#cluster shambles

[grandlinedreams]

omg omg omg your fics are so adorable😭😭😭 if you don’t mind could do you an angsty hurt/comfort law x reader story about how the reader gets captured by marines and gets tortured, and the heart pirates have to rescue them and get them back to health ??

have a good day or night!!💗💗💗

Hdhdh thank-you, I try!! But absolutely i can!! I hope that this is to your liking!!

[Heads up!: mentions of canon typical violence, injuries, established relationship, hurt/comfort]

"It's not as bad as it looks."

Law looks up, jaw clenched as he prods gloved fingers against the dark cluster of bruising on your side. You bite back a hiss as he does so, exhaling when he lets up.

"They cracked at least two of your ribs." His tone is flat, and you can tell that he's upset ㅡ with you or the marines, however, you're not entirely sure. "From what I've been able to assess so far, that's also in addition to your arm, which is broken. Two of your fingers needed reset, not to mention the likelyhood of a concussionㅡ"

"Okay," you interrupt, "maybe it is as bad as it looks."

Law's eyes narrow. "That's understatement." You watch as he turns to grab a pair of tweezers, soaking a cottonball into antiseptic before he brings it up to dab at the puffy cut on your cheek. "You could have died."

You bite back another hiss, closing your eyes at the pain that lances from your bruised (and cracked) ribs. "But I didn't."

"You got lucky." Law's tone is icy as he dabs at the split in your lip. You watch as he turns to begin cleaning up the supplies he's used.

"Next timeㅡ"

Law almost slams the bandage case shut and turns to you, expression that of quiet fury, golden eyes blazing. "Next time? The next time you're dumb enough to get caught, they'll kill you. There will be no next time, [Name]."

You meet his gaze. "I'd rather die than betray this crew, Law. You know that."

Law is silent as he finishes up cleaning things and packing them away before he gets to his feet and moves towards the door. He pauses there, shoulders slumping with his slow exhale. "I know," he answers at last, "and that's exactly what I'm afraid of."

ㅡ

"I never did get to thank you two for rescuing me," you say as you study the cards before you, peering up at Penguin and Shachi.

Penguin smiles. "It was no problem. Kind of cool to get to sneak into a marine base. Like a spy."

"We couldn't have done it without captain," Shachi adds before he pauses. "Speaking of, did captain give you the okay to be wandering around again?"

Your lips part.

"No," comes the clipped response from behind you, making you freeze before you tip your head back to find Law staring at you. "I didn't."

"Iㅡ"

"Room." Tattooed fingers grip your shoulder. "Shambles."

Your stomach spins as scenery abruptly shifts, and you huff as Law appears a moment after you. "Using your devil fruit on me? Really?"

"Yes," Law answers, frustration clear in both his tone and expression. "Because you apparently can't follow orders. I told you bedrest and minimal movement."

"They're going to suspect something if they figure out you used it to drop me in your room."

He shrugs, arms folded across his chest. "Let them."

You groan. "Law, I'm going to insane. Let me do something."

"I'll tell you what you can do," Law starts, watches your expression light up. "You can do as I tell you and quit being a brat."

You stare, expression going deadpan. "There's no fun in that."

Law scowls before he pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. "...just do this for me," he says, tone softer. "Please."

You stare and then huff as you move towards is bed, yanking the covers back to slip beneath them. Mindful not to jostle your arm or your bruised side, you turn to look at Law. "Happy?"

"Thrilled," comes the amused answer when you sulk, and he approaches to crouch beside the bed. "Quit pouting, you're an adult."

"But this is boring."

"Try to sleep. Rest is going to help you more than anything." Placing his hand over your eyes, Law can feel the brush of your eyelashes.

"Trying to smother me isn't going to help either."

Law's eyes flick skyward for a moment as he sighs. "I'm hardly smothering you. Although it's an idea, given that you'd be unconscious."

You reach up, pulling his hand down enough you can stare. "You wouldn't dare." He raises an eyebrow, and your eyes narrow. "Law."

"Then go to sleep." He counters crisply. "Or what can I offer you that will get you to stay put so I can work and not have to hunt you down?"

You hum, expression thoughtful before your eyes lock with his. "Kiss me." When he gives you a flat look, you grin. "You heard me, if you give me a kiss I'llㅡ"

Law's lips are against yours, familiar pressure that makes your eyes slide shut as you press back, good hand coming up to rest against the back of his cap. And then he's pulling away, ignoring your whine of protest. "Go to sleep."

"But I wantㅡ"

"Sleep," Law emphasizes. "We made a deal."

He pulls away completely, and you scowl before turning away with a huff. "Fine. Since you won't give me another kiss."

Scoffing, Law reaches to tug at the brim of his hat, hoping you don't notice the faint flush to his cheeks. "And I told you to stop being a brat."

Crossing the room, Law seats himself at his desk and flips open one of the various books he'd been taking notes from earlier. He doesn't know how long he reads for but when he looks up again, you're finally asleep.

#ㅡmine. #one piece x reader #one piece scenario #trafalgar law x reader #law x reader #ㅡanswered. #anonymous #–ml: law.

[revengemicrowave]

So continues my attempt to not be aaaaapanic by actually posting stuff haha and feed the Lukadrien tag, my true motive

Another older doodle when I was still figuring out Luka's hair, from Zombie!AU I have all the ideas but no time to do the comic for. Ahh, the endless struggle...

Premise (completely spoiled lol) under the cut. tw: body horror, parasites/bugs, usual zombie stuff, talk of mercy killing a bitten

On a particularly warm day in April, a sudden outbreak sweeps through Paris. People turn wildly aggressive, biting and killing others - who then get back up to do the same hours later. The dead are controlled by a parasite that pupates and hatches from the face of it's host into a stunning, shimmering purple moth. It's wings extend over the face, like when Shadowmoth controls the akumas.

When the host makes a kill, the moth detaches to lay eggs in the new body and die, leaving a shambling biter with other larvae (potentially) still to hatch. However, rarely some stay in rooted to the host brain and become more intelligent, more dangerous zombie variants (like the really mushroomy clickers in Last of Us).

Luka gets seperated from Juleka and Rose on a supply run into the city, the Liberty a safe haven on the water with a small community of other boats. Has a chance run in with Adrien's group when Adrien saves him from one of the first of the more dangerous variants. Everyone is strangers in this AU, besides Luka, Juleka and Rose (and Anarka!), and Adrien, Alya, Nino and Marinette. There are other survivors, but small main group. In the group, Kagami carries a bow and insists she doesn't view the infected as human anymore. Marinette is their medic, Nino is the defender and they're trying to find Alya (who is with Chloe, driving eachother insane). I was also considering Weyham or Max or someone, make it more of a mixed group. Luka is a very reluctant zombie slayer, which is what nearly gets him killed when he first meets Adrien. He has an axe because I'm hilarious. Juleka carries a baseball bat with nails and Rose a can of mace and bugspray (which ends up being suprisingly effective). Rose the alchemist surprise-making a flamethrower, please. So, Luka joins Adrien's group and tells them there's a safe place on the Liberty, but they need to get to it and signal from shore without drawing attention. Because of the cluster of survivors on the river, the banks of the Seine are swarming with zombies, but the moths won't go in the water.

A sneak-through a building goes wrong and Luka gets bit. Marinette patches him up despite his protest about using the supplies, because he 'still shouldn't be in pain'. Kagami reminds them what a bite means, but finally softens when he jokingly tells her to look after the kids (they bond as the two most emotionally mature). The group have to say goodbye, and still in denial and shock, Adrien offers to be the one to 'take care of it'.

At first, it's assumed the bite is what turns you, as no moths have hatched and the first people killed turned after 18-24hrs. Adrien has to come to terms with leaving the guy he's falling in love with in a locked room to turn into a monster, or put him out of his misery.

But Luka doesn't turn (come on as if I'd turn favourite bluebell into a zombie and do that to Adrien) and over summer the hoardes thin as the bodies start to rot. They just need to make it to winter.

#lukadrien #miraculous ladybug #luka couffaine #adrien agreste

[childotkw]

WIP last lines tag game

Haha thank you for the tag @limonium-anemos!

rules: share 7 (or more) lines of a WIP you've been working on

I have way too many WIPs but the latest on my list is ruination so here goes:

---

Don’t stop, he told himself, clenching his jaw against the pain.

With weak steps he continued on, stumbling and near blind from the glare of the light and the sweat dripping into his eyes. He moved between clusters of rocks, grabbing desperately at the hot stones and hissing out short breaths through his teeth.

It took a pathetic shamble to reach the actual outcrop that seemed to make up most of the islet, rising high above his head like a jagged, dark wall. Lucerys clutched at one of the shelves of rock to keep himself steady and leaned forward into the shade being cast.

He swallowed dryly, agony in his throat, and closed his eyes. Tried not to think of how tired he was already or how each gasping inhale he took made his cracked lips burn.

I don’t think I can do this, Arrax, he thought miserably, pressing his forehead into the rock harder. His mouth pinched, sorrow ringing higher, because where a warm bonfire used to crackle in his chest was now nothing but a chilling void. There was a pressure building behind his eyes, a crushing weight in his temples – but no tears to relieve it.

---

I don't really know who else to tag but hmmmmm @arahir, @k-s-morgan, @skitter-kitter, @flourdove, and anyone else that wants to give it a go! Tag me so I can see!!!

#HOTD #ruination au #lucerys velaryon #lucerys is making me sad this chapter lmao #hes being hard to write 😭

[bizmuthsbeasts]

Kinktober Day 7 - Vine Blight x Female Reader - Bondage

Kinktober content warning. Read tags first.

You’d done your fair share of traveling, but over all of the places you’d been forced to traverse the forest was by far your least favorite place to be.

Especially in these humid jungle climates. 

There were gnats in your face you had to keep swatting away, overgrowth and vines that you couldn’t stop tripping on. Sweat was dripping down your face, your clothes sticking uncomfortably to your body as you cut through vines in your path grumbling the whole way through.

You were sure you’d been walking in the same direction for hours, you could have sworn that the sun had just come up when you started and now the sun was starting to sink back down beneath the trees casting strange shadows all over the place.

It was getting more and more difficult to find your way through the foliage and you were growing more and more frustrated.

You forced your way forward for a bit longer before you couldn’t take it anymore and you started looking around for a spot clear enough to set up a tent for the night, you could suffer through more of this travel in the morning.

It was proving difficult to find an adequate spot for you to set up for the night. It seemed like nowhere nearby had any places clear enough for you to pitch a tent, or even enough ground space for you to lie down without being on top of roots and rocks too big to really move.

You heaved a heavy sigh as you finally gave in and decided to clear out a space that you decided was more small plants than roots and such and you started to clean it up.

You pulled up small shrubs that left little scratches on your arms and chopped away clusters of vines, digging smaller roots out of the way until you’d cleared a spot decent enough for a small fire and a tent.

Exhausted by this point you started to pull your things out of your bag, carefully putting up your tent and setting out your fire starter kit looking around for any wood that would be halfway dry enough for you to to set fire to, which was proving more difficult that it was worth.

You managed to find some halfway decent sticks, brushing things out of the way on the ground when you found something else that looked like another bigger stick and you gave it a pull frowning when it didn’t come up.

Your frustration grew with each little tug as you tried to get the stick, giving it one more hard yank before it finally came loose.

You’d pulled so hard that the release of the stick caught you off balance and your stumbled backward, gasping as you tripped over another root and back into a large bush. It dug into your exposed skin and scratched you up as your struggled to get up, fighting for purchase until you could clamber up panting and even more frustrated than before.

In the struggle you hadn’t noticed the feeling of a rogue vine wrapping around your ankle and you turned back toward your campsite far past ready to just say fuck the fire and crawl into your bedroll and sleep. However, as soon as you turned the vine around your ankle tightened and you once again fell over, grunting as your chest hit the musty jungle floor.

Your brow furrowed in frustration as you turned back over, your anger boiling over as you cursed and reached to tug the vine off your ankle. Though as you did it was then that you noticed the shifting in front of you, the bush you’d fallen on before was rustled, elements of the root and vine that made up a mass behind it slowly pulling together into a humanoid form.

The movement of the strange mass tugged your ankle and slid you across the ground closer to it, your eyes wide with a sudden rush of adrenaline fueled by fear making your heart pound as you flipped back over and quickly tried to scramble away from the creature that had formed before you.

Your struggling was quickly noticed by the creature as it shambled closer to you, the vine around your ankle tightening and pulling back against your movements, more vines protruding from it beginning to wrap around you. The vines climbed up your ankles and the back of your calves making the movements of your legs stop completely. You grabbed onto a large tree root in desperation as it pulled on you trying to force you back closer to it despite your protests.

You tried to pull out of its grip, squirming frantically as you yanked the root with all your might to get away, gasping in surprise when it suddenly pulled up from its purchase in the ground and you lost your grip.

The blight was quicker than expected, taking the opportunity when your grasp was lost to quickly wrap its vines up your body grabbing your arms and quickly pulling your wrists behind your back pinning you in place until it was standing just over you.

You were completely immobilized, struggling against an unmoving grip as the vines shifted around you, wrapping neatly around your arms so they were crossed over and tied together all the way up your forearms making a bar across your mid back.

The vines moved forward as it found a more stable place to stand beside you, the vines shifting under you and lifting you up off the ground, sliding beneath your thighs and tightly wrapping around them, pulling your calves up until they were pinned to the back of your thighs.

It hovered you up over the ground before stepping forward, pinning you against the rough bark of a nearby tree. It’s grip was tight and unrelenting, tensing around the limbs it deemed adequately bound other vines shifting around you, almost searching you.

Parts of the vines were sharp though, catching on your clothes and parts of exposed skin, tearing the fabric away from parts of your body.

It took your weapon from you, tossing it aside, it’s search leaving your clothes badly torn, many places the fabric were barely clinging to your body and every little movement you made tore the fabric off your body more, thorns on the vines digging into your body urging you not to move further.

Your heart was racing in your chest as the vines slid up your body, catching and cutting you in places, tearing away your clothes in other places. It wrapped around the inside of your thighs squeezing a bit too close to your crotch making you shudder a little.

It seemed to take notice of your reaction and it tightened the grip it had around your thighs, stepping closer to you.

At this point most of your clothes were toast, your shirt barely hanging off your neck leaving your top completely exposed, holes in your pants leaving nothing to the imagination.

You were nervous, unsure what this creature wanted with you. It hadn’t done anything to severely injure you, but it had you bound beyond movement and pinned up against a tree leaving you defenseless. One strike is really all it would take for this thing to end you, and yet it didn’t do that.

You knew very little about this kind of blight, only that in one way or another they were created and controlled by magic users, so you could only assume that somewhere there was a person controlling this thing. Whoever it was, they didn’t seem to want you dead.

The blight shifted closer to you, the vines that made up it’s hands finding purchase on you, pulling at the tatters of your remaining clothes, the invasive sound of fabric tearing away echoed as the front of your pants were torn off essentially leaving you completely naked.

The vines climbed farther up your torso not loosening their grip one bit as the vines tightened around your chest and slid up around your neck, wrapping a few times but not really applying any pressure, simply staying present there, squeezing only when you squirmed. 

Unsure of what it would do to you your eyes squeezed closed, quietly praying that it would spare you. Even if you hated the jungle the last thing you wanted was to be killed by it.

The inability to see what it was doing only added to the sensation of its touch, the blight shifting closer to you, it’s hands gripping your thighs and pinning you in place further.

You only opened your eyes when you felt a strangely warm, wet feeling and pressure between your legs. Your eyes flew open glancing down to the feeling to see vines from the blight sliding between your legs, some of them excreting an off amber colored sap. 

The feeling made your body tense as the vines started to rub and press up against your cunt, the sap making these smooth vines easily start to press into you. It was a strange and foreign feeling that made you squirm, the vines tightening around you more.

Your body trembled as the vines pressed in, one at first. It curled into you slowly, coiling to take up more space, spreading out to stretch you before a second vine pressed in, then a third and fourth. They curled and twisted inside your cunt  and pressed against your walls, stretching you out and coating your insides with the thick amber liquid.

You felt your breath picking up a bit, unease growing as the vines stretched you and caused a deep seeded arousal to pick up in your stomach, your body reacting against your will shifting you to the will of the blight before you.

Sounds fell from you as the vines stretched you open, each of them moving with the sole purpose to stretch your hole open, holding your entrance agape and waiting. You watched the blight when it began to move again, more vines displacing through its body and sliding down to form a strange phallus shape out of the smooth vines, more of the amber ooze dripping from the tip of the protrusion.

You squirmed in your place but the vines held you mercilessly still as the phallus pressed forward and began to ease into you, further stretching your cunt. You cried out as it pressed inside, astounded by the lack of pain, the amber sap having some effect on you and as it began to move you felt yourself getting increasingly wet. 

The pressure was unbearable, pulling moans from you as the blight rocked its hips, the vines that made up its member shifting with every thrust into you, rubbing your walls and more specifically rubbing up against sweet spot pulling louder moans from you.

You were left completely at the mercy of the blight, the vines taut around your body held you in place as you were used. 

Unable to escape you subconsciously began to accept this fate and the way it made your thighs tremble. Your walls tightened around the member inside you, pleasure taking over as you were used. 

You panted out hot breaths as the blight fucked you, the mindless mass of vines at the will of whoever controlled it, whoever was making it do this to you, someone obviously having some kind of perverse fun with their magic.

Your body felt weak in the restraints that held you in place, your lungs struggling to pull in breaths of the thick hot air around you and it made you feel dizzy, the blight’s movements speeding up causing your whole body to quiver. 

You were growing desperate, your cunt aching as you were fucked, trying your best to rock your hips in search of some kind of release but you were denied, not only of movement but of the release you desired.

Your head felt fuzzy as the blight fucked into you, rocking its hips and making your whole body tremble as its aim settled squarely on your sweet spot making you whine with desperation. 

You cried out loudly as it sped up its movements and you could do nothing but give in to the intense pleasure of the pressure fucking up into you. It was so intense that you could feel the building orgasm threatening your loins as the blight used you so pointedly.

It wasn’t much longer, the fast and task driven movements of the blight edging you closer with every little movement of its viney cock. One skillful thrust and the blight pressed right up against your sweet spot, wracking your whole body with pleasure that made your back arch as much as it could in the binds, your cunt twitched as the orgasm took hold, slick flooding out of you as the blight rocked up against the sensitive bundle of nerves that pushed you over.

You were humiliated by the ease that the creature had forced an orgasm on you, but more so you were humiliated by the amount that you had enjoyed it. The aftershocks of your orgasm had your whole body aching with desperate pleasure so eager to experience again.

However, as if it sensed your desperation the vines around you began to loosen up, your arms being freed first as the vines started to loose their shape, the humanoid blight before you slowly beginning to fall away back to it’s original state.

The vines loosened until you, along with it, fell to the ground the vines lay motionless as they slipped out of you leaving you empty and aching, the amber sap leaking from your cunt as you examined the pile of inanimate vines before you.

Just as quickly as the blight has appeared it was gone and you were free. Your confusion was left to fester as you pushed yourself to your feet and stumbled back to your camp. You changed into a spare set of clothes and got into your tent, your mind racing as you lied down and tried to sleep despite the confusion, wondering just who would do that to you.

You still hated the jungle. But maybe just a bit less now.

#dnd #monsterfucker #kinktober #monster smut #smut #x reader #monsters #non con #tw noncon

[polizwrites]

Somewhere to Turn

This is a fill for today's @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt [FFF215 Mall at Night] as well as my @bingowinteriron FREE square

Fandom: MCU/Marvel Pairing: Bucky Barnes & Tony Stark Rating: General Tags: No Powers AU, young Tony Stark, runaway, friendship Word Count: 845

Bucky was definitely beginning to regret watching Dawn of the Dead with Clint before starting his first shift as a night watchman at the mall. It was all too easy to look down a darkened hallway and imagine that there were zombies shambling towards him out of the shadows, inexorable in their hunger for human flesh. That and the winter wind howling across the parking lot sounded positively eerie. But a job was a job, and Bucky would be damned if he was quitting before he even started.

Ms. Hill had informed him that he needed to walk the entire building at least three times during his shift, checking in through a series of QR codes, posted on the wall at the end of each wing. At least he’d be getting some exercise, he supposed.

Bucky realized he actually missed the background music that played through the speakers overhead during the day, and wondered briefly if he had the ability to turn it back on. Sure, it was all instrumental cover versions of songs that were at least as old as he was, but at least then he wouldn’t hear the echoes of his own footsteps.

As Bucky turned the corner to enter the food court, a flash of movement caught his eye. There was something - or someone - behind the counter of Luca’s Pizza, trying to open the door to the kitchen area.

“Hey!” Bucky fumbled his flashlight from its holster and turned it on; realizing belatedly that if the intruder had been armed, he’d made quite a target of himself.

But instead, the figure froze, put its hands up and turned around. “Don’t shoot! Please!”

Bucky approached cautiously - even though part of him knew he should be calling the police, the voice had sounded young and scared.

“What are you doing here?” he called out instead, making his way over through the cluster of tables in the middle of the room. “How’d you get in?”

“I hid in the bathroom when the mall closed. You know, like in that book? Admittedly this isn’t the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but…” The guy - no, more of a kid, probably somewhere in his late teens, if Bucky had to guess – shrugged.

He was dressed in a dark long sleeved shirt with a band tee over it, jeans and sneakers - just like any other teen that had walked through the doors earlier in the day. But he was wearing a facemask and the backpack on his shoulder was nearly bursting at the seams.

“Okay,” Bucky replied, not ready to let down his guard quite yet, “but I still want to know what you’re doing here.”

The guy met Bucky’s gaze, the bags under his whiskey brown eyes proof of lost sleep and sorrow. “For what it’s worth, I was going to leave money on the counter to cover the cost of the repairs, and the food. I just needed somewhere warm to stay tonight.”

Bucky’s heart went out to him; yes, he was technically trespassing, and had been in the process of breaking and entering, but Bucky knew a little something about being forced to be on your own too young. “Listen, if you’re homeless, there’s a shelter about a half a mile from here.”

The guy shook his head. “I can’t. They’d turn me in.”

“What do you mean?”

The guy sighed and took his mask off. “I’m Tony Stark.”

“Well, shit.” The disappearance of the heir to the Stark fortune had been all over the news; with the death of his parents the month before, rumors were flying about a potential kidnapping and ransom scenario. “So, you’re, what? A runaway?”

“Something like that, I guess.” He shrugged again, a haunted look briefly flashing across his face. “I know what you’re thinking, ‘Poor little rich kid. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Never had to work a day in his life - what in the hell could he be running from?” He spat the words out bitterly.

“No, no, I wasn’t.” Bucky replied, making a decision that would probably bite him in the ass at some point. “Listen - how about you come hang out with me in the security office til the end of my shift?” he offered. “I’ve got leftovers stashed in the fridge - enough to split. I’ll call my roommate and let him know someone needs to use our couch for awhile. He’ll be cool with it.”

“Huh? What… why would you do all that for someone you don’t even know?” The mix of confusion and wariness on Tony’s face made Bucky’s heart go out to him.

“Because my step dad kicked me out of the house when I was sixteen because he found out I was gay,” Bucky explained. “I don’t know what you’re dealing with, but I figure it’s got to be pretty serious if you’re scrounging for mall pizza.”

Tony huffed out a soft laugh. “You may have a point there.” He lifted his eyes again, and this time Bucky saw a bit of hope shining there.

#writing stuff #fanficlet #Flash Fiction Friday #mcu/marvel #winteriron #Tony & Bucky #shameless self promo

[fukushublog]

Crystal Lugia, the Emissary of Terapagos

While the transfer student and Carmine are busy with Terapagos, Fuku drew her Pokeball in response to loud stomping.

A massive, shambling cluster of crystals ambled its way towards them from behind, blocking off any potential escape. It was lugia in shape, composed of white crystals with light blue ones constituting what could be considered the fins. There was a dark mass in its center, but Fuku's attention was drawn away from it by the very much roaring face. The eyes are cyan, with four point star pupils much like Terapagos itself.

The individual crystals shifted into a black-ish tinge, and the Crystal Lugia fired off a massive Dark-type Tera Blast. Fuku rolled out of the way, throwing out Clarence. The Apple Scale roared, swinging his thick tail for Dragon Rush.

The Crystal Lugia stumbled back a bit from the blow, before creaking its neck back down. The hue of its many crystals shifted again, this time towards a pink-ish hue. She could guess it turned Fairy-type, and Fuku was right: judging by the Tera Blast that completely took out Clarence.

Fuku cursed, withdrawing Clarence. That was her last battle-capable Pokemon too. She can't let this thing join the battle, things are already looking dire from that end judging by the lack of a Sinistcha. If it teams up with Terapagos, it's over for them all, and possibly the region.

Fuck it. She'll explain later. Fuku dispels her illusion disguise, making it very clear she was not human, but a Hisuian Zoroark. If she can't take it out, she'll keep the damn thing distracted.

The Crystal Lugia turns Dark-type again in response to this, gathering Terastal Energy in its jagged maw. Fuku leaps out of the way of the resulting blast, firing a potshot Bitter Malice to keep its attention on her. Roaring in irritation, it swipes at the Zoroark with its wing tips, knocking her down to the ground and her breath. She could see Kieran joined the battle. Thank Sinnoh Almighty, please let this be over fucking soon.

Fuku caught another attack coming her way, and she rolled out of the way of the the incoming Tera Blast. She slashed at its ankles with Slash, ducking under the swinging tail. And then she heard crystal fragments falling behind her.

Terapagos had been defeated, and reverted to its base form. It must have been responsible for the Crystal Lugia, which is slowly turning a dull gray and falling into pieces. First the wings and tails, then the legs and head, and finally the torso fell apart, dropping an unconscious brown-haired woman on to the floor.

You defeated Crystal Lugia!

#pokemon irl #in universe #mystery of the disc arc #pokemon dlc spoilers

[echoequinox]

Starfield spoilers but you know what I'd kill for in the DLC

There are two big things I'd love. 1. Va'ruun. Obviously. The embassy is there so it's likely they're gonna show up, and also their WHOLE ASS HOME PLANET isn't in the game yet so. I hope we get a real serpent. I hope that the serpent is either a legit fucking big scary beast or that the Va'ruun leader is a Starborn

SPEAKING OF, you know what I'd kill for? An endgame story quest. You make it through your tenth run, you have a maxed out Starborn ship, armor, X level powers. And then you find other Starborn do too. They're at the apex of their power, just like you. The Hunter and Emmissary are back, as per usual, but there's so many MORE Starborn now. You all keep going back, and that means universes are absolutely full of Starborn.

So there's war. The Hunter and Emmissary are like, opposing and hesitant generals, neither wants to LEAD really but people follow them - maybe a lot of Yous, or Thems, or Constellation members - and they feel obliged to not leave them behind.

And so now there's REAL stakes. The universe torn asunder. Entire cities under new martial law by superpowered time traveling freaks. The UC and Freestar in shambles trying to deal with this new threat to their world.

The option to cut everyone in the current universe off from Unity FOREVER - yourself included! - in an attempt to stop these newly powerful armies from moving forward.

Maybe you get a set of Constellation companions who have seen it all. A Sarah who loved you and watched you die, and ventured into the black to find another you. A Sam who lost his little girl, and a version of his daughter - all grown up - who lost her daddy. Andreja, fully realized, a Va'ruun badass with deadly powers. Maybe Barrett found his husband, and wants to make this universe good for him, somewhere they could live in peace. Fuck, maybe Matteo, Walter, and Vladimir took the plunge, maybe you have their fully realized versions, too.

A final confrontation with fate and destiny. One last hurrah. Rather than the simple question of Hunter v Emmissary your first go-around, you now have to truly reconcile with eternity. Is it right to let these people flow out into every universe? Is it right to keep them here when they've touched infinity? Is it right for the people of this universe to damn them to being in a universal terrarium with the Starborn?

Maybe if you play it right, the Starborn get their own cluster of planets like the UC/Freestar. Maybe they get an embassy in New Atlantis, and people are offered the opportunity to touch the same powers that the Starborn had. Maybe there's even post-ending quests where you can see how the factions interact with each other.

Also permanent Hunter/Emmissary companions, fully romancable. This Emmissary is you, so you dont have to figure out randomly which Constellation member it is, also you can fuck yourself. I just really wanna fuck the Hunter okay I really wanna kiss that dirty old man.

Man idfk!!!! Starfield feels like the prologue to such a cool story and we never get there

EDIT: SECRET FINAL BOSS IS THE VERSION OF YOU IN UNITY, THEY'RE INFINITY INCARNATE AND THEY'RE MAD YOU'RE TRYING TO SEAL OFF UNITY AND ALSO WE GET A BRIEF GLIMPSE AT WHO MADE THE ARTIFACTS

#LENGTHY lengthy post #starfield #starfield spoilers

[ohc-and-the-music-tapes-archive]

Article about Elephant 6 collective (with a big part regarding the Music Tapes) in Flagpole, 31 March 1999, by John Britt and Melissa Link.

transcript:

ELEPHANT 6: THE MUSE GROWS UP THAT LOOSE GROUP OF TREEHOUSE POP FANTASTICS IS MATURING. ITS CIRCLE IS WIDENING. AND ITS NEW MUSIC IS PRIMED TO INVADE THE ORCHESTRA PIT, THE PROPS CLOSET, AND THE FAR REACHES GF OUTER SPACE. It started as a bedroom daydream, but the dream leaked out into the waking world. Now it’s spreading. The musical collective Elephant 6 — that sprawling, somewhat amorphous umbrella group of young pop bands, the one whose imprimatur ensures a taste of sweet aural psychedelia, the one in all the national magazines, the one that has made Athens, Georgia, its de facto headquarters — was once just a name for the four-track fantasies of four kids messing around in Ruston, Louisianna.

Back in the early 1980s, Rustonians Will Hart, Bill Doss, Robert Schneider and Jeff Mangum invented Elephant 6 as a fictitious label for the tapes they made for each other. The product wasn't necessarily intended to merge with the real wor|d — few imaginative children actually grow up to be cowboys or astronauts — but eventually the four friends amassed enough good material to warrant public consumption. They started getting serious. Schneider moved to Denver and formed the core of The Apples In Stereo. In Athens, Mangum established Neutral Milk Hotel, while Doss and Hart eventually formed The Olivia Tremor Control.

Over the last four or five years these three bands, the heart of Elephant 6, have recorded albums that have drawn worldwide critical acclaim. At the same time, Elephant 6 has expanded to include a difficult-to-count array of friends and compatriots who share in one way or another the original Ruston vision — to put out, as early E6 propaganda put it, “innovative, quality pop music” that hews to a prescribed set of values. “We believe in four-tracks, and beautiful sounds and ideas,” the old motto went. “And most of all we believe in SONGS.”

This spring sees the release of CDs from four Athens-based Elephant 6 groups: the sophomore effort from The Olivia Tremor Control, as well as new albums from Elf Power, Of Montreal, and, in a few weeks, the performance project Music Tapes. This new wave of music shows major strides forward in E6’s thematic, conceptual and sonic evolution, yet much of it remains true to the original vision.

With real record deals, these bands have been able to flesh out the limited lo-fi palette of the first E6 recordings: four-track operating methods are now augmented with digital 16-tracks and studio mixing, and while some of the inspiration still comes from home, much recording now takes place in professional studios. This new freedom has allowed these bands to explore a wider range of composition and arrangement while still remaining true to their aesthetic roots. And while the music style broadens, the E6 gestalt continues to expand beyond music itself: though there's always been a multimedia component to the collective, a group like Julian Koster’s Music Tapes is pushing beyond notebook artwork and into the far teaches of experimental theater.

THE SKY IS A HARPSICHORD CARVAS

As these boundaries expand, the shambling experimental ensemble The Olivia Tremor Control remains at the center of the chaotic Elephant 6 enterprise. The band’s debut album, Dusk at Cubist Castle, toyed with both classically structured pop songs and experimental ambient noise, with fairly distinct lines drawn between order and chaos. The Olivias decided to mesh both halves of their creative instincts into one seamless whole on their latest release, Black Foliage: Animation Music, a 70-minute pop freakout that recalls everything from The Beach Boys to Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Black Foliage is unmistakably in step with everything OTC worked towards years ago. The tweaked out, psychedelic pattern shifts — from melodically grounded pop classics to cacophonous clusters of sounds — harken back to Doss, Hart, and bassist John Fernandes’ early days DJ-ing at the Louisiana Tech college radio station. There, according to Fernandes, the friends would cue up sound-effects albums and play them simultaneously with the records in the station's rotation, then step out to listen to the results on someone else's radio.

“Our idea on the new album was to weave patterns and ask the question ‘What is a pop song?” explains Doss. “We wanted to go beyond things like verse/chorus/verse and do things like bridge/bridge/bridge/bridge/verse/verse/verse, then into some sound excursion or the chorus or a barbershop quartet.”

Looking at some of The Olivia Tremor Control's more blatant influences — most notably the Beatles and the Beach Boys — it’s obvious that the band sees no fault in perfect pop. And in the memorable melodies of Foliage’s “Hideaway” and “A New Day,” it is readily apparent that the band can deliver such goods. 

The goal then, it seems, is to create new atmospheres and environments for that music to inhabit. Black Foliage sometimes sounds like a pop record playing through a street-comer boom box while the sounds of the street invade and intermingle. With its nonstop flow of sonic and thematic concepts, Foliage tends to lend itself towards individual visual interpretation, individual fantasy. “Every time I listen to that album, it’s like a series of dreams,” describes Raleigh Hatfield, a peripheral member of a number of Elephant 6 related bands. “But with each listen, it evokes a completely different series of images.”

Hart agrees, citing the album’s subtitle as an important clue to the music within. “All the sounds in there to us are animation. I see pictures for everything in it, and so will our audience, hopefully.”

NEAT LITTLE DOMESTIC LIFE

Whereas The Olivia Tremor Control attempt to create an ambiguous aural fantasy world on Black Foliage, comrades Of Montreal have fashioned a far more specific world on their new album, The Gay Parade. The material on the telease steps away from songwriter Kevin Bames’ earlier, more personal work, and dives headfirst into a purely imaginary environment. The Gay Parade is a pageant of whimsical characters: “The Autobiographical Grandpa,” “The Miniature Philosopher,” and “A Man’s Life Flashing Before His Eyes While He and His Wife Drive Off a Cliff Into the Ocean.”

And while the album‘s concept — especially its Yellow Submarine-cum-grade school cover depicting every single character in the record — seems to express a calculated naiveté, Of Montreal's members insist that there are layers of conceptual complexities beneath the surface.

“It’s much smarter than a children’s book,” contends drummer Derek Almstead. “It's like The Canterbury Tales; it's whimsical, smart, deep and funny. It’s not cutesy-poo.”

“In no way do I want to compare us to Brian Wilson,” adds keyboardist and bassist Dottie Alexander, “but someone could say the same thing about Smile. On the surface it may seem that Brian Wilson is singing about nothing, but if you look deeper into the songs. you find many complex layers, musically.”

Songwriter Barnes’ Tin Pan Alley influences often give The Gay Parade a pre-rock vibe: it feels like it could've been written by someone raised in the age of radio melodramas, rather than a mop-topped guy living some 40-plus years after the birth of rock and roll. At the same time, Barnes’ character sketches — though often steeped in fantasy — owe much to mid-“60s British rock songwriters like the Kinks’ Ray Davies, who was known for penning bourgeois studies like “David Watts.”

“There definitely is a pervasive Kinks influence in everything we do,” agrees Alexander. “It's a slice of life look at this world we have created.”

That world is rendered in fantastic pastels and neons thanks to the CD's highly inventive arrangements — a major sonic step forward for both £6 and indie pop in general. The album is filled with waved-out guitar lines, crystalline piano notes, five-part harmonies, and a variety of novel instrumentation. Nineteen people are credited in the liner notes with everything from penny whistle to “woo-wooing while jumping on the furnace.”

Of Montreal plan to take their characters out of fantasyland and on the road — literally. Kevin Barnes’ brother, David, the group's chief visual artist, is working on a stage representation of the cover art he designed and created.

“There's not much room in our van for even a large suitcase, so the visual aspect will have to be limited,” Almstead says. “But we'll have a backdrop similar to the album cover, and perhaps some cardboard cutouts of the characters on stage with us.”

A DREAM REIFIED

Elf Power's A Dream in Sound is, without a doubt, the most mature offering from the latest batch of Elephant 6 albums. Combining the sonic experimentation of The Olivia Tremor Control with the fantastical storytelling of The Gay Parade, A Dream in Sound is a brief, yet powerful, collection of songs. In a way, it’s that perfect 40-minute pop album that Black Foliage dumps an extra 30 minutes of insanity upon. At once timeless and immediate, it’s Elf Power's most fully realized work, and a major improvement upon the band’s previous outing, When the Red King Comes.

“Our last album was recorded over a six month period,” explains chief songwriter Andrew Rieger. “A Dream in Sound was recorded in two weeks, and I think that had a big effect on the final product.”

The album continues down the path Elf Power has been taking since their first EP, Vainly Clutching at Phantom Limbs. While not as blatantly conceptual as the fantasy novel-like Red King, A Dream in Sound still focuses lyrically on otherworldly characters and confused wishes to live as other life forms. Rieger seems to have permanently turned his back on material such as Vainly Clutching's “Circular Malevolence.” That song was an angry acoustic account of an ego-tripping, status climbing acquaintance: “You can write it all down and just send it in your precious letter/Tell me of all the people you know and which ones you think you like better/You self-righteous motherfucker/You think I give a shit what you had for supper?” Such work has given way to more imaginative and surreal numbers with titles like “Simon (The Bird with the Candy Bar Head).”

“I always kind of regretted the mean-spiritedness of that song,” Rieger says of “Circular Malevolence.” “I wouldn't want to write those kind of hateful songs anymore.”

But don’t those kinds of personal experiences fuel powerful songwriting? “Well, yeah, sure,” Rieger says. “But I think you can do that in more productive ways. You don’t have to be mean about it.”

STATIC, THE TV, IS A KIND OF FRIEND

Flash to the 40 Watt Club: multi-instrumentalist Julian Koster is on stage with his band Music Tapes, sporting headgear he calls “The Mechanized Organ-Playing Helmet.” The helmet has a hand protruding from it, and the hand plays a faux keyboard. Koster stands amid a working seven-foot metronome, a wooden box sprouting a pair of mechanical clapping hands and an animated television set named “Static”.

Static, the television, will sing half of the songs tonight. Koster — augmented by the likes of Elf Power's Laura Carter and Neutral Milk/Gerbils member Scott Spillane — will buoyantly strum a banjo while the blissed-out, pixilated Static disseminates propaganda about the alien race of TV sets who control our world.

The audience at this Music Tapes performance is a cozy mix of friends, fellow musicians, and curious onlookers. Most stand in contemplative awe, while a few people cuddle the stage, clapping and convulsing ecclesiastical joy. This unique stage show is the ultimate in Elephant 6 fantasia: the line between reality and artifice is sufficiently blurred to give the appearance that even if the human performers left the stage, the mechanical ones would continue the show.

Koster’s former outfit, Chocolate USA — which featured Doss, Olivias drummer Eric Harris and others — bowed out of its acclaimed, albeit brief, limelight with a Bar/None CD Smoke Machine — more or less a rock opera about a cow. Music Tapes take Koster’s peculiar vision — not only of music and performance, but of the human condition as well — to rather head-scratching new levels.

“To me it’s like I look at human history: the Tin Man is as real to me as Abraham Lincoln,” Koster says, possibly describing the impetus behind Music Tapes. “The truth is that what I know of the Tin Man, even though he came out of someone's imagination — and Abraham Lincoln really lived — doesn’t make a difference, because I have vivid pictures of both and in the end what I know now of Abraham Lincoln probably came out of somebody's imagination as well.”

Music Tapes’ debut CD is due out soon, and though you'd think that this is a band best experienced live. Koster’s E6 compatriots say the cordings stand on their own. “Julian's stuck in a Dr. Seuss movie,” says the Olivia's Hart. “That's going to be my favorite record when it comes out. I wish I could write more Dr. Seussy stuff like that.”

“Julian is incredible,” John Fernandes adds. “He's a great home recorder. He takes account of the nuances of low fidelity and uses the disadvantages to his advantage. He's been using an old wire recorder and ribbon microphone just like what was used in old radio plays, and he gets a really genuine 78 rpm type sound.”

Koster says Music Tapes were born 10 years ago, when the musician was in his mid-teens. It began as a way to spend time with his friends, as he wasn't able to be with them as often as he would have liked.

“I kind of had to stay in the house a lot,” Koster says. “I started making tapes almost to make little worlds. Whatever I could imagine, I tried to make a sort of little place that I could visit whenever I was making it and then I'd be able to give the tapes to my friends when I saw them at school and they could visit that place. So the time that they spent there was kind of like common time spent together.”

As Koster grew up, Music Tapes became a sort of revenge project against the world, in the way that creativity became the means subtly to upend the powers that be. Julian fully lives up to Rieger's idea that anger can best be focused into positive, creative energy.

“In youth, it’s about being powerless or dependent on those around you,” Koster says. “You feel unable to take control of your world, and all of a sudden you kind of go over this divide and you realize that you are powerful, that you do have power. You begin to take control of your own existence — you can leave a bad thing and you can begin to create things.”

So Koster invented his own world, a deviant musical amalgam of Pee Wee's Playhouse and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The fantasy is farther out than anything previously in the minds of the Elephant 6 collective. It’s one thing to be in a pretend band; it’s another to be in a band with pretend bandmates, especially at the age of 26. When Koster says of his talking TV, “Static the Television is a band member, and a kind of a friend in a lot of ways,” - it is seemingly without a trace of irony.

That overriding Elephant 6 impulse — to create indie rock that’s irony-free — is offering one way out of the rut the genre has found itself in over the last few years. Like it or not, it’s difficult to deny that it’s an escape hatch that works. “A lot of people who think that this music is childish or cute are coming from this whole school of distorted, ‘80s indie rock,” Of Montreal's Derek Almstead says. “And we're not coming from that point at all. We're coming from somewhere else.”

John Britt Staff writer Melissa Link also contributed to story

#articles #1999 #Elephant 6 #the Music Tapes #Of Montreal #Olivia Tremor Control #Elf Power #Julian Koster #John Fernandes #Bill Doss #Derek Almstead #Dottie Alexander #Kevin Barnes #David Barnes #Andrew Rieger

[visiblyflabbergasted]

excerpt of a book i will never write

The nice cat I'm helping take care of and my shitty alarm woke me up around 7:30 AM this morning. Every morning seems to have been drawn from a uniform distribution. I have sporadic (yet they come to grow exponentially in frequency), weird thoughts. They’re always in the back of my mind and lift their heads when I lift mine. They are weird subtle demons, harmless at first, yet become concerning as the minutes pass by. At a younger, premedicated age I would have freaked the fuck out but now we’ve learned to let them front for a while until the Aripiprazole finally kicks in. 

I’ve been taking this medication for over a year now, I microdose at 5 mg per day. It's known to treat people with schizophrenia, but I started taking it for my mood swings which later turned out to be a symptom of BPD. I got my diagnosis last year in August when my episodes were more frequent, my systems were in shambles, my fears activated, my mornings very different from today’s, my demons out in the wild, untrained, untamed. During the past year while being medicated I have learned to let these clusters of thoughts simply pass by. Someone talked to me about these thoughts as dirty clouds and how they wish they would be able to clean them, and become a cloud wiper. Once I, too, fought with the clouds, reached and wasted my breath blowing them away, but now I learned to wait. Sometimes all you can do is wait. Time is sparse, yes, but all I can do now is wait for the effect of the medication to begin. 

I put on my current favorite song. It’s called Beady Eyes by Sipho. It has put me in a good mood lately - for a sad song - so I play it. It’s still playing as I write, as I combine words into sentences and hope they make sense - sometimes all you can do is hope. It was still playing as I was walking the streets of Munich, as I noticed the air to be crisp, fresh, new. Maybe it was always like that in the mornings and maybe I was too busy running from place to place to notice, maybe I was too busy running from thought to thought to notice. I wait for the tram. The 27th line comes in 5 minutes so I open my current read - The Instant by Amy Liptrot. She’s talking about Berlin and birds. I understand that she’s lonely, she says she’s lonely. I think I am too. It dawned on me yesterday. I was keen on distracting myself for the last two weeks. Books, people, decisions, people. Loneliness and sadness, in my book (of life, not this one), are treated the same way as the clouds I spoke of earlier. I let them be and wait. Most of the time I do not even know why I am sad. Maybe it’s not a cloud, maybe they’re waves and the best way to deal with waves - I read in The Instant - is to relax as the wave will let you go shortly after. So I wait. I wait in the mornings, I wait for the tram, I wait for seconds, minutes to pass by and become hours and days. Then I am sad I lost them. I wait in the evenings, I wait for my phone to ring so I can ignore it. I wait for my brother. 

I think of my brother today. I do not text. He’s 11 to be 12 in two months now and does not wish to speak to me. I try to respect his agency. I respect his decision. I am waiting for him to understand and accept me as his brother instead of his sister who raised him. I was never his or their sister. I wait. I realize I am sad. I sit with it. Maybe I’ll start learning about birds and walk the cities of Germany looking for them. From time to time I get this surreal feeling, as time expands, my body shivers, I forget where I am or how I got where I am. I like the feeling. It’s weird but lovely. It’s lonely. I realized I am lonely. I sit with it. I welcome it and make it dinner, may it sleep over if it must stay. May it embrace me. I realize I have been lonely for the past half year. I let that be. I am tired of wiping clouds. They will come and go regardless of my actions. I feel small. I let that be too. 

#writing #excerpts #loneliness #love #words #books

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Shambling Mound

CR 6

Neutral Large Plant

Bestiary 1, pg. 246

Mimics get all the glory, y’know? Those shapeshifting little pranksters are often the first thing people think of when they hear the phrase “everything wants to kill you.” Parties will inspect every suspiciously out-of-place chest, wardrobe, and bed with the caution of a bomb disposal tech probing a mysteriously wired box, but few--if any--would ever suspect a pile of compost to be hiding anything but decaying leaves and mush.

Shambling Mounds can be found just about anywhere there’s generous amounts of plantlife and, when at rest, look like nothing more but assorted greens and vines. Startlingly intelligent for plant creatures that look like collections of mold, Shambling Mounds are actually noted to prefer stealth tactics and ambush, slowly sliding closer and closer to potential prey before attacking. A party marching through a marsh or jungle may be on the lookout for crocodiles, enormous leeches, Hags, gigantic insects, hungry serpents, or any number of other hazardous encounters, unaware of the mass of moss steadily following after them is anything but a verdant clog (another good name for them) until it rears up with flailing vines and a monstrous appetite.

To be entirely fair to the Shamblers, though, they’re actually capable of feeding on a wide variety of materials. The book notes they can burrow roots into living trees to sap nutrients from them, send those same roots into soft soil to absorb sustenance, or even absorb discarded plant matter (even from other Plant monsters) to digest them. However, these are merely appetizers; to grow and thrive, Shamblers need meat, and they get that by cracking apart whatever they get their startlingly strong vines around.

The 10ft reach of the average Shambler means their dual slam attacks can sweep an entire tightly clustered party they’ve gotten the drop on. Even if they must first move into position, their Cleave feat means they can sweep a party anyway. Each slam deals a decent 2d6+5 damage, but more dangerously Grabs any creature hit in their vines. Despite looking like soft compost, the feeding vines of a Shambler are strong enough to shatter any bones they work themselves around, constricting anything they maintain a grapple with for an additional 2d6+7 damage each round. This is their sole means of offense, but the damage is reliable, the attacks accurate, and the constriction can make short work of whatever they manage to get ahold of. Barring that, don’t forget that Shamblers are actually smart (7 Int, but still). They’re sapient and even have communities hidden deep in the leaves and mulch. They can and will use intelligent tactics like drowning prey in ponds and swamps, capsizing boats by swimming under and ramming into them, or sometimes even setting traps in their territory with simple things like pitfalls, rocks or sharpened tied with vines, or simple tripwires to give them time to catch up to prey.

These simple monsters can be improved upon by simply using the tactics the very book mentions, or going just a little further with it. If you want to make them challenging, don’t treat them the way their name suggests they act--simple, shambling beasts that rove forward to attack, mindless creatures wholly operating on instinct. Play with it, like so many play with the intelligence of kobolds and goblins! Some may even retreat if they take too much damage, sinking back into the foliage to blend in until they can recover, simply deciding the party is no longer worth attacking... or, at least, waiting until they fall asleep, creeping up with their +16 in Stealth...

On one last note, I did mention they have communities. This is merely hinted at in Bestiary 1 but expanded upon in Second Edition’s Bestiary 1; Shamblers will gather together when storms erupt, raising their vines to the air in the hopes of being struck by lightning. They’re completely unharmed by Electricity damage and, in fact, gain temporary Constitution when exposed to Electricity via their Electric Fortitude. Anyone hoping to bypass their 10 Fire Resistance by hoping to electrocute the waters they inhabit is in for a terrible surprise as they gain 9 or 18 hitpoints! But to return from that tangent, Shamblers which are struck by natural lightning are revered by their kin, sometimes even unlocking strange new powers gifted to them by whatever strange and unknowable forces they worship in voiceless secrecy. More fuel for the DMs to use!

You can read more about them here.

#Monster Spotlight #CR 6 to 10 #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

[dmsden]

Monster of the Month - Shambling Mound

Hullo, Gentle Readers. It's a new month...how is it June already? But as the weather warms up, plant life is growing and blooming and spreading...and that brings me to the Monster of the Month - the Shambling Mound. As always, thanks to Scott Fabianek for the awesome original artwork. Make sure you check out the little details on this one!

Shambling Mounds, often known by people simply as Shamblers, have been around since 1st edition's Monster Manual. Their basics have remained more or less the same, offering a monstrous version of the Swamp Thing or the Man-Thing, depending on whether or not you're a DC or Marvel fan. Big scary swamp monsters being a perennial favorite to pop into adventures, shambling mounds enjoy an ongoing popularity, and they're very useful critters. At Challenge Rating 5, Shamblers are a greability t monster to throw in small groups at level 5 or 6 players. After all, they've probably just gained spells like lightning bolt and fireball, and, as we'll see, it's fun to see them find out how those spells affect these new foes.

Shamblers have a surprising number of resistances and immunities, which make them a startling foe for those who've never encountered them before. Their dense plant material is resistance to fire and cold and totally immune to lightning (a side effect of their origin from magical lightning strikes). Not only that, but lightning actually heals them, which is a delightfully nasty surprise for the wizard who's enjoying their new lightning bolt spell. They're also immune to being blinded and deafened, as well as levels of exhaustion. It makes them a sturdy package, especially with an Armor Class of 15 and well over 100 hit points.

Shambling mounds don't actually see (hence their immunity to being blinded), but they have blindsight to 60'. This actually works as a strength and weakness. Illusions and invisibility aren't super useful against them, and neither are spells such as color spray that rely on the target being able to see you. On the other hand, the Shambling Mound can't see you at all if you're more than 60 feet away. This means that, if you're more than 60' from the Shambler, you have advantage on attacks against it, and it has to try to track you down to counter-attack.

Besides some slam attacks, the Shambling Mound has a signature Engulf attack. If it hits with both slams from its multiattack, it automatically grapples the creature its attacking and engulfs it. Being engulfed is like being swallowed with some nasty differences. The engulfed creature is blinded and restrained, so it has disadvantage on all attacks. It has to make a saving throw or take bludgeoning damage every round, and it can't breathe, so it's going to begin suffocating. In addition, there's no way to escape, unlike a swallowed target, without teleporting. The DM can make there be a way, but there is none as written.

There are some very intriguing story elements around the Shambling Mound. Its origins lie in lightning strikes or fey magic...or maybe fey lightning? It could be presaged by the appearance of a feystorm coming out of the Feywild, sending multi-colored lightning bolts into a swamp. The swamp's life begins draining out into a singular entity or a cluster of them, and they begin to engulf everything around them. Beasts and people at the edges of the swamp begin disappearing. It's a good way to instill a slowly growing sense of menace. You can also use the creatures' stealth to have them attack from an ambush, especially if the players are expecting some other kind of monster than a plant creature.

One of my favorite elements about the Shamblers is the fact that their body contains a root-stem that the rest of their rotting form protects. If they're going to be defeated, they can lie dormant and burrow into the ground to hide and regrow, waiting for another chance to return and begin absorbing everything again.

A good plotline could be to have a wizard living in the swamp deliberately using lightning to call forth shambling mounds to protect his tower. The combo could be very interesting, especially as the mage would have to be careful not to be engulfed themself. Shambling mounds might also be used as guardians by various fey, who might be able to exert some kind of control over them via the fey magic that gave them birth.

I hope this article has given you some fun ideas on using shambling mounds in your game. Next month, we'll be looking at a monster for your caverns that'll put your players in a sticky situation. Until then, don't lightning bolt your plants; you may not like the results.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Meeting the captain

A crew of strange, tall people is just arriving on the floornight. It's not an entirely uncommon phenomenon -- some ships have entire families of aliens aboard, and many species are not that hostile to their crew members.

[The captain will see you now, sir.]

[A strange alien, an older one, with long, thin limbs ending in a cluster of many-fingered hands on its torso. It had the impression, when they first met, that its hands were the end of a vast, jointed tail.

"It looks like an animal, but without any of its proper appendages."

"Oh, I'd say we'd have to wait a few hours for the appendages, yeah," the captain replied. "But you don't like the idea, I imagine."]

But the Floornight isn't for the crew, and a crew of such strange, tall people is very unusual. So, the crew makes sure the aliens know this. They are in the cafeteria area, enjoying some sort of unusual food -- the sort of food that would be, to the average terrestrial crewman, an inedible shambles.

[The captain is a new, strange alien, not quite like any they've met before. He looks like the strange alien you are talking with right now, only with a large black helmet covering all of his hairless head but his eyebrows. He's wearing something they don't recognize.]

[He wants to know what you are all doing, and to go about his duty as captain. He wants to meet the crew.]

[The crew are very friendly, though.]

[You can tell they're friendly because they are laughing.]

[The aliens don't look like the sort of aliens who laugh.]

[The aliens don't know the difference between humor and aggression.]

[It's fine.]

Keep reading

#original fiction

[adelindschade]

A Thousand Burns (A Thousand Cuts, Part 13)

Unlucky 13 - if you’re Beron, of course. 

“Nesta,” Elain breathed, relieved.

“Hi,” Feyre excitedly jumped forward – round and looking queenly with jewels and shimmer lining every inch of her body. The crown, her arms, her neck, everything glistened and demanded attention, but Nesta could only frown at the value she ignorantly flaunted while having the audacity to ask another court for assistance for a problem they let grow out of control.

“You look well,” Feyre lead the conversation. Elain couldn’t meet Nesta in the eye, swallowed in the damning color Rhys favored.

Nesta blinked and briskly nodded.

“I suppose you’ve taken a liking to Illyria,” Feyre struggled to keep it going, sharing a glance with her cohorts. “We appreciate everything you’ve done thus far.”

“It wasn’t for you,” Nesta curtly reminded.

Feyre fidgeted uncomfortable and Rhys was glaring holes into Nesta. She was tempted to produce a flame to remind him to mind his manners, but she kept her hands to herself, clasped at her front, and keeping a dignified posture. She found that she didn’t mind assuming the role of the dreadful Witch, and propped her chin high, and her eyes unwavering. It helped Nesta keep composure and an indifferent expression, rendering her unreadable.

The less they knew, the better, though that wouldn’t stop them from making their damned assumptions.

“Nonetheless, your help has been of great service,” Feyre persisted. Nesta prided herself on resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the feeble attempt to fish information. “You’ve been excelling at your magic! I know you’d come around. It’s quite empowering, isn’t it? I couldn’t imagine being without my own!”

“Wouldn’t you know, Elain?” Nesta turned on her soft-spoken sister, blatantly ignoring Feyre. “I would suppose that being – what do they call you – the Cauldron’s beloved? I’d reckon it’s favorite seer would have been beneficial in these circumstances. After all, we need to utilize all avenues in these dire times. Isn’t that why I am here, to whore myself out to the likes of them?” she gestured to the sitting High Lord and his red-headed heir.

“We’ve been trying,” Feyre spoke on Elain’s behalf. Ah – if Nesta had spoken up for her, she was smothering, but if Feyre took away her voice, Elain didn’t make a peep to complain about it. Nesta’s eyes remained cynical. “It’s just as crucial to have eyes on the ground,” she redirected back to Nesta.

“If they’d be willing to share what they know,” Rhys snarled lowly, sitting nursing his hand. She hoped it throbbed – and as if willing it to happen, he yelped, and tucked the hand closer to his stomach in a fruitless effort to quell the awful sensation. She perked a brow, wondering if she was truly responsible for that.

“We’re not asking to whore yourself out, and I don’t like your implication of our intent, as if we’re sinister fiends. We have the same goal, and you know it,” Feyre stepped forward. Rhys nudged her back with his unwounded hand, maintaining distance between the two. Typical, Nesta mused sourly.

“Elain can be of great use, if she’s asked to be. After all, this is her court, and she loves it so much, she should show her support in any way she can,” Nesta aptly reminded. She had enough of the double standards. Elain’s jaw dropped and she didn’t quite muster a glare, but she certainly wasn’t happy Nesta kept returning the attention onto her. No more – Nesta would no longer be her shield.

“And this isn’t yours?” Feyre balked, clearly offended. Rhys squinted in suspicion, likely already surmising her allegiance was compromised. Home didn’t mean Velaris or Illyria. She had been displaced a long time ago and she’d sooner consider the shamble of a cabin home before she acknowledged any part of Prythian.

“I never quite felt that way, to be honest. Much like everything else in my life, it was decided for me.” Nesta offered a slight bit of honesty. She tilted her head and began to exit the cluster, huffing the unsettling feeling that made its home in her stomach.  

It all happened so fast. Nesta could scarcely stitch the series of events together as she could only register the searing pain swelling her wrist. She grappled for it and screamed a feral sound when she was met with agony. Her skin was too hot to the touch, unbelievably sore and raw. She tried to make sense of it, wondering what could have produced the terrible sensation.

Her skin was already white and chalky, but she couldn’t understand why it was peeling back, and seeping the newly uncovered layer. Some of her skin was white, other parts pink, and the rest blistering with blood that pooling in some parts of her wrist. It’s like something had clawed her skin and dug deep, hoping to reveal bone, but fell just short of it.

Her ears were pounding with blood, and then she realized it was because the room had gone a deathly silent, and all eyes were either on her or Beron, all equally petrified as she wailed, and he grinned sadistically at the sound.

She doubled over, falling to her knees, and had it not been for Emerie keeping her halfway up, she’d tumble onto the floor. She whimpered and hissed though her teeth, wincing as the pain coursed up her arm and through her body, but it was central in her wrist where the air felt like piercing arrows into the exposed appendage.

Emerie shield her, eyes wide and aghast. Cassian had joined her, using his wings to hide Nesta from view as he tried to coax her to show her where it hurt.

“I guess the Cauldron-born Bitch isn’t as invincible as she’s said to be,” Beron showed teeth in a vicious grin.

“Father, no! What have you done?” Eris balked.

“Nes!” Cassian repeated her name in panic. “Sweetheart, I got you! Okay? I got you. You’re safe now.”

“A simple test. You’d think someone who spent her days with brutes would have better reflexes,” he barked, enjoying her pain as he thought nothing more of it than humiliation on her part.

Eris and his brothers swallowed, equally shocked, and tormented by the violent display. Feyre shouted her name, but Rhys held her back. It was too much like the day when she had been forced into the Cauldron. Rhys and Feyre too late to help, watching from the sides while Tamlin struggled and cursed. Nesta’s visioned faded back then just as it did now, clouded by tears as her entire body protested the torture.

Nesta whistled through her nose, and she couldn’t hold her tears at bay. If she dared remove the hand holding the wounded wrist, she was frightened she’d take more flesh off as it seemed not much kept it tether.

“Why did you do that?” Feyre shouted. “Why would you do that?”

“You could have hurt her,” Rhys bellowed. “Are you out of your mind?”

He was shielding Feyre. Nesta was a pitiful second thought.

“I was simply returning the favor from the last time we all gathered in a room. How could we forget?” Beron coldly replied. The rest of the High Lords stiffened, and Feyre fell silent, turning back to Nesta’s crouched form with her mouth ajar.

Revenge – he took his revenge on her. Rhys and Feyre had to throw their weight around and attacked Beron to establish themselves, so he redirected his revenge onto Nesta – and targeting the very hand that condemned Hybern. It was all purposeful and spiteful.

Nesta fell silent, holding back a scream, and shaking her head adamantly when Cassian gently tried to replace her hand with his own.  She trembled and shouted a feeble plea that kept him at bay only for a moment. He uttered profuse apologies and rubbed her back consolingly.

“No, no, no, no, please, no,” Nesta begged, shifting so that he’d have a harder time pulling it off. “Stop, stop it. Stop!”

She took three successions of sharp inhales and exhales, bracing for the moment she’d have to see the full extent of the damage. Someone produced a linen – a dark hand – but it wasn’t Emerie’s. Helion kneeled at her side, as did Eris. Cassian snarled at the heir, but he shook his head, undeterred. He likely knew of her pain more than most, having endured his father’s brutality for the duration of his upbringing.

“We have balm that will help,” Eris insisted, uncharacteristically kind.

“We need to cover the wound. We have to take the hand off,” Helion sympathetically warned. “I’m sorry, Lady Nesta. It’ll only hurt for a moment.”

Her breathing was labored and raspy. Emerie tucked back her loose hair and shuffled closer.

“Don’t,” Nesta growled. “Don’t you dare.”

Her wrist was numb – a comforting cold she had yearned for – and suddenly, filled with horror as she recalled the same frigid temperatures as the one that she had been drowned in. She only made the connection to the Cauldron when the faces around her glowed in the same cobalt shade as her flame, now engulfing her mangled wrist as it stemmed from the hand suppressing the wound.  

“Nesta, you’re going to make it worse!” Cassian cried out.

Her breathing evened and she savored the relief, no matter how rotten it made her feel to think about the damn thing. It glowed brighter and brighter, and the pain kept subsiding.

You will regret this. The voice wasn’t her own. It was deep and ancient and buried in the darkest part of her mind. You will regret this!

Decay. Death. Bloodshed. It surrounded her like a battlefield. She could picture it now, encircled by darkness, and then she realized she was encased in iron – just like the damn Cauldron. The cold consumed her but instead, she thrived it, relishing in the relief it offered her wrist.

It was the Cauldron. This magic she took – it wasn’t hers. It never was. It was never meant to be. The revelation struck her in that moment as she lost herself in consciousness, zoning everything and everyone else out. She had carved out a piece of the Cauldron, but the Cauldron had taken a piece of her, too. They both enacted their revenge. It was a damning contract she had condemned herself to.

The door had been opened when she had ripped open her veins, unlocking a veil of some sort, and what had been dormant in her body came alive with a raging hunger. Like a hibernating bear, it desired food as it were starved, and she was a mere vessel to make it happen. Its hunger was ravenous – desiring nothing short of carnage. Bodies strewn about, screams of despair, perpetual suffering from one war after another. It craved the sacrifice of blood and she’d be promised to spill it.

A harbinger of war and death and everything else insidious. It ruined her in impossible ways.

She had believed Elain had been its darling – gifted with extraordinary sight and gentle beauty – but Nesta had become the very thing she detested. She had been incarnated in its image, a weapon for the Cauldron to enact its dastardly plans, and Beron had gravely insulted it when he dared strike down Nesta. They were one of the same. He meddled where he should have not. He scathed something he should have not.

You will regret it. You will pay!

The Cauldron destroyed her, rebuilt her, and now it would protect her like its prized asset. She was.

Skin regrew, replaced with the same porcelain perfection it had once been when she was dumped from the Cauldron. The pain alleviated. Something else pumped through her veins. Eyes lined with silver and vengeance as she was pushed back into her mind, puppeteer by something much more sinister as her hand drew up – unveiling unmarred skin, and a promise of imminent death.

Give me back my body. I’ll give it back! I’ll give it all back! Let me go!

Too late, not now when you’re so useful to me, it dared to say back, echoing in her head. She was helpless, a prisoner in her own skin as her powers festered to the surface. Possessed by the same magic she knew to fear – finally proving her right as she was buried in her own consciousness.

She tried to scream but nothing came out except for a vivid red flame, akin to that thrown by Beron himself. Her body expelled it, rejecting it, and rather than swallow it, her magic had revived it to full potential and wield it with the same vicious intent he had employed it with. It hovered over her wrist, down her pointed finger, like an arrowed loaded to be shot.

With no warning, it struck him in the chest. The blow rendered him speechless, and he gasped for air, clawing at his heart.

Beron could not handle the heat. He had not prepared for the strike, let alone being his own. The strength overwhelmed him, rooting itself to his core, and rotting from within. The glow of embers sparked red, and he had been encompassed in flames, and much like Nesta, he screamed. She rose to her feet as he thrashed – falling to the floor in a heap of flame and burnt flesh.

Look at what we can do. There is no reason to be afraid anymore. We are one. We are powerful and undying. You will never feel fear again. We will never be hungry again. We will never feel how it’s like to be weak.

Flesh gave to bone and then bone gave way to charred ash. The fire simmered into embers, and then to nothing at all except for the blackened outline of what had once been Beron. It ruined the marble, forever staining it with the remains of its High Lord.

“No, no, no,” she whimpered, coming back to her body. “No, no, no, please, no. I never wanted this. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”  

She tumbled back into Cassian’s arms. He held onto her tight as her legs gave way. She brought that damning hand to her mouth, teeth biting into her knuckles as she looked over the devastation she had caused. She grappled at his arm, clinging into the siphon that blared the brightest hue in response to what she had just done. The warmth of it still lingered on her skin.

Everything was hot – and then it was cold. Unbearable cold. She felt dizzy and nauseous and everything in between. She tilted ever so slightly, and then she lost whatever balance she might’ve had, and collapsed. The last thing she saw was the charred remains of Beron, and the aghast expressions of those who had witnessed the carnage.

I’ve been mad with hunger. You did well. Thank you, darling.

“It wasn’t her.”

“We just saw her do it!” Rhys bellowed from his safe refuge.

“The bond wasn’t there. I could feel it and then I couldn’t, like someone stepped on it and cut it off,” Cassian explicitly explained, passionate in his defense. He sat at her unconscious side, now comfortable in one of the rooms the new High Lord established. If there was a feast to be given in her honor, there would, as not many mourned the bastard. Eris himself was eager to congratulate her when she awoke.

Not that Cassian would allow the smug prick to be near her.

“And then I could feel it again, just as she was coming back,” Cassian confirmed. “Whatever possessed her, that’s what killed Beron, not Nesta. Not my Nes. You heard her! She was panicked and exhausted. She was scared out of her wits! This isn’t something she can do on a whim.”

“She needs breaks when we practice barriers,” Emerie restlessly hovered, shaking her head. “We’ve never even considered offensive tactics. She would have told me if she could manage to do that! I’m with Cassian. There has to be something else to it.”

“You’re not safe being that close,” Azriel struggled to reasoned, antsy as Cassian all but lingered over her. “What if she has another episode?”

He was met with paired glares. Cassian didn’t waver and Emerie adopted a vitriol.

“If she meant to harm us, she would have,” her best friend seethed. “I touched her flame many a times. It doesn’t hurt me. It didn’t hurt him. It wasn’t aimed at anyone but that son of a bitch – Beron – whatever, and it used his flame, not hers. Whatever this was,” Emerie mustered, “it expelled foreign magic and returned it back to the host.”

All eyes fixated on Emerie.

“Just because I’m Illyrian doesn’t mean I’m dumb. I know Nesta and I know what we’ve been working on. This is new. This isn’t her.” She stood firm.

“Maybe her magic was rejecting his, or defending itself, like a – a subconscious thing. Muscle memory but instead of muscle, you know, it’s magic,” Mor inserted, shying away just as Rhys had done.

Rhys remained outside the room, visibly shaken.

“I tried to get in her head, and it was empty. She locked me out,” Rhys interjected tersely. “What if – what if she turned on me?”

“She resisted Tamlin’s glamour as a mortal,” Cassian dryly refuted, glancing over his shoulder to toss a expression to match his tone. “I don’t doubt she could repel you, too, given how much she resents your prying. Maybe you should be more cautious of her boundaries,” Cassian gruffly retorted, ignoring his brother in favor of Nesta.  

“Considering her unusual circumstances, I’d very much like to offer my assistance,” Helion provided, gifting a lavish bouquet. “For the Lady when she awakes.”

“Well, at least Eris will maybe budge on the armies,” Mor grumbled. “What better way to express his gratitude for getting rid of Beron and promoting himself to High Lord?”

“That’s what your concerned about?” Cassian bit back, startling Mor. He looked to Helion, appreciative and mellowing a bit. “We will use whatever books you have in your libraries. Everything you can get your hands on.”

“Thank you,” Emerie bid graciously.  

#anti ic #Bye bye beron #nessian #nessian fanfic #nessian fanfiction #pro nesta archeron #emerie of illyria #the valkyries #because they deserve spotlight

[jaspertheperfectquartz]

Fine. I’m ready to talk a little about my experience.

Honestly, the state which Homeworld is in incenses me. They’ve turned our relics of gem history into cheap little novelties. Organics everywhere you look. The influence of Earthlings infects every corner.

Stars, did it feel good to leave that gift shop in shambles.

As I’ve said, I’ve gone to see Yellow Diamond. She’s... preoccupied. Currently extracting the Cluster from Earth’s center with the intention of separating each and every shard, and putting them back together into their respective gems. The results of the gem experiments are in the process of being undone.

I volunteered my help, but Yellow Diamond said this is her work that she alone is obligated to undo and that my service is no longer needed. I asked if there was anything she’d permit me to do for her. I was made to serve. I can’t just sit around on some planet doing nothing, with no cause. And Yellow Diamond said something I never would’ve imagined a Diamond to say.

“I’m sorry, dear Jasper.”

Sorry? She’s sorry?

#jasper log #mod stefan #steven universe

[evanthenerd83]

“The Glue Effect”

The more we explore that vast, unrecognizable expanse known as the Multiverse, the truer the Rule becomes.

Now, you might have heard it from your college professor, probably in such fascinating classes as Advanced Meta-Realistics or Hydromental Comprehension. Or seen it on those horrid, yellow-faded posters that can be found everywhere these days.

It has become a way of life. Or what passes for life after what happened in the 20s. If you, for some reason, have remained blissfully ignorant? Let me fill you in.

The Rule, or the Inevitability, as the Administration likes to call it, is this: The further you go, the weirder things get.

Laws previously thought to be immutable are rewritten. Visual appearances get shifted around, parts replaced by things only slightly similar. Cats become man’s best friend. Dogs start speaking what could be English… if you think English consists of phrases spoken like Google translate broke down, that is.

You know. Stuff like that.

It is a mercy we haven’t stepped past the Local Cluster. Doing so isn’t impossible, just highly unlikely given the sheer infinity of possible universes one can potentially fall into.

Theorists spout randomly generated numbers when questioned by an eager press; seven-thousand, eight-hundred and fifty-six, ten billion, or even five thousand, five hundred and fifty-five. I don’t blame them for misleading the public. I wouldn’t know what to say if asked such a stupid question.

…

The Rule was why Recovery Team Echo returned a little bit different. It had embarked as a team of big, strong men. They returned as small, weak men, covered in glue.

Of course, they weren’t covered in glue. No. No. No. They were glue, they’d been turned into glue by what sick, sadistic “comedian” is responsible for casting that infinite-sided dice, which landed on one of the least terrible probabilities.

I was sitting at my desk. It is a good desk. Wooden, nice and smooth; my terminal has undergone a red-screen of death. Not my fault. Some idiot intern sent me a link. How was I to know not to click on the link? I wouldn’t have known where it would lead me, which happened to be something I can’t mention here.

The Administration has a strict no-disclosure clause in its employee contracts. Just writing this puts me at risk of being called into the Human Resources office and given my Black Slip.

You do not want to know what that entails, dear reader. Just know that some fates are worse than death.

Anyway… I was sitting in my rolling chair, looking at my shoes, hoping that my Supervisor wouldn’t do her rounds, when the lamp flickered. Like a torch thrown underwater.

Then came the sound of… squishing. Wet footsteps echoing from all nineteen directions. A sound like millions of bugs were being stepped on, ground into an unseen floor by eight boots. That sound can send the sanest person somewhere a sane person most definitely doesn’t want to go. Which is madness.

I swiveled around.

And four things came shambling out of the brick wall directly behind me.

I say ‘things’ because, at first, I couldn’t tell just what they were. They walked upright like men, or the standard bipedal format most life takes. Two arms and legs, a small head. Two eyes. A nose. A mouth outlined with lips. You get the gist.

But they were also not men. Their skin was completely white, bubbling. The fierce light being cast by the overhead bulbs reflected off of their… uh, their skin-or-surface.

Whenever their feet-or-blobs left the floor, they left behind puddles.

They stopped moving. No longer could they move, because those blobs masquerading as feet got stuck to the floor. They had dried within seconds of entering our reality.

They then stood there. In a row. Four of them, all standing there. Before me.

…

I opened my mouth, “Uh…”

“Recovery Team Echo,” said the largest of the figures. “Reporting back.”

Its voice was all bubbly. The words were interrupted by a thick, heavy accent of glue.

The smallest figure shook its head. Both eyes were focused on the floor. Tears streamed down its cheeks, hitting the floor with a SPLAT.

I took a deep breath. Which echoed in the vast, open office.

“What happened?”

“Retrieval was unsuccessful,” the Largest spoke.

“Subject was dead?”

Now it was the Largest Figure’s turn to shake its head. “Not dead… no, but they wished they were. By the time we located them… they’d already… we found…”

“Subject was affected by their location. Universe consisted of glue. Subject could not be located in an orderly, timely manner. Subject was glue.”

The Second-Smallest figure mimed removing a pair of glasses, then remembered its current state.

“And talking,” shuddered the Second-Largest figure. It was wetter than the others, which I took to mean nothing.

I glanced back at the other side of the office. The heavy metal door was closed. Good. I didn’t need Rachel stumbling across an employee having a conversation with four gluey beings. Especially not on Administration time.

Rachel would probably go as white as glue. Or had given me a Black-Black Slip for breaking established interaction regulations without consulting our resident psychologist.

We weren’t on good terms. Not since the incident a week prior, when I absentmindedly handed a member of the Subject Health and Safety department a cigarette. Without noticing that they were wooden.

One more demerit, and I’d be relegated to janitorial duty. Again.

I turned my attention to the Largest. “Who is your supervisor?”

The Smallest made a sound like a half squeak. The Second-Largest mimicked pinching its nose. The Second-Smallest began to whistle.

Oh dear. That wasn’t good.

A nagging suspicion nudged my mental shoulder, winking.

“Don’t tell me,” I sighed. “Upon entry into the location, you…”

“We got split up.”

Cripes.

I ignored the nagging suspicion, which had ditched the conspiratorial wink-and-nudge for a joyous Irish jig. My teeth ground together. Sparks could have flown.

Anger was a popular vice. Especially the frustration variety, given the almost sentient sense of ironic humor the Multiverse displayed. A need to tease those who tried to interfere with its will.

If it had a will, of course.

“How long did it take you to…”

“I don’t know. Didn’t get enough time to establish how time worked in the location.”

“If you had to guess?”

“If today is May the eighteenth…” the Largest cast a futile glance at its wrist. “… Uh, what day is it?”

My eye twitched. The nagging suspicion got married to another nagging suspicion, this one flirting with a wedding guest; Disaster.

“The twenty-seventh.”

“Two…” the Largest coughed. “Two… days.”

I took a deep breath. A defense mechanism against what other folks in this line of work, who are far more comfortable invoking the wrath of their supervisors, would gratefully welcome. Outbursts of anger.

Pure, unadulterated anger. White hot. Supernovas borne from frustration, impotence, and hopelessness in the face of forces beyond our pitiful existence.

The heavy metal door remained closed. Yet I knew. I just knew that, at some point, in a few seconds, Rachel—the firecracker, dedicated legalist, a redhead with combustible blood—would come sauntering through, and I would find myself standing before Administration, hands cuffed behind my back and eyes blindfolded, ears tensed to detect the sounds of a Tear.

“And your… supervisor?”

The Smallest burst into tears. Which dried upon its cheeks.

The Second-Smallest whistled even louder. I winced, some part of my brain working under the impression that it would serve as a call.

The Second-Largest mimicked leaning against the brick wall. It didn’t really lean against the wall, because it would have fallen through it. Just like the subject.

The Largest just stood there, hands at its sides, a loyal soldier taking a beating from a commanding officer.

I reached for the telephone on my desk.

Better to call her myself. Give her the bad news myself, and earn myself some measly little merits.

Even if it wouldn’t do much. Rachel might not have been cold blooded, but she didn’t hesitate to avenge the rules.

And that is when the door opened.

…

“What’s that,” she tapped her foot. “Demerit number…”

I gulped. “N-number eighteen.”

Rachel glared at me from across her desk, hands clasped. Blue eyes cold as ice bore themselves into mine. Something fell loose inside of me.

That something being pitiful, servile fear.

“I… I’m sorry,” I bowed my head. Bowed it so low, it almost… no, it definitely hit the floor.

Rachel scoffed. She flipped a strand of hair back over.

A gesture as old as time. The universal symbol for dismissal. Or disgust.

“Henley. You idiot.”

I felt heat light up my cheeks.

#evanthenerd83's storytime #short story #january 2023 #sci fi & fantasy #creative writing #original writing #comedy #workplace comedy

[ormir]

@blightedmikhael location: on the road to Nornwatch, some weeks ago

Emerging from the birthing canals of the mountains was hardly the deliverance Iskaldrik’s people had hoped for. The light they’d yearned for was blinding and flesh-scalding as it reflected off the hardened snow. The air here formed in heavy, violent bursts that split lips and knuckles. The land stretched on into an unending wasteland rarely punctuated by trees or the odd jut of volcanic rock. The caravans shambled through the Stygian badlands, feet falling heavier and stomachs growing louder with every wagon wheel’s rotation.

The night was lethally cold, so camp was made early before the sun could slip the leash on them. A cluster of camp fires spit high in the air, their smoke channels buffered by the shiplike crag the Witchers had found refuge in. The interim king squirmed in its shadow. At least on the plains we’d be able to see danger coming. Worries soon to be surrendered to exhaustion. Ormir attempted to warm himself by a fire, fighting to undo the cold, even as it gorged on the remaining sensation in his extremities. The mead, what little they had left of it, was a necessary balm for the pain. He drank deep, and lowered his cup to find that a flickering figure had manifested on the other side of the flames. Beneath its layers, light struck upon armor of a make Ormir did not recognize.

Alarms immediately bellowed between his ears. An assassin? After a hair of thought, he shrugged the foolish notion off. Every second before the badlands would have provided an easier mark. He searched for the Guild’s heron brand on the stranger’s blade, but stopped short as he didn’t find a weapon to search on. An odd, conspicuous kind of mercenary?

The Raven-feeder closed the distance to investigate further. His fingers brushed the reassurance of his hatchets nestled at either hip. “You’re a long way from home, are you not?” Ormir started, congenially. Just another lost soul sharing purgatory. “You must have earned the wrath of a wicked god to have been sucked into all this.”

#(l. // hrimthurs wastelands. ) #(c. // mikhael. ) #troupe1 #closed. #you absolutely do not have to match length i'm just extra