ordering Suetonius also to check on our wounded among the slaves and the baggage men. Flies fell on us without let in the sharp heat and I remember glancing up to the long distant line of those Arabum irregulars. They had simply dropped where they stood and were now passing bladders and amphorae up and down their lines shouting out ribald jokes and cruel jests as they did so. All among us were tired and sweaty, the legionaries now propping up cloaks on spears and rods to gain some shade, grinning easily among old comrades and opening up parcels of dried meat and strips of tack, some tending to the bandages along their limbs or faces. A pavilion was being hastily erected up at the front of the column by desperate slaves and the Dux and his guard were loitering under it in the shade. The air was riven by the squeals of hungry mules and the sharp crack of the file leaders shouting out orders to the slaves to bring up water or wine, and so on. The entire column sank into a well-deserved rest, it seemed, out here in the Auranitis. All except these numeri. They remained out on the lip of a dune in one long column - squatting, yes, but every man among them, I noted, casting a wary eye upon the horizon, even as they drank and swore and cursed each other with an insolence I found strangely comforting.
Curious, I drifted over to the head of that distant file of jeering men. I was aware of their wary eyes on me as I pulled up the long drift of sand to the lip of that dune. Some shifted slightly as if to turn away from me but others grinned toothless grins as I came nearer. One man, his face dark and sunburnt and burnished like a copper mask, his eyes dark and glittering, waved me over and threw up a bladder to me. I grabbed it and uncorked it, pausing by him.
‘Careful, Ducenarius, that’s goat’s piss to some, eh, lads!’ Others laughed around him but did not look at me.
I drank deep from it and felt a hard scorching wash down my throat. He was right as the gods bear me witness. That drink was vile stuff. I threw the bladder back at him and damned him and all his men to whatever whores had birthed them under an inauspicious moon. He grinned again and then raised it to salute me before downing the whole thing in one foul draught. He wiped a dirty hand across his mouth when he finished. ‘Told you, Ducenarius. What’s vintage to some is bile to others, eh?’
I looked along that line of filthy men, watching them drink and swear and swop curses with each other and but for their Pannonian hats and emblemed tunicas I would have thought them no more than greasy barbarians. A score of dark bearded faces gazed up at me as if I were a curiosity from another realm and I noted that at least one Arabum irregular appraised the fat wallet which hung from my military belt.
‘Don’t worry, Ducenarius, we will not fleece you like the rats we are - eh, lads!’
A fellow rat spat into the sand. ‘Not a chance in Hades, dominus!’ he said and then smiled the cruellest smile I had ever seen.
I felt foolish. I had wondered over to these men but I did not know why. On a whim, I imagined. Something about their arrogance and alertness while we all fell out and drank wine among the dunes. There was something different about these Romans who were both soldiers and bandits, professionals and brigands, all at the same time - and I remembered that wiry face of a small mad man who had offered to dance a military dance among the fields of the dead and whose face lay crumpled and twisted later under the boots of my legion. And I looked again along the lines of these dirty men, all cradling their ridiculous wooden toys and remembered how they had moved and fired like the best of all Romans across and in among the dead and bloodied - and how they had covered each other with a cold mad precision I had never seen before, sighting and shooting with all the deadly skill of a hunter who knows no match. And I knew that in among the lines of a legion is a courage borne of steadfastness, of discipline and order, that a legion is a single body drilled like an oiled mechanism, and unleashed in the cold rage of tactics and orders. Whereas here was courage of a different order all together - a reckless individualism borne of that need to hunt and kill on the field of battle all alone and exposed in open order. Yes, it was a dance of sorts. A jig of death and blood in among the flying darts and the shrieks of dying men and horses. It was the old Roman velites with their wolf heads leaping and flying out before the legions. The sons of Mars dancing their martial steps in the chaos of battle.
The copper mask split in a wide grin again and then his wooden toy was flying up towards me. In surprise, I grabbed it. He rose up in its wake and turfed out a bolt from the quiver at his waste. He held it up to me as if I was a child. ‘Wooden dart, see, Ducenarius? Iron barbed tip. Wooden flights. It’s not a thing of art - is it, lads, eh?’ They snickered around us. ‘And this - ' he gestured to the arcuballistae in my hands ‘ - well, it’s a cursed evil thing, see. So small and vicious - we nickname it the ‘asp’, don’t we, lads? One sting from this and death is the only friend you have left. Best you hold it the right way round, though, Ducenarius.’ And he reached in and reversed it on my hands so that it pointed outwards.
‘And the range?’ I asked, attempting not to sound foolish.
He laughed and shook his head. ‘Forget range, Ducenarius! It’s all about the sighting, ain’t it, lads?’
A small twisted man rose near me and pulled up his weapon into his shoulder. He cradled it tight and then swung around in an odd move using his hips and waist like a boxer. The arcuballista swivelled with unerring precision and I found myself staring at the diamond-shaped tip of a wooden bolt.
‘This fires flat like a stone across water, see?’ said the man at my side. I could not take my eyes off that dart. ‘Not like your arrows or javelins. They arc up high - over the heads of the helmets in front, don’t they. No. These fire true and sharp and fast. It’s not range you want to worry about but your target, see?’
‘Target?’ I echoed.
‘Think of it like this - at four thousand feet, we can see cavalry from infantry. Too far for us to fire, of course. At two thousand feet we can see an infantry head as a round ball. Still no good though. Now at one thousand five hundred feet we can see the face and a helmet crest. An officer from an infantry man. At five hundred feet, we can see armour details and crest colours. We can see men shouting orders and men lashing at others to get in line. See? It’s not range but target, see?’
The twisted man flipped his weapon away almost as casually as one sheathes a dagger into its scabbard. ‘He’s right, dominus,’ he said. ‘Range is for trajectory weapons - your javelins, your arrows. With us, it’s all about the target!’
I hefted the arcuballista into my shoulder and peered down its short length. I found the pavilion of Cassianus not two hundred feet away. Waves of heat danced before me but there in the distance as I squinted I could see his dark hair and solid face.
The Arabum at my shoulder leaned in. ‘One hundred feet is the killing range, Ducenarius. Fire at that target at that range and you will have a kill to notch on your shield and knife haft - but you have to find that target first, see? Each kill for us is a blow to the whole enemy. We kill to gut an enemy line. That’s all. We hunt for targets, for a quarry within the enemy battle-line. That’s us.’
For one long moment I held our Dux in that sight. I knew that the weapon had no dart in it and that it was not cocked but I tracked his movement under that pavilion among his guard and saw that he nibbled on a joint and then threw it away half-eaten, careless of the slave who scurried to snatch it up and hide it in his worn robes. I held that moment so that my breath was frozen inside me and it seemed as if I was suspended in time somehow - that everything slowed down and stopped and I alone existed. And Cassianus hung there on the end of that arcuballista like a wooden doll -
‘Oh don’t think we haven’t thought of that, Ducenarius’ he grinned beside me. ‘Don’t think we haven’t thought of that, at all!’
I dropped the wooden weapon and turned to gaze on him. ‘And what stopped you?’
He reached up and took the weapon away from me and smiled a cold smile. ‘Who says we have stopped, eh?’ Others around him laughed a low dirty laugh that made me shiver. Seeing the look on my face, he said: ‘Oh don’t worry, Felix, we remember who saved us in the Unending Sighs - who alone came out of the desert when all the rest had fled from us for that fort - the Dux, his guards, and those shining bastards on their horses. Don’t worry - if it’s one thing we dirty bastards remember it’s a debt. Why do you think we danced out into that field of death, eh? No, Aemilianus, has given us orders about you, Ducenarius, so don’t you worry about nothing -' he spat then in the direction of the pavilion ‘- as for that one, well, no matter how many feet he rides, we will never have him out of our sights, eh lads?’
There was no laughter then only a grim silence that seemed to drift down that long squatting file in the sand. I looked at this dirty copper-faced irregular and what I saw returned in his eyes was something I would not wish on my worst enemy. I knew then that our Dux, Cassianus, might one day meet an asp indeed but not one that slithered under his boot or cloak at night - instead whistling out of the dark in a long level line as cold as the architect’s ink . . .
Back among my men in the Second as orders were shouted down the column to resume the march, with tired legionaries standing up and shaking off the black dust and mules braying out to the lash and the shouts of the drivers, I glanced back up to those Arabum numeri along that dune and watched them drift like shadows; watchful, alert, cradling those ridiculous wooden toys - and saw for the first time that it was not just the horizon they scanned and marked. Not a few of those rat-faced men glanced down in among us under the cloak of casual jokes and sarcasms. Not a few marked targets it seemed . . .
A nice change of tack, and it sows doubts into what may or may not follow, and should the fort be less than accommodating when the return, how will the Dux get back in one piece I wonder.
It is a book, an old good book!! I start reading and the time disappears, the screen becomes a page, and the story a good book, and I fall into the page and from the page in the desert and from there I can see the eyes of the men, the weapons, these strange balliste, the sound of the wind and of the footsteps in the sand and the feeling of continue subtle tension..........when the text ends, I return here and I see my PC, the screen and I cannot avoid to think: But how does he manage to capture so deeply my mind only describing a marching army in a desert? Thanks you my dear SBH! for your pages and because you do know how to stop the time!!
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
I really like how you have gone through the arcuballistarii and their deadly trade (I know you favour those rats, solo and multiplayer) and it added an excellent layer to the story, very solidly written and brilliantly put.
Quote:
And I looked again along the lines of these dirty men, all cradling their ridiculous wooden toys and remembered how they had moved and fired like the best of all Romans across and in among the dead and bloodied - and how they had covered each other with a cold mad precision I had never seen before, sighting and shooting with all the deadly skill of a hunter who knows no match. And I knew that in among the lines of a legion is a courage borne of steadfastness, of discipline and order, that a legion is a single body drilled like an oiled mechanism, and unleashed in the cold rage of tactics and orders. Whereas here was courage of a different order all together - a reckless individualism borne of that need to hunt and kill on the field of battle all alone and exposed in open order. Yes, it was a dance of sorts. A jig of death and blood in among the flying darts and the shrieks of dying men and horses. It was the old Roman velites with their wolf heads leaping and flying out before the legions. The sons of Mars dancing their martial steps in the chaos of battle.
This. I particularly loved these two sentences though, they really stood out. Very nicely written!Quote:
I knew then that our Dux, Cassianus, might one day meet an asp indeed but not one that slithered under his boot or cloak at night - instead whistling out of the dark in a long level line as cold as the architect’s ink . . .
+ rep when I can! :thumbsup2
So when does SBH get a gold?
Quite brilliant. The description of the irregulars' appearances were particularly vivid :bow:
Thanks for the comments, guys! It is rewarding to move away from the legions of Rome and delve a little into those poor men who tramped about the frontiers in old boots and thread-bare clothes - especially when they have been left for dead in the Harra!
As for gold - you mean gold coin surely?!?!?
I second this...after reading that update I then went and scoured my own save game for all the arcuballistarii I could find and put them in my field armies. Not sure if I have given you rep, SBH but here you go, for a wonderfully written story. :thumbsup2 **Gah, never mind, wont let me! Imaginary rep it is then!
Gold coin? Yes, that's what I meant. Of course. :whistle:
Those Moments Which Shine Least Matter Most
The march passed without incident back to Nasranum. At night, we huddled down into the papillio tents deep against those odd stone structures we always encountered here in the Harra. Scouts and deep patrols found nothing but dust and rock and the little wind zephyrs which skipped about our feet like playful children. No tracks. No cast-aside bits of broken accoutrements. No refuse or cold ash from abandoned fires. Nothing. It seemed for all the world as we toiled in that long replete column back to what some were now saying was our home that we were alone. Adrift in a black sand-swept landscape like shades marching to the underworld - except that our bellies were full, the pack mules were laden, and the men walked easily under the standards. Even the wounded were recovering and falling in again, limping but smiling ruefully to the jokes thrown at them. Out on our flanks strode or loped the exculcatores under Magnus and those rangy numeri, whose rough faces always seemed be scowling as much at us they did to the endless wastes about them.
A day and a night passed and we tramped across the Harra, singing the old marching songs of the legions, our spirits unbroken, our shields unshattered, our standards upright. As I strode up and down the column, often with little Barko at my heel swearing in that mash of Coptic and Latin, I watched these men of the Quinta and remembered how proud I was of this legion. My legion. That old ancient legion whose origin went back to Octavian Augustus himself and the founding of the empire. I watched the faces of the men who marched now in that barren dust - the grizzled faces of the veterans and file closers, the scarred visages of Greeks and Syrians and Isaurians, the bearded men who hailed from Thrace and Macedonia, the young saplings with fresh down on their chins who imitated their older brethren, the tattooed men with marks of unknown desert tribes and clans over their arms and hands, the sun-burnt miens all ravaged with exhaustion and pride - such a volatile mix - and finally those bitter men who walked always with clenched fists missing a brother or shield companion long since lost in battles we could all scarcely remember now.
I watched all these men of this legion walk past, the dust wreathing their feet, the sun glaring from helmet and mail, the long long lines of that awful flower that was our doom flowing past me like a litany - and always through it all I heard the snatch of song or rhyme and knew a strange contentment in my heart that I rarely felt in these fevered and dark days: a contentment that the legion was triumphant, that its lines had not been broken, that our eagle still flew on the wings of victory. Rough voices cried out those ancient songs as we tramped and walked across the Harra back to Nasranum, to the Fort of Oblivion, and to that Black Gate whose portal I knew now was open only to those who were doomed - the words of that old scrap of a song each legion knew drifted past my ear: that old Lament of Titus:
For it’s stand t’ shield and it’s grasp t’ spearAnd ‘ear the tuba play,While the old barbari do walk with fearAcross the broken day -
Old Titus ‘e is needed on this dayOld Titus rise up from that bed o’ hay!
The civvies ‘ate us, the peasants shun us allBut come the fall o’ the townAnd that red ruin rises across allIt’s pleas and cries and ‘ave a crown!
Old Titus ‘e is needed on this dayOld Titus rise up from that bed o’ hay!
The father hide ‘is girls from us at nightThe inn-keeper bars ‘is gateWe reel and crash sending all in a fright‘till the barbari comes wi’ hate -
Old Titus ‘e is needed on this dayOld Titus rise up from that bed o’ hay!
Old Titus ‘e is dead and gone for all‘Is ‘ead is severed like‘Is limbs all hacked apart in one last brawlAgainst the ruined dike.
So Old Titus is no more on this dayOld Titus will ne’er rise up from that bed o’ hay!
The old rough Latin words echoed past me as I strode along those lines, often chorused with grim laughter and mocking scowls. An ancient marching song which had dusted all the frontiers of Rome in its time and whose bitter humour struck a chord with every legionary who had ever enlisted under the standards of the emperors. It drifted now across us all as we marched back to Nasranum sung by men who had crossed that uneasy divide within Rome itself - the line between the farmer and soldier; that mark which made one man lay his life down for another even as that other shunned and despised him. That old eternal lot of the solider hailed when needed but despised when not. It had a bitter irony now sung out here in the Black Desert where no Roman farmer or peasant or inn-keeper had ever existed.
It was late on the afternoon of the third day marching back to Nasranum and we knew that the fort would hove into view soon. Our spirits had lifted and the old songs were rippling around the column like drunken liturgies sung in the old revels after sacrifice and wine. I was walking slowly at the head of the Second, Suetonius at my side, his young face eagerly scanning the distant dunes for sign of an advance guard from the fort, the men trailing behind me, singing slowly to the rhythm of their boots through the black dust of the Harra, when a shadow fell upon me and I glanced up in distraction. There above me sat the Dux Cassianus on his horse. He was scrutinising me slowly, his hard face frowning in distraction, while he idly flipped the reins so that the horse trotted alongside me matching my stride. A dozen of his guardsmen fell behind him, the scarlet monogram of their Christ emblazoned on their oval shields, richly coloured cloaks falling over the haunches of their horses. Cassianus beetled his dark brows and stared down at me.
‘Felix, isn’t?’ he enquired, almost absently, flicking the reins as he spoke.
I nodded back deferentially. ‘Dominus.’ Something in me warned me that he knew who I was and was merely feigning absent-mindedness. I trudged on through the desert sand aware of the long column of my Maniple behind me, the men staring in barely disguised hostility at this Dux’s back. Soldiers do not forget a man who runs nor forgive either. For a moment the face of that ragged irregular numerus appeared before me and I saw an image of that tiny wooden toy he cradled so lovingly.
‘Ah, yes, the man who saved my rear-guard in what they are calling The Battle of the Unending Sighs. Ridiculous title, wouldn’t you say? It was nothing more than a skirmish between some poorly-fed limitanei and these Saraceni brigands.’
I kept silent not trusting myself to say a thing but nodded back.
‘Yes,’ he carried on, ‘Felix of the Second. You bore the brunt back at the Merchant’s Bane, too, I am told. Your Tribune is impressed by you, it seems. I am told that if you and that, umm, Barko, is it? Yes, Barko - that if you had not held the line, that battle may have gone very differently indeed. Wouldn’t you say?’
I squinted up at him, the sun in my eyes. ‘I obey the orders of the Tribune. Nothing more, dominus. It was the Palmyrean heavy cavalry who smashed the desert dogs.’
He nodded back lazily and brushed the flies away from his face. ‘As you say, Felix, as you say.’ For one long moment, he gazed down upon me and I saw his dark Armenian face harden as if coming to a decision. Then he smiled suddenly as if a joke had been cracked.
‘Do me a favour then, Felix - take your Second and move ahead to inform the castellum that we will arrive imminently. I fear those skirmishers under the Ducenarius Magnus are all tired and foot-sore now. Take your men and move up ahead and bid that Aemilianus to get the castellum ready for our return and inform him that we bring spoils and provisions.’
And with that, he whipped his horse’s head about and rode back to the middle of the long column, his guardsmen trailing smartly behind him.
I shouted out - ‘Octavio! Assemble the Maniple in open order! Advance to the head of the column. I want two lines, primani forward, secundi behind in skirmish order! At the double!’
Shouts and curses rippled down the rows of men as the column advanced at speed forwards and began to widen out into two long lines with the primani legionaries forward and the secundi legionaries some paces behind. In moments, a long wide screen of heavily armed infantry was strung up ahead of the column and moving at a jog through the heat and the endless flies here in the Harra.
I trotted up alongside the primani legionary on the left of the line - a scarred Danubian veteran whose face laboured with effort as we jogged forwards, the sand sinking in beneath our feet. The Draconarius, Suetonius, appeared ay my side, his young open face awash with sweat, with the Vexillarius behind him. I glanced down the two wide lines, seeing the men move forward alert and ready despite the boiling sun, and far away at the extreme right of the line saw the little Umbrian nod back at me. We jogged ahead over the dunes and soon the column fell behind us, disappearing behind the long slow roll of the desert. In a few moments, we were alone in the Harra.
Not a few of the men about me cursed the Dux then and I did not blame them. His ‘reward’ was a bitter salve indeed.
We jogged as quickly as we could through though dunes and rivers of sand, the black rocks cutting our feet, the kites overhead cawing down to us like lazy furies, as the sun dipped slowly down into a balmy dusk. We ran, the heavy javelins sloped back over our shoulders, the shields dipping forwards with each step, our helmets hot and heavy on our heads, our throats baked dry by the heat. And I remember smiling through it all that grim mocking smile men carry when forced to do a poor thing well. I noted that I was not the only one either with that smile.
We crested a last dune and then paused, all strung out in two long thin lines, panting and sweating, some doubled over and dry retching over their heavy armour. Below us, lay Nasranum in that wide shallow hollow we had come to know so well. Dusk would be here soon and the cool shadows of the night would relieve us all. Octavio loped up to my side. I saw that his face was lathered in sweat so that the Mithraic tattoo on his brow seemed to float before him as if hovering behind a screen of water. Then its wings dipped as if taking flight.
‘Curse me, Ducenarius -‘
I saw what he saw in a heartbeat.
The fort was silent. The gate-portal open. A haze rose up from within its walls from the heat of the day. It was silent and still. No men patrolled the ramparts. No camp-fires trailed up into the oppressive air. No shouts of recognition greeted us. There was no flash of sunlight from shield or spear-tip. No banner waving limply in the fetid air.
The Fort of Oblivion was empty and open and hollow like a skull bleaching in the Auranitis.
Behind me, a tired legionary straightened up at that sight, his eyes widening with that fatalism all soldiers know, and he whispered:
So Old Titus is no more on this dayOld Titus will ne’er rise up from that bed o’ hay!
Ha! Knew it, never accept gifts from the Saraceni Dogs!
Very atmospheric, I could hear the sand hissing around my feet with that and feel the dry heat of the desert. What was that at the beginning when they found the fort originally, black sand and bones? I guess there are more bones now.
+rep
I've started on the ToTW (hence the link in my sig, vote for your favourite!), I wonder if I can "borrow" some of your AAR and see if anyone notices :D - just kidding, would never do that, but I'd be happy if I get to the same level.
Gosh, that was a quick reply - I am still editing the post!
EDIT: I will check out the TOTW too! Any borrowing would need financial renumeration of course!