Armor Book Quotes

One day I would have all the books in the world, shelves and shelves of them. I would live my life in a tower of books. I would read all day long and eat peaches. And if any young knights in armor dared to come calling on their white chargers and plead with me to let down my hair, I would pelt them with peach pits until they went home.

Love has a shape, but no color. You’re probably wondering, “If it’s transparent, how do you know what shape it is?” Good question. Well, for one thing, I put it together, and for another, I’m currently wearing it like body armor (though to the casual observer, I appear naked).

I have my books And my poetry to protect me; I am shielded in my armor, Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an island.

A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.

When you trust your inner guidance and begin moving in the direction of your dreams (aligned with your individual gifts) you will be cloaked in an armor bestowed upon you by your guardian angel.

To err is to wander and wandering is the way we discover the world and lost in thought it is the also the way we discover ourselves. Being right might be gratifying but in the end it is static a mere statement. Being wrong is hard and humbling and sometimes even dangerous but in the end it is a journey and a story. Who really wants to stay at home and be right when you can don your armor spring up on your steed and go forth to explore the world True you might get lost along get stranded in a swamp have a scare at the edge of a cliff thieves might steal your gold brigands might imprison you in a cave sorcerers might turn you into a toad but what of what To fuck up is to find adventure: it is in the spirit that this book is written.

Tarquin turned from the table, just as the tent flaps parted for a pair of broad shoulders— Varian. He didn’t so much as look at his High Lord, his focus going right to where Amren sat at the head of the table. As if he’d sensed she was here—or someone had reported. And he’d come running. Amren’s eyes flicked up from the Book as Varian halted. A coy smile curved her red lips. There was still blood and dirt splattered on Varian’s brown skin, coating his silver armor and close-cropped white hair. He didn’t seem to notice or care as he strode for Amren. And none of us dared to speak as Varian dropped to his knees before Amren’s chair, took her shocked face in his broad hands, and kissed her soundly. ... None of us lasted long after dinner. Amren and Varian didn’t even bother to join us. No, she’d just wrapped her legs around his waist, right there in front of us, and he’d stood, lifting her in one swift movement. I wasn’t entirely sure how Varian managed to walk them out of the tent while still kissing her, Amren’s hands dragging through his hair, letting out noises that were unnervingly like purring as they vanished into the camp. Rhys had let out a low laugh as we all gawked in their wake. “I suppose that’s how Varian decided he’d tell Amren he was feeling rather grateful she ordered us to go to Adriata.” Tarquin cringed. “We’ll alternate who has to deal with them on holidays.

If you were mine" Oh my what would I do to be his? He's the only man who has ever set the blood racing through my body. Yet he's so antagonizing too; he's difficult, complicated, and confusing. One minute he rebuffs me, the next he sends me fourteen thousand dollar books, then tracks me like a stalker. And for all that, I have spent the night in his hotel suite, and I feel safe. Protected. He cares enough to come and rescue me from some mistakenly perceived danger. He's not a dark knight at all but a white knight in shining, dazzling armor... a classic romantic hero.

If you wear smiles like armor- If you put on personalities like clothes- If you can't show the world all that you are- This book is for you.

The Cool Stuff Theory of Literature is as follows: All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about what's cool. And that works all the way from the external trappings to the level of metaphor, subtext, and the way one uses words. In other words, I happen not to think that full-plate armor and great big honking greatswords are cool. I don't like 'em. I like cloaks and rapiers. So I write stories with a lot of cloaks and rapiers in 'em, 'cause that's cool. Guys who like military hardware, who think advanced military hardware is cool, are not gonna jump all over my books, because they have other ideas about what's cool. The novel should be understood as a structure built to accommodate the greatest possible amount of cool stuff.

They are a testament not only to the Afghans' hunger for literacy, but also to their willingness to pour scarce resources into this effort, even during a time of war. I have seen children studying in classrooms set up inside animal sheds, windowless basements, garages, and even an abandoned public toilet. We ourselves have run schools out of refugee tents, shipping containers, and the shells of bombed-out Soviet armored personnel carriers. The thirst for education over there is limitless. The Afghans want their children to go to school because literacy represents what neither we not anyone else has so far managed to offer them: hope, progress, and the possibility of controlling their own destiny.

Books are many things: lullabies for the weary, ointment for the wounded, armor for the fearful, and nests for those in need of a home.

Books were my armor. Everything I'd ever learned growing up, all my thoughts, dreams, goals, experiences, it all came from the books I read. It was like I went around collecting knowledge, plucking it from pages and storing it up, waiting for a chance to use it.

Ransie was a narrow six feet of sallow brown skin and yellow hair. The imperturbability of the mountains hung upon him like a suit of armor. The woman was calicoed, angled, snuff-brushed, and weary with unknown desires. Through it all gleamed a faint protest of cheated youth unconscious of its loss.

It would be better to close the book, close the books, and to face, all at once, not life, which is very big, but the fragile armor of the present.

First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. There is a ladder. The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner. We know what it is for, we who have used it. Otherwise it is a piece of maritime floss some sundry equipment. I go down. Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light the clear atoms of our human air. I go down. My flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin. First the air is blue and then it is bluer and then green and then black I am blacking out and yet my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power the sea is another story the sea is not a question of power I have to learn alone to turn my body without force in the deep element. And now: it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here swaying their crenellated fans between the reefs and besides you breathe differently down here. I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail. I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly along the flank of something more permanent than fish or weed the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth the drowned face always staring toward the sun the evidence of damage worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion among the tentative haunters. This is the place. And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armored body. We circle silently about the wreck we dive into the hold. I am she: I am he whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes whose breasts still bear the stress whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies obscurely inside barrels half-wedged and left to rot we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course the water-eaten log the fouled compass We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear.

Can’t you make yourself likeable? Can’t you even try?” Something shifted in Tavi then. She was always so flippant, trailing sarcasm behind her like a duchess trailing furs. But not this time. Hugo had pierced her armor and blood was dripping from the wound. “Try for whom, Hugo?” she repeated, her voice raw. “For the rich boys who get to go to the Sorbonne even though they’re too stupid to solve a simple quadratic equation? For the viscount I was seated next to at a dinner who tried to put his hand up my skirt through all five courses? For the smug society ladies who look me up and down and purse their lips and say no, I won’t do for their sons because my chin is too pointed, my nose is too large, I talk too much about numbers?” “Tavi …” Isabelle whispered. She went to her, tried to put an arm around her, but Tavi shook her off. “I wanted books. I wanted maths and science. I wanted an education,” Tavi said, her eyes bright with emotion. “I got corsets and gowns and high-heeled slippers instead. It made me sad, Hugo. And then it made me angry. So no, I can’t make myself likeable. I’ve tried. Over and over. It doesn’t work. If I don’t like who I am, why should you?

You know what's so cool about gaming? The whole collective consciousness thing! Like when you tap into your own knight in shinning armor, you're tapping into all knights in shinning armor. All these archetypes, you know, are we're all of them, and you have to learn to honour and acknowledge them inside you." "Plus, you get to be people you're not." "Um. True. And people you are.

Srinagar is a medieval city dying in a modern war. It is empty streets, locked shops, angry soldiers and boys with stones. It is several thousand military bunkers, four golf courses, and three book-shops. It is wily politicians repeating their lies about war and peace to television cameras and small crowds gathered by the promise of an elusive job or a daily fee of a few hundred rupees. It is stopping at sidewalks and traffic lights when the convoys of rulers and their patrons in armored cars, secured by machine guns, rumble on broken roads. It is staring back or looking away, resigned. Srinagar is never winning and never being defeated.

A literary mystery, a damsel in distress, and his rival deposed. If that doesn't get him here then he's not much of a knight in shining armor.

I mean to do something grand. I don't know what, yet; but when I'm grown up I shall find out.Perhaps,it will be rowing out in boats, and saving peoples' lives,like that girl in the book. Or perhaps I shall go and nurse in the hospital, like Miss Nightingale. Or else I'll head a crusade and ride on a white horse, with armor and a helmet on my head, and carry a sacred flag. Or if I don't do that, I'll paint pictures,or sing, or scalp – sculp – what is it? you know – make figures in marble. Anyhow it shall be something.

What you should do," she told Fat during one of his darker hours, "is get into studying the characteristics of the T-34." Fat asked what that was. It turned out that Sherri had read a book on Russion armor during World War Two. The T-34 tank had been the Soviet Union's salvation and thereby the salvation of all the Allied Powers- and, by extension, Horselover Fat's, since without the T-34 he would be speaking - not english or Latin or the koine - but German.

The picture he was cleaning showed an armored figure standing in a desolate landscape. It had no weapon, but held a staff bearing a strange, stiff banner. The visor of this figure’s helmet was entirely of gold, without eye slits or ventilation; in its polished surface the deathly desert could be seen in reflection, and nothing more.

Most people, when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously. Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armor of self-justification. When we began working on this book, the poster boy for "tenacious clinging to a discredited belief" was George W. Bush. Bush was wrong in his claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, he was wrong in claiming that Saddam was linked with Al Qaeda, he was wrong in predicting that Iraqis would be dancing joyfully in the streets to receive the American soldiers, he was wrong in predicting that the conflict would be over quickly, he was wrong in his gross underestimate of the financial cost of the war, and he was most famously wrong in his photo-op speech six weeks after the invasion began, when he announced (under a banner reading MISSION ACCOMPLISHED) that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended.

The cases described in this section (The Fear of Being) may seem extreme, but I have become convinced that they are not as uncommon as one would think. Beneath the seemingly rational exterior of our lives is a fear of insanity. We dare not question the values by which we live or rebel against the roles we play for fear of putting our sanity into doubt. We are like the inmates of a mental institution who must accept its inhumanity and insensitivity as caring and knowledgeableness if they hope to be regarded as sane enough to leave. The question who is sane and who is crazy was the theme of the novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. The question, what is sanity? was clearly asked in the play Equus. The idea that much of what we do is insane and that if we want to be sane, we must let ourselves go crazy has been strongly advanced by R.D. Laing. In the preface to the Pelican edition of his book The Divided Self, Laing writes: "In the context of our present pervasive madness that we call normality, sanity, freedom, all of our frames of reference are ambiguous and equivocal." And in the same preface: "Thus I would wish to emphasize that our 'normal' 'adjusted' state is too often the abdication of ecstasy, the betrayal of our true potentialities; that many of us are only too successful in acquiring a false self to adapt to false realities." Wilhelm Reich had a somewhat similar view of present-day human behavior. Thus Reich says, "Homo normalis blocks off entirely the perception of basic orgonotic functioning by means of rigid armoring; in the schizophrenic, on the other hand, the armoring practically breaks down and thus the biosystem is flooded with deep experiences from the biophysical core with which it cannot cope." The "deep experiences" to which Reich refers are the pleasurable streaming sensations associated with intense excitation that is mainly sexual in nature. The schizophrenic cannot cope with these sensations because his body is too contracted to tolerate the charge. Unable to "block" the excitation or reduce it as a neurotic can, and unable to "stand" the charge, the schizophrenic is literally "driven crazy." But the neurotic does not escape so easily either. He avoids insanity by blocking the excitation, that is, by reducing it to a point where there is no danger of explosion, or bursting. In effect the neurotic undergoes a psychological castration. However, the potential for explosive release is still present in his body, although it is rigidly guarded as if it were a bomb. The neurotic is on guard against himself, terrified to let go of his defenses and allow his feelings free expression. Having become, as Reich calls him, "homo normalis," having bartered his freedom and ecstasy for the security of being "well adjusted," he sees the alternative as "crazy." And in a sense he is right. Without going "crazy," without becoming "mad," so mad that he could kill, it is impossible to give up the defenses that protect him in the same way that a mental institution protects its inmates from self-destruction and the destruction of others.

We go to partake of death. And it is in these moments, before the blades are unsheated, before blood wets the ground and screams fill the air, that the futility descends upon us all. Without our armor, we would all weep.

To now is to love, to see is a joy, but to lose is hurtful.

There’s a reason the Bible tells us to guard our heart and put on the armor of God daily.

She knew armor when she saw it, and who wears such heavy armor if they are not vulnerable without it?

Spiritual armor is useful only if we put it on!

In his books, Dr. Alexander Lowen put into words the anguish I could not describe. He explained how a repressed experience was converted into a physical symptom. Intense sexual energy that had not been resolved or discharged would be forced into muscles, causing chronic muscular tensions. Finally, someone understood my pain…at least that one. Chronic muscular tension may not sound like a big deal but I have lived in a body primed for lifting a car. The muscles never let go. Even when I awaken, they are flexed to the max. It’s called “muscular armoring.

I conceal myself behind cynicism because it’s safe. Camouflage is more protective than body armor. Why do you think the Department of Defense contacted me to design a gun that shoots insults?

FishyBoi was as strange as his name. He had pale blue eyes that looked almost white. Under the right conditions, he might have been mistaken for Herobrine. In addition to his standard diamond armor and diamond sword, he had a pet parrot named Awesome. The parrot talked, a lot. It liked to mostly talk about itself. “I’m Awesome, braahk!” “You’re not, braahk!” “Awesome, braahk. Not, braahk.

Parsons pulled the straw near to him, and then said to the spectators, "This is God's armor, and now I am a Christian soldier prepared for battle: I look for no mercy but through the merits of Christ;

Look at these oafs, Ned. My wife insisted I take these two to squire for me, and they’re worse than useless. Can’t even put a man’s armor on him properly. Squires, they say. I say they’re swineherds dressed up in silk.” Ned only needed a glance to understand the difficulty. “The boys are not at fault,” he told the king. “You’re too fat for your armor, Robert.

And the peanut butter-eaters on Earth were preparing to conquer the shazzbutter-eaters on the planet in the book by Kilgore Trout. By this time, the Earthlings hadn't just demolished West Virginia and Southeast Asia. They had demolished everything. So they were ready to go pioneering again. They studied the shazzbutter-eaters by means of electronic snooping, and determined that they were too numerous and proud and resourceful ever to allow themselves to be pioneered. So the Earthlings infiltrated the ad agency which had the shazzbutter account, and they buggered the statistics in the ads. They made the average for everything so high that everybody on the planet felt inferior to the majority in very respect. Then the Earthling armored space ships came and discovered the planet. Only token resistance was offered here and there, because the natives felt so below average. And then the pioneering began.

Rise up smiling, and walk with me. Rise up in the armor of thy body and what shall pass shall make thee unafraid. Walk among the yellow hills, for they belong to thee. Walk upon grass and let thy feet descend into soft soil; in the end when all has failed thee the soil shall comfort thee, the soil shall receive thee and in thy dark bed thou shalt find such peace as is thy portion. In thine armor, hear my voice. In thine armor, hear. Whatsoever thou doest, thy friend and thy brother and thy woman shall betray thee. Whatsoever thou dost plant, the weeds and the seasons shall spite thee. Wheresoever thou goest, the heavens shall fall upon thee. Though the nations shall come unto thee in friendship thou art curst. Know that the Gods ignore thee. Know that thou art Life, and that pain shall forever come into thee, though thy years be without end and thy days without sleep, even and forever. And knowing this, in thine armor, thou shalt rise up. Red and full and glowing is thy heart; a steel is forging within thy breast. And what can hurt thee now? In thy granite mansion, what can hurt thee ever? Thou shalt only die. Therefore seek not redemption nor forgiveness for thy sins, for know that thou hast never sinned. Let the Gods come unto thee.

the Sunshine and Shadow design. The Amish A Devoted Christian's Prayer Book contained the prayer, "We pray, O Holy Father, that we might leave behind the night of sin and guilt and ever walk in the shining light of Thy wondrous grace, and cast off the works of darkness, put on the armor of light, and walk honestly as in the day.

The children in my dreams speak in Gujarati turn their trusting faces to the sun say to me care for us nurture us in my dreams I shudder and I run. I am six in a playground of white children Darkie, sing us an Indian song! Eight in a roomful of elders all mock my broken Gujarati English girl! Twelve, I tunnel into books forge an armor of English words. Eighteen, shaved head combat boots - shamed by masis in white saris neon judgments singe my western head. Mother tongue. Matrubhasha tongue of the mother I murder in myself. Through the years I watch Gujarati swell the swaggering egos of men mirror them over and over at twice their natural size. Through the years I watch Gujarati dissolve bones and teeth of women, break them on anvils of duty and service, burn them to skeletal ash. Words that don't exist in Gujarati : Self-expression. Individual. Lesbian. English rises in my throat rapier flashed at yuppie boys who claim their people “civilized” mine. Thunderbolt hurled at cab drivers yelling Dirty black bastard! Force-field against teenage hoods hissing F****ing Paki bitch! Their tongue - or mine? Have I become the enemy? Listen: my father speaks Urdu language of dancing peacocks rosewater fountains even its curses are beautiful. He speaks Hindi suave and melodic earthy Punjabi salty rich as saag paneer coastal Kiswahili laced with Arabic, he speaks Gujarati solid ancestral pride. Five languages five different worlds yet English shrinks him down before white men who think their flat cold spiky words make the only reality. Words that don't exist in English: Najjar Garba Arati. If we cannot name it does it exist? When we lose language does culture die? What happens to a tongue of milk-heavy cows, earthen pots jingling anklets, temple bells, when its children grow up in Silicon Valley to become programmers? Then there's American: Kin'uh get some service? Dontcha have ice? Not: May I have please? Ben, mane madhath karso? Tafadhali nipe rafiki Donnez-moi, s'il vous plait Puedo tener….. Hello, I said can I get some service?! Like, where's the line for Ay-mericans in this goddamn airport? Words that atomized two hundred thousand Iraqis: Didja see how we kicked some major ass in the Gulf? Lit up Bagdad like the fourth a' July! Whupped those sand-niggers into a parking lot! The children in my dreams speak in Gujarati bright as butter succulent cherries sounds I can paint on the air with my breath dance through like a Sufi mystic words I can weep and howl and devour words I can kiss and taste and dream this tongue I take back.

Deciding on the right thing to do in a situation is a bit like deciding on the right thing to wear to a party. It is easy to decide on what is wrong to wear to a party, such as deep-sea diving equipment or a pair of large pillows, but deciding what is right is much trickier. It might seem right to wear a navy blue suit, for instance, but when you arrive there could be several other people wearing the same thing, and you could end up being handcuffed due to a case of mistaken identity. It might seem right to wear your favorite pair of shoes, but there could be a sudden flood at the party, and your shoes would be ruined. And it might seem right to wear a suit of armor to the party, but there could be several other people wearing the same thing, and you could end up being caught in a flood due to a case of mistaken identity, and find yourself drifting out to sea wishing that you were wearing deep-sea diving equipment after all. The truth is that you can never be sure if you have decided on the right thing until the party is over, and by then it is too late to go back and change your mind, which is why the world is filled with people doing terrible things and wearing ugly clothing, and so few volunteers who are able to stop them.

Objects, too, have trickled through the doors between worlds, blown by strange winds, drifting on white-frosted waves, carried and discarded by careless travelers- even stolen, sometimes. Some of them have been lost or ignored or forgotten- books written in foreign tongues, clothes in strange fashions, devices with no use beyond their home worlds- but some of them have left stories in their wakes. Stories of magic lamps and enchanted mirrors, golden fleeces and fountains of youth, dragon-scale armor and moon-streaked broomsticks.

Books were not quite an escape for me. And they were never my friends. They were so much more than that—utilitarian and unbreakable. They were my armor, my wall against the world.

Shredda saw me putting on the equipment and yelled, “Hey, that’s mine! Don’t wear my armor!” HeyThatsMine21 said, “What? I’m not wearing your armor.

My body is yours. I am your shield. I am your armor. I will kill anyone who tries to take you from me, I promise.

I’m an old woman,” Liesl said. “I’m pretty well invisible when I walk down the street. It’s excellent armor.

No one could touch her here, in her fortress of books. They were her armor against life's jagged edges. Her safe harbor in the raging storm.

Even if our stars weep. Even if our sun dies. We never really stop growing.

Ministry is when you point out Jesus - nothing more and nothing less.

Restricting yourself in the truth of God's word actually releases you into a freedom you would not otherwise have.

There is no armor made that can withstand the truth. -Karsa Orlong.

Perhaps the book’s greatest weakness is its romantic depiction of President Kennedy as a kind of knight in shining armor.

His clothing was sticking to his body beneath his armor, and his balls were swimming in a pond. He was in the mood to shoot people.

Hidden Sight Book 1 Beyond Sight Book 2  Armor of Magic Series  Sacred Light Book 1 Rising Light Book 2 Edge of Light Book 3 The New Agenda

So, your new armor pieces will provide you with extra protection.

Finally, be strong in the Lord† and in his mighty power.† 11Put on the full armor of God,† so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 ‡ For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,† but against the rulers, against the authorities,† against the powers† of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.†

Armor-piercing shells for iron-heads have not yet been invented! In arguing with them, you wear yourself out, unless you accept in advance that the argument is simply a game, a jolly pastime.

Washington in 1965. We instinctively measure advantage in terms of the three M’s because men, money, and matériel are the easiest and most obvious ways to make sense of a battle. The only way to appreciate the threat that the Viet Cong posed was to actually listen to what they had to say—to look past the armor and see the man. The book you have just read has tried to persuade you to think that way. Men, money, and matériel aren’t always the deciding factors in a battle. In fact, what the inverted U-shaped curve tells us is that having too much money and matériel is as debilitating as having too little. Being an underdog—having nothing to lose—opens up possibilities. The Impressionists were better for shunning the Salon. History and experience ought to teach us to be suspicious of Goliaths, because the very thing that makes the giant so terrifying is also the source of his weakness. David understood that, as he sized up his opponent long ago in the Valley of Elah.

Iron armor gives the horse 20 percent protection, gold gives 28 percent, and diamond 44 percent. Although you can’t enchant it, horse armor has unlimited durability, so you don’t have to repair it.

Sergeant,” Socket said and pointed to an armed drone crawling along the seam of the breach. “Down!” he called, but not before the flechette pierced her leg armor and sliced through her femoral artery.

You remove a piece of armor for them; you let the light stream in, even if it makes you wince. Perhaps that is how you learn to be soft yet strong, even in fear and uncertainty. One person, one piece of steel.

He shouldn't have trespassed!" The voice sounded petulant. Not diabolical. It gave Belle hope, how human it seemed. In all of her fairy tales and adventure books- the ones with the heroes who were clever rather than strong- this was how you outwitted an opponent. By finding a chink in his armor, a personality flaw to exploit. Then you got him to show off his power by turning into a tiny (and easily stompable) mouse, or slitting open his own stomach. All she needed was a flaw, and time.

One of the zombies lunged at Monkeypants, but before the golden sword could reach the iron armor, Gameknight blocked the attack, allowing his father to counter. He scored three quick hits before the monster disappeared, littering the ground with armor and XP.

I heard a snapping branch on the top of a tree, I looked up, and the cat is flying towards me. I jumped and pushed Robert out of the way he fell, hit himself on the head, and passed out. I quickly reached into my backpack, pulled out my diamond armor, and put it on.   The

They were words that tucked me into bed at night when I was alone, they were words that played the soundtrack of my heartbeat, the what-ifs, the second-guesses, the nights I sat alone, and wondered, Why not me? Those books were like arms I fell into, armor that protected me from the world when life was hard.

But Little Spinoza was only interested in that satchel-bellied ten-dollar billy goat. First he jumped back like insulted when the goat lift his head at him and stare. What you think this is, son? Ain't nothing but a spotted he-goat, good for nothing save to be the horse's friend. He gone urinate in you hay and shove his head in you feed bucket and race you to you eats. You don't mind out, he win too. You want that? Medicine Ed reached down and touched that peculiar armor-plate forehead of the goat between his coin-slot eyes, and shuddered. But Little Spinoza dance around and look happy and want a billy goat all his own.

It was during a misunderstanding conducted with crowbars with a fellow we used to call Hercules. He laid me out with a crusher alongside the head that made everything crack, and seemed to spring every joint in my skull and made it overlap its neighbor.  Then the world went out in darkness, and I didn't feel anything more, and didn't know anything at all—at least for a while. When I came to again, I was sitting under an oak tree, on the grass, with a whole beautiful and broad country landscape all to myself—nearly.  Not entirely; for there was a fellow on a horse, looking down at me—a fellow fresh out of a picture-book.  He was in old-time iron armor from head to heel, with a helmet on his head the shape of a nail-keg with slits in it; and he had a shield, and a sword, and a prodigious spear; and his horse had armor on, too, and a steel horn projecting from his forehead, and gorgeous red and green silk trappings that hung down all around him like a bedquilt, nearly to the ground. "Fair sir, will ye just?" said this fellow.

Assassin Wither, on the other hand, was peculiar. He wore a loose-fitting, all-black outfit, similar to something a ninja might wear. He had netherite armor and a netherite sword in one hand and battle axe in the other. He wore dark sunglasses to obscure his eyes. He had painted three wither skulls in the center of his chest plate. “Assassin Wither?

Sanguinite: used for weapons and armor; crimson in color; does not exist in nature; created by Zekours, a glitch specializing in weapons crafting; weapons made with sanguinite change size to fit the size of the mob wielding the weapon; crafting recipe involves use of corrupted souls; many believe it is a cursed material and avoid it; not used for armor.

her fists. A sharp pain in the shoulder quickly put the hammering to an end, but she continued to call out. When she was certain that she had been heard, she put her eye back to the crack in the door. The four soldiers stood silently before the door, each in full combat armor, complete with face masks. The first was speaking calmly with her captor while the others looked on. They made no motion toward the door. She strained her ears to hear what the two were saying. Only the soldier spoke loudly enough to hear. "The one who touched the sword? We are charged with her return, as well as that of the sword," he said, in response to the kidnapper's unheard comment. The sinister figure pulled a bundle from inside the cloak and

The Book of Who seemed to be some sort of enormous compendium of people throughout history, complete with meticulous illustrations and cross-referenced footnotes. The entries, however, were not what one might expect from a traditional encyclopedia. They described mice in shining armor, fishermen as tall as mountains, and white-bearded children who could talk to the rain.

Carapaces focused on their own shadows, using them to soar through the air on shadow wings or armor themselves. Puppeteers sent their shadows to do things in secret—in Charlie’s experience, largely the kind of foul shit no one wanted to talk about. And the masks weren’t much better, a bunch of creeps and mystics intent on unraveling the secrets of the universe, no matter who it hurt.

At last, when his wits were gone beyond repair, he came to conceive the strangest idea that ever occurred to any madman in this world. It now appeared to him fitting and necessary, in order to win a greater amount of honor for himself and serve his country at the same time, to become a knight-errant and roam the world on horseback, in a suit of armor; he would go in quest of adventures, by way of putting into practice all that he had read in his books; he would right every manner of wrong, placing himself in situations of the greatest peril such as would redound to the eternal glory of his name. As a reward for his valor and the might of his arm, the poor fellow could already see himself crowned Emperor of Trebizond at the very least; and so, carried away by the strange pleasure that he found in such thoughts as these, he at once set about putting his plan into effect.

He put his hands on hers. The shadows looked like smoke, in the air, but they pulled back into Cyra’s body like dozens of strings yanked at once. Cyra’s odd smile was gone, and she was staring at their joined hands. “What will happen when you let go?” she said quietly. “You’ll be just fine,” he said. “You’ll learn to control it. You can do that now, remember?” She let out an airy laugh. “I can hang on as long as you like,” he said. Her eyes hardened. When she spoke, it was with gritted teeth. “Let go.” Akos couldn’t help but think back to something he’d read in one of the books Cyra had put in his room on the sojourn ship. He’d had to read it through a translator, because it was written in Shotet, and it had been called Tenets of Shotet Culture and Belief. It said: The most marked characteristic of the Shotet people is directly translated as “armored,” but outsiders might call it “mettle.” It refers not to courageous acts in difficult situations--though the Shotet certainly hold valor in high regard--but to an inherent quality that cannot be learned or imitated; it is in the blood as surely as their revelatory language. Mettle is bearing up again and again under assaults. It is perseverance, acceptance of risk, and the unwillingness to surrender. That paragraph had never made more sense to him than it did right now.

Elton Trueblood (1900–1994) wrote the following in Confronting Christ: Security is itself a barrier to spiritual growth. The broken and the needy are far closer to the Kingdom than are those who feel adequate and successful. God reaches us most easily when there is a crack in our armor. The barriers of our own making, which effectively exclude us from the Kingdom, are real and in some cases almost insurmountable, but with God all is possible.*

This is a book about alcohol; you can practically smell the gin coming off the pages, the lime, hear the ice clinking, the crack of the new bottle opening. But it’s not a book about alcohol. It’s about whatever thing you use to cover over the pain—sex, food, shopping, perfectionism, cleaning, drugs—whatever you hold out like an armor to protect yourself instead of allowing yourself and your broken heart to be fully seen and fully tended to by God.

Without any censorship in the West, fashionable trends of thought and ideas are fastidiously separated from those that are not fashionable, and the latter, without ever being forbidden, have little chance of finding their way into periodicals or books or being heard in colleges. Your scholars are free in the legal sense, but they are hemmed in by the idols of the prevailing fad. There is no open violence, as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to accommodate mass standards frequently prevents the most independent-minded persons from contributing to public life and gives rise to dangerous herd instincts that block successful development. In America, I have received letters from highly intelligent persons—maybe a teacher in a faraway small college who could do much for the renewal and salvation of his country, but the country cannot hear him because the media will not provide him with a forum. This gives birth to strong mass prejudices, to a blindness which is perilous in our dynamic era. An example is the selfdeluding interpretation of the state of affairs in the contemporary world that functions as a sort of a petrified armor around people’s minds, to such a degree that human voices from seventeen countries of Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia cannot pierce it. It will be broken only by the inexorable crowbar of events.

Do you ever feel as if you wear armor, day after day? That when people look at you, they see only the shine of steel that you've so carefully encased yourself in? They see what they want to see in you—the warped reflection of their own face, or a piece of the sky, or a shadow cast between buildings. They see all the times you've made mistakes, all the times you've failed, all the times you've hurt them or disappointed them. As if that is all you will ever be in their eyes.

Fierce and sexy, former Marine Travis Sanchez has always held himself back from the rest of the world, using his tattoos and piercings as armor. But when the woman he’s wanted for months is threatened, he knows it's time to strip away the bad boy image and show her just how much he wants to be with her. As one of Red Stone Security’s best contractors, Travis is trained for almost any situation. But nothing prepares him for the most dangerous threat of all: the one to his heart.

Monks were rich in interior life and very dirty, because the body, protected by a habit that, ennobling it, released it, was free to think, and to forget about itself. The idea was not only ecclesiastic; you have to think only of the beautiful mandes Erasmus wore. And when even the intellectual must dress in lay armor (wigs, waistcoats, knee breeches) we see that when he retires to think, he swaggers in rich dressing-gowns, or in Balzac’s loose, drôlatique blouses. Thought abhors tights.

Would that Ned had been able to say the same. Fifteen years past, when they had ridden forth to win a throne, the Lord of Storm’s End had been clean-shaven, clear-eyed, and muscled like a maiden’s fantasy. Six and a half feet tall, he towered over lesser men, and when he donned his armor and the great antlered helmet of his House, he became a veritable giant. He’d had a giant’s strength too, his weapon of choice a spiked iron warhammer that Ned could scarcely lift. In those days, the smell of leather and blood had clung to him like perfume.

The boy who wears his comic books like armor often sits alone. He is more comfortable with Iron Man and his own thoughts than he will ever be with a woman. Because of his nervous ticks, no matter how long they are together, she will never feel commonplace to him. She will always know she is special. The boy who wears his comic books like armor tries to tell her that he loves her every day. She does not understand. When he says, You remind me of Psylocke, he is not saying he actually thinks she is a scantily clad assassin. He is just saying, Damn girl, you must be psychic. How else could you always know the right thing to make me smile? You have to be a ninja. How else could you have stolen my heart so easily? He is saying, Dammmmmmmmnnnnnn girl, you absolutely have to be Psylocke! She is the only character I have ever read about who is as graceful and daring as you are. She does not understand. The boy who wears his comic books like armor is not a good lover. The way he barely touches her makes her feel unattractive. Like he is only doing this because she wants him to. This could not be further from the truth. He is simply treating her like the only thing that has ever been this important to him before: comic books. He removes her clothes like he would the slipcover from a brand new issue, as careful not to wrinkle her clothing as he is not to damage the plastic. One day, she will leave him because feeling special isn’t as important as feeling loved. He does love her. She can’t understand. He will spend the rest of his life wishing he were Peter Parker, knowing that if he had a mask to remove, then, just like Mary Jane, she would be with him forever. But he doesn’t have a mask to remove, just an awkward smile. He hopes that one day that’s enough.

Come on, Steve. Stop being a wimp. You’re a gladiator now. A gladiator!” I said. I summoned all my strength and was finally able to roll over onto my back. “Ugh! One step at a time…” After resting for a few minutes, I attempted to sit up again. But the muscles in my stomach burned like mad as I tried to sit up. “Ah! Forget this. I’m just gonna chill here all day.” But then I remembered about the armor fitting. I wanted to see Alex’s new armor. I attempted for a third time to get up. Again, it was no go. I decided to rest a bit more; after all, I had time to spare before the fitting at night.

Can you see that this enemy has found its ways—its despicable ways—through our armor, and that clearly, I cannot stand up here alone and fight him?” The words were visible. They dropped from his mouth like jewels. “Look at him! Take a good look.” They looked. At the bloodied Max Vandenburg. “As we speak, he is plotting his way into your neighborhood. He’s moving in next door. He’s infesting you with his family and he’s about to take you over. He—” Hitler glanced at him a moment, with disgust. “He will soon own you, until it is he who stands not at the counter of your grocery shop, but sits in

I would like to emphasize that this book does not belong to any existing view, school, or field, as far as I am aware, so that it does not subscribe to any tradition walled off from the rest of intellectual life. It therefore has no gatekeepers, clad in the traditional metaphorical chain-mail armor and bearing the traditional metaphorical halberd, proclaiming threats to their perceived enemies in archaic languages, dedicated to keeping new knowledge out and stamping out all possible threats to those inside its walls so that the residents can safely continue their traditional beliefs without the necessity of thinking about them.

Dinosaurs dominated our planet for more than 160 million years. They evolved and changed to adopt many different lifestyles and live in every type of environment. Some ate plants, others ate meat, fish, or eggs. Some lived in forests, others in deserts or plains. Some were huge, others small. Some hunted using vicious claws and teeth, while others defended themselves with spikes, horns and armor plates. The dinosaurs were not alone - they shared the world with other reptiles that flew in the sky or swam in the seas. But it was dinosaurs that dominated in an age of reptiles that spanned nearly half the time animals have lived on land.

You can't work in the library without going into the Old Levels," said Mirelle somberly. "At least some of the time. I wouldn't be keen on going to some parts of the Library, myself." Lirael listened, wondering what they were talking about. The Great Library of the Clayr was enormous, but she had never heard of the Old Levels. She knew the general layout well. The Library was shaped like a nautilus shell, a continuous tunnel that wound down into the mountain in an ever-tightening spiral. This main spiral was an enormously long, twisting ramp that took you from the high reaches of the mountain down past the level of the valley floor, several thousand feet below. Off the main spiral, there were countless other corridors, rooms, halls, and strange chambers. Many were full of the Clayr's written records, mainly documenting the prophesies and visions of many generations of seers. But they also contained books and papers from all over the Kingdom. Books of magic and mystery, knowledge both ancient and new. Scrolls, maps, spells, recipes, inventories, stories, true tales, and Charter knew what else. In addition to all these written works, the Great Library also housed other things. There were old armories within it, containing weapons and armor that had not been used for centuries but still stayed bright and new. There were rooms full of odd paraphernalia that no one now knew how to use. There were chambers where dressmakers' dummies stood fully clothed, displaying the fashions of bygone Clayr or the wildly different costumes of the barbaric North. There were greenhouses tended by sendings, with Charter marks for light as bright as the sun. There were rooms of total darkness, swallowing up the light and anyone foolish enough to enter unprepared. Lirael had seen some of the Library, on carefully escorted excursions with the rest of her year gathering. She had always hankered to enter the doors they passed, to step across the red rope barriers that marked corridors or tunnels where only authorized librarians might pass.

Thelema is a religion of joy and beauty. Humor is our armor and laughter our weapon. No longer do we look upon solemnity and selfeffacement as synonymous with spirituality. Thelema is a law of Liberty that holds the keys to unlock the innate potential of every individual, to release ourselves from the burden of sorrow and fear, and to allow ourselves to be ourselves and rejoice therein. As it says in The Book of the Law, “Remember all ye that existence is pure joy.” With this knowledge, we can consciously and willfully engage in that ultimate Sacrament we know as existence. I therefore say with Crowley, “Look, brother, we are free! Rejoice with me, sister, there is no law beyond Do what thou wilt!

Spiral pathways wound their way downward like a whirlpool in pursuit of copper, the life food of a new age begun by the discovery of bronze. Bronze was an alloy more durable than its copper predecessor, being used in everything from tools and decoration to weapons and armor. It was discovered by mixing tin with copper, which resulted in the harder bronze that would last longer and kill more efficiently in weaponry. For all those reasons, especially the last, gods and kings needed plenty of bronze to build their kingdoms. Extracting copper ore from the ground was laborious work. It required many men to unearth the volume demanded by such rulers. The necessary work force could be met by only one thing: Slaves, and lots of them.

Some people in the world only saw in black and white. They were driven by fear. They had learned how to survive in their little corner of the world and they saw any change as a threat to their survival. But they still liked to think of themselves as good people. Good people didn’t hate without a reason, so they grasped at any pretext, no matter how small, that gave them permission to hate. A line in a holy book. The color of a person’s skin. The brand of their magic. They were not in the habit of taking a second look or giving chances. Their fear was too great and their need to defend themselves too dire. They always lost at the end. Life was change. It would come to them, as inevitable as the sunrise, despite all their flailing. She had years to armor

Rohit: I long to be with you, in the fullest most beautiful, complete expression of all that you are. I long to see you, hear you and love you in every way possible. When and how will that be possible? God: You will, in time. I will certainly reveal myself to you and all those who desire to have a relationship with me. For now, find me everywhere and in everyone. Love me in nature, in the land, the trees, the plants and the animals. Love me as all of the people you meet. Grab your boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, child or friend. See me in them. Love them as you would love me and I will love you through them as well. I will show you the way. Rohit: What can I do to get closer to you? God: You need not do anything. I am always with you, always by your side, always ready to connect with you, always longing to be in love with you. Through this book and many like it, I have been reminding you of our long forgotten love. I am the soul mate, the one true love, the knight in shining armor, the King or Queen of your heart, the ideal lover that you have been searching for all your life. All your adventures in this world have added richness to the tapestry of your being and deepened your capacity to love and be loved. Our love is the greatest ecstasy, the sweetest bliss, the most intoxicating nectar that your soul has been longing for. It hurts me to see you resist, struggle and suffer. You are not alone. Make me a partner on your journey and let us walk together. Share your joys and sorrows, your struggle and your successes with me. Know that I have your back, that I am with you through thick and thin. I never let go of you.

Lindon sat at a table, mug of hot tea in his hands. “Is it just me, or does this book feel shorter than the others?” “That’s the goal, isn’t it?” Eithan pointed out. He was leaning back in his chair, with his black armor hanging on a stand behind him. “Don’t you want a story to feel shorter than it is? To leave you wanting more?” “Couldn’t say I care if it is,” Yerin said. She rolled her empty mug across the table. “Tea’s not bad. Where’d you get it?” “Space.” Eithan turned back to Lindon. “I’m not usually one for measuring things precisely, but I get the feeling that this book will actually end up longer than the last one. Thanks to a little strategic addition.” “Really?” Lindon frowned and took another sip of tea. “You think this story is longer than the last one?” “If my calculations are correct, this book should have more words than the last by exactly…” Eithan counted to himself. “…one.

During mission planning, we had intelligence concerning dogs that might impede our goal and were part of the target’s contingencies. The exact method used to neutralize aggressive dogs in the field is classified information. However, Special Ops has some really incredible dogs. In fact, during the raid to kill Osama bin Laden, the highly trained men of SEAL Team Six had with them a uniquely trained dog as part of the mission. SEAL canines are not your standard bomb-sniffing dogs. The dog on the bin Laden mission was specially trained to jump from planes and rappel from helicopters while attached to its handler. The dog wore ballistic body armor, had a head-mounted infrared (night-vision) camera, and wore earpieces to take commands from the handler. The dog also had reinforced teeth, capped with titanium. I would not want to try the techniques this book recommends on this dog. Thank God he’s on our side.

I’ve thought about it a lot, and I came up with a list of twenty supplies you need to survive middle school when you don’t have arms. So here it is: 1. Good shoes. Ease of removal is of utmost importance here. Ease of reapplication—equally important. 2. Sense of humor. I’m being very serious here—you’ve got to have one. Seriously. 3. A sizeable daily breakfast. You never know when you might chicken out in the lunchroom. Get your daily fuel requirement early in the day. 4. Easy-to-eat bagged lunches. Do you really want to carry that giant tray through the cafeteria? And forget about bringing stuff like chili and clam chowder for lunch. Really. Forget. That. 5. An easy-to-carry/open/close/get-things-out-of book bag. 6. Lots of cute shirts. This really applies to both people with and without arms. And when you’re ready—tank tops. 7. Bully spray. Similar to bear spray, only better. Would be great to have for those nasty little comments. I’m totally inventing this. 8. Thick skin. More like armor. Armor skin.

With a sudden strike of inspiration, she blurted, “Why don’t you write a novel? I know you have enough life experiences to fill a whole room with books, and with you as the main character.” She placed the coffee cup back into Havok’s hands before reaching down to grab the bottom of her shirt, pulling it over her head, and balling it up in her hands. Standing naked, she brought the shirt to her nose and closed her eyes. “I can be one of your characters,” she purred, her eyes still closed. “A sexually frustrated homemaker whom you rescue from a boring marriage and ravage anytime you wish.” “I couldn’t tell you the difference between a split infinitive and a sentence fragment. Besides, the protagonists in most novels are supposed to be some sort of good-looking and chivalrous knights in shining armor who, at no time, sleeps with another man’s wife, always knows how to work a toilet seat, cooks the perfect eggs, and never burns the toast.” Havok shrugged his shoulders. “I have a habit of burning toast.” With the shirt still against her nose, June opened her eyes. “Somehow, I think that you make it a habit of burning your toast.

Her sword weighed heavily in her hand. She stared at the polished blade, wondering if its reflection would be the last sight she ever caught of herself. Would she die as Ping, the Fa son she'd made up so she could join the army in her father's place? If she died here, in the middle of this snow-covered mountain pass, she'd never see her father or her family again. Mulan swallowed hard. Who would believe that only a few months ago, her biggest concern had been impressing the Matchmaker? She could barely remember the girl she'd been back then. She'd worn layer upon layer of silk, not plates of armor, her waist cinched tightly with a satin sash instead of sore from carrying a belt of weapons. Her lips had been painted with rouge instead of chapped from cold and lack of water, her lashes highlighted with coal that she now could only dream of using to fuel a fire for warmth. How far she'd come from that girl to who she was now: a soldier in the Imperial army. Maybe serving her country as a warrior was truer to her heart than being a bride. Yet when she saw her reflection in her sword, she knew she was still pretending to be someone else.

1. Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you. 2. The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. 3. A wise man does not make demands of kings. 4. A mind needs a book as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep it's edge. 5. People often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it's served up. 6. A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. 7. I swear to you, sitting a throne is a thousand times harder than winning one. 8. In the world as I have seen it, no man grows rich by kindness. 9. If a man paints a target on his chest, he should expect that sooner or later someone will loose an arrow on him. 10. Crowns do queer things to the heads beneath them. 11. In battle a Captain's lungs are as important as his sword arm. I does not matter how brave or brilliant the man is if his commands can't be heard. 12. A man is never so vulnerable in battle as when he flees. 13. Gold has it's uses, but wars are won with iron. 14. The man who fears losing has already lost. 15. Words are wind. 16. The unseen enemy is always the most fearsome. 17. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don't ever believe any different. 18. Give gold to a foe and he will just come back for more. 19. In this world only winter is certain. 20. The gods have no mercy. That's why they're gods. 21. I have learned that the contents of a man's letters are more valuable than the contents of his wallet

The Addams dwelling at 25 West Fifty-fourth Street was directly behind the Museum of Modern Art, at the top of the building. It was reached by an ancient elevator, which rumbled up to the twelfth floor. From there, one climbed through a red-painted stairwell where a real mounted crossbow hovered. The Addams door was marked by a "big black number 13," and a knocker in the shape of a vampire. ...Inside, one entered a little kingdom that fulfilled every fantasy one might have entertained about its inhabitant. On a pedestal in the corner of the bookcase stood a rare "Maximilian" suit of armor, which Addams had bought at a good price ("a bargain at $700")... It was joined by a half-suit, a North Italian Morion of "Spanish" form, circa 1570-80, and a collection of warrior helmets, perched on long stalks like decapitated heads... There were enough arms and armaments to defend the Addams fortress against the most persistent invader: wheel-lock guns; an Italian prod; two maces; three swords. Above a sofa bed, a spectacular array of medieval crossbows rose like birds in flight. "Don't worry, they've only fallen down once," Addams once told an overnight guest. ... Everywhere one looked in the apartment, something caught the eye. A rare papier-mache and polychrome anatomical study figure, nineteenth century, with removable organs and body parts captioned in French, protected by a glass bell. ("It's not exactly another human heart beating in the house, but it's close enough." said Addams.) A set of engraved aquatint plates from an antique book on armor. A lamp in the shape of a miniature suit of armor, topped by a black shade. There were various snakes; biopsy scissors ("It reaches inside, and nips a little piece of flesh," explained Addams); and a shiny human thighbone - a Christmas present from one wife. There was a sewing basket fashioned from an armadillo, a gift from another. In front of the couch stood a most unusual coffee table - "a drying out table," the man at the wonderfully named antiques shop, the Gettysburg Sutler, had called it. ("What was dried on it?" a reporter had asked. "Bodies," said Addams.)...

Far more damaging to Calvin’s reputation was the case of Michael Servetus. An accomplished physician, skilled cartographer, and eclectic theologian from Spain, Servetus held maverick (and sometimes unbalanced) views on many points of Christian doctrine. In 1531, he published Seven Books on the Errors of the Trinity, enraging both Catholics and Protestants, Calvin among them. At one point, Servetus took up residence in Vienne, a suburb of Lyon about ninety miles from Geneva, where, under an assumed name, he began turning out heterodox books while also practicing medicine. His magnum opus, The Restitution of Christianity—a rebuttal of Calvin’s Institutes—rejected predestination, denied original sin, called infant baptism diabolical, and further deprecated the Trinity. Servetus imprudently sent Calvin a copy. Calvin sent back a copy of his Institutes. Servetus filled its margins with insulting comments, then returned it. A bitter exchange of letters followed, in which Servetus announced that the Archangel Michael was girding himself for Armageddon and that he, Servetus, would serve as his armor-bearer. Calvin sent Servetus’s letters to a contact in Vienne, who passed them on to Catholic inquisitors in Lyon. Servetus was promptly arrested and sent to prison, but after a few days he escaped by jumping over a prison wall. After spending three months wandering around France, he decided to seek refuge in Naples. En route, he inexplicably stopped in Geneva. Arriving on a Saturday, he attended Calvin’s lecture the next day. Though disguised, Servetus was recognized by some refugees from Lyon and immediately arrested. Calvin instructed one of his disciples to file capital charges against him with the magistrates for his various blasphemies. After a lengthy trial and multiple examinations, Servetus was condemned for writing against the Trinity and infant baptism and sentenced to death. He asked to be beheaded rather than burned, but the council refused, and on October 27, 1553, Servetus, with a copy of the Restitution tied to his arm, was sent to the stake. Shrieking in agony, he took half an hour to die. Calvin approved. “God makes clear that the false prophet is to be stoned without mercy,” he explained in Defense of the Orthodox Trinity Against the Errors of Michael Servetus. “We are to crush beneath our heel all affections of nature when his honor is involved. The father should not spare the child, nor the brother his brother, nor the husband his own wife or the friend who is dearer to him than life.

And you know what else they probably pray for every night?” I paused for a moment before saying, “Someone to save them. We could be that someone. We could end this plague. We could save the world. But I can’t do it alone. I’m gonna need your help, specifically the help of our tier 1s and tier 2s.” The crowd started murmuring to each other. “So, that’s what this speech is about—I’m asking for volunteers for this final mission. Now, I know what I’m asking, and I know it’s a lot. I’m basically asking you to risk your lives to help me fight the hardest battle ever. And I can’t guarantee your safety, nor can I guarantee our success… but still, we have to try. For the greater good, we have to try. Because we’ve come too far to give up now. That’s why we’re gonna give this one last mission our best effort. We’re gonna all come together and push hard through the finish line. And with our newly crafted dragon equipment and all the new class upgrades, I believe our chance of success is higher than ever before. So, with that in mind, what say you, my friends? Who’s with me? Who’s gonna help me put an end to the nightly plagues?” There was a brief moment of silence as my final words echoed through the night. But then Devlin spoke up. “I’m with you, Steve! Always.” “Me, too!” yelled Bob. “An epic fight between good and evil?! Can’t miss out on that!” shouted Arthur. “I got your back, bro!” yelled Obsidian Fist. Dozens of more tier 1s and 2s volunteered and made themselves heard. As I watched their hands shot up into the air, I smiled and let out a breath of relief. “Were you worried that there wouldn’t be enough volunteers?” the mayor whispered to me. “Yeah, kinda…” I whispered back. Then he smiled at me. “You’re their general, Steve. They’re not going to let you go off into battle alone… and neither would I.” He shook my hand. “Great speech, by the way. I’ll take it from here.” “Thank you, sir,” I said as I handed him the microphone. The mayor’s voice boomed over the speakers. “Alright, well said. Let’s give it up for General Steve!” Everyone clapped and cheered. “For those of you that volunteered, we’ll be heading out in a day or two. We still need to make preparations for the trip, and Cole still needs to fit the new armor to the golem suits, so all that is going to take some time. I’d suggest you use this time wisely—spend it with family, friends and loved ones. Eat with them, relax with them, be merry and carefree. Because when it is time to go, we’ll be in it to fight the battle of our lives.” The tier 1s and 2s in the crowd nodded.

8:00am The sun is shining, the cows are mooing, and I am ready for the mines. I hope I find something awesome today. Steve has told me about some pretty crazy things I had no idea existed. According to him, I must find empty tombs in the desert. That’s where the real treasures are. For today, I will stick to regular mining. Who knows, maybe I will come across an abandoned mine shaft; could be my lucky day.   12:30pm I was forced to come home for lunch today because I had too much stuff to carry. I was getting low on my iron ore, gold, and lapis lazuli stocks before this mine trip. It’s amazing how quick lapis goes when you are busy enchanting everything but the kitchen sink. I’d enchant that too if I had one. I wonder what an enchanted kitchen sink would do. Would it do my dishes for me? That would be so cool.   I have plenty of both now. I can make some new armor and enchant it! I love mining.   Steve decided to join me for lunch and we ate a couple of pork chops and some cake. I love cake! We ate until no more food could fill us up. Then, Steve had the guts to brag about how, when he mines, he takes a horse with extra storage so he can stay down there all day long. Well fancy you, Steve.   He also went on to tell me about how well the crops are doing these days. He thinks it’s because he is looking after them half of the time. What he doesn’t know is I throw bone marrow on them when I am working. Makes my job faster and gives me more free time so whatever you need to tell yourself, Steve.   Life may be easier switching every day between mines and farming, but it still doesn’t make me his biggest fan. I just don’t think he needs to fall in a hole, either. At least… Not right now. I would consider us to be frienemies; Friendly enemies. Yes. At times we pretend to get along, but most of the time, we are happiest doing our own thing.   6:00pm Mining this afternoon was super fun… Not! I got attacked by a partially hidden skeleton guy. I couldn’t see him enough to strike back until half of my life hearts were gone. I must not have made the space bright enough. Those guys are nasty. They are hard to kill too. If you don’t have a bow and arrow you might as well surrender. Plus, they kind of smell like death. Yuck.   Note to self: Bring more torches on the next mining day.   On the other hand, I came back with an overshare of Redstone, too much iron for my own good, and oddly, quite a few diamonds. I won’t be sharing the diamonds with anyone. They are far too precious. They will go to some new diamond pickaxes, and maybe some armor. Hmm, I could enchant those too! The iron and Redstone though, I am thinking a trip to the village may be in order. See what those up-tight weirdos are willing to trade me.   For now, it’s bedtime.   6:10pm You can only sleep at night. You can only sleep at night. You can only sleep at night.   6:11pm That stupid rule gets me every time. Why can’t I decide when it’s bed time?   First, I will go eat a cookie, then I will go to sleep. Day Thirty-Three   3:00am I just dreamt that our world was made of cookies.