#immortal dome wizard

[dilatorywriting]

Monster Mayhem: Donkeys & Dragons [PART 4]

Gender Neutral Reader x Malleus Draconia Word Count: 6.7k

Summary: 'Never tickle a sleeping dragon.'

🌶️Obligatory Warning for Some Descriptions of Violence & Mild Suggestive Content

[PART 1] [PART 2] [PART 3] [PART 4] [EPILOGUE]

As detestable as they were, at the very least your assailants were well organized.

You were plopped neatly at the center of the room, in a very conspicuous location that would have made it difficult for a hypothetical someone to, say, just flat-out torch everything in sight without also catching his very tiny, mortal, companion up in said firestorm.

The group of them split off to tend to their tasks with a frankly shocking level of competence and foresight. Was this how adventurers were actually supposed to work? They didn’t just—I don’t know—saunter into an abandoned castle on a whim and a prayer, with no real end goal in sight and nothing but the perpetual bounding of a singular, shared, braincell to keep them on their toes? There was a plan? What was this madness.

“How much time do you think we have?” one of them called, busy working to set up some sort of wire trap that, in your humble ‘I have faced this legendary dragon and survived’ opinion, looked like it would do exactly diddly squat.

“Enough,” the Elf Wizard shrugged, thin arms crossed tight across his equally gaunt chest. “These vermin don’t have the same concept of time as we do. It may return soon, but we may also be waiting hours.”

Hours? Hours? You fought the urge to groan. And then remembered it hardly mattered if you did or not, because you were still trapped in a bubble of perpetual Silence, and that just made you want to groan louder.

Assumed-Rogue nodded tersely in response and continued constructing his pseudo-trap. The long, red, stripes of his sleeves were odd things—very in-your-face bold for a dude whose job you assumed it was to slip through shadows unseen. But then you noticed that the threads he was spinning were pooling from those slashes of crimson, and alright, that was fairly cool. ‘Your failure of a stealthy design gets a pass this time, good sir.’

“You’re certain this is one of the Briar Beasts, Lord Flamm?” Armored Lady piped in, busy shifting through the various swords strapped at her hip.

“Of course,” he hummed, flicking through his spell tome. “Have I ever led you astray before?”

Armored Dude snorted from his place across the room. “You’re not the issue. I just have trouble believing one of those monsters would still be alive at all after all this time.”

‘Lord Flamm’ snorted. “And why not? They’re like cockroaches—thriving through the worst of the world and gorging themselves on its corruption. This one is no different.”

Your brows twitched irritably.

Thankfully, Silence was not an indefinite spell. And after about ten minutes of muzzled misery, you felt its sticky, gauzy, gunk wash itself out of your throat.  

“I’m getting the impression that you’re really not a fan of dragons,” you said, testing your volume.

Lord Flamm stared down at you with a hawk-eyed sort of sneer. His pale, green, glare felt like a tangible thing crawling along your skin.

“They are unnatural,” he huffed after a moment. “No creature should walk the planes of this world for such a great span of time. Immortality is a perverse transgression against the sanctities of life and existence.”

“You are literally an Elf,” you replied, incredulous. His face scrunched up like you’d forced a whole lemon into his mouth, and then he dropped another dome of Silence over your head.

Another ten minutes crawled by, and words returned to your tongue.

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit hypocritical?” you hummed, casually testing the arcane restraints binding your limbs. Those seemed to hold themselves in place with a great deal more fortitude than his on-again-off-again Mute Button, which was as frustrating as it was respectable.

“It’s not nearly the same. I was born into my burden,” he sniffed.

You blinked, confused. “I mean, so was Tsunotarou.”

Elf Wizard made a punched-out sort of noise, like you’d decked him right in the spleen.

“You named the beast?” he gawked. “Like a pet?”

“Look, man,” you grouched, offended on your scaly friend’s behalf. “If anyone’s the pet here, it’s me!”

Lord Flamm’s face went white, to red, and then nearly puce.

“Wait,” you spluttered. “That came out wrong—”

And then you were gagged once more.

The next time your muzzle was lifted, Lord Flamm was already pacing along the little, invisible, edge of the spell’s cage. You cleared your throat and he came to a stop a few feet away from where you were bound.

“I can see what’s happened here,” he said, stern, and you arched a brow in disbelief. You didn’t even have any solid idea what the fuck was going on, and you’d been living it for the past few weeks. He cleared his throat and glowered down at you. “You’ve been taken in by the monster’s wiles.”

You spluttered. “Not to just keep repeating myself, but really, if anyone did the ‘accidental seducing’ thing here, it was—”

He waved you off with a puckered grimace. “That hardly matters. At the end of the day, you are still the creature’s prisoner, and it is my duty as a man of integrity to assist you however I can.”

You frowned. Because while this whole thing had technically started as a hostage situation, it hadn’t really felt like one lately. Sure, Tsunotarou still threw tantrums that shook the foundation when you’d tried to put up a makeshift bathroom door, but he also listened to all your stories with the rapt attention of someone genuinely invested in the garbage pouring out of your mouth. He tucked you into your big mattress nest at night with his scaly nose, and endured all your griping with nothing but good humor. He showed you his treasures and told you terrible, dry, jokes that you were sure you only found so funny because he certainly hadn’t meant to be.

You sighed and dipped your head, expression shuttered.

Lord Flamm stepped forward and you felt a thin, gloved, finger tuck itself beneath your chin to tilt you back up to face him.

“I will save you,” he promised, something genuinely sturdy and righteous coating the words. “If you ask it of me.”

You took a deep breath in through your nose.

“There once a man from Trebucket,” you chirped, letting the jaunty tavern melody roll off your tongue like any good Bard ought to.

Lord Flamm arched a thin brow, in equal parts amusement and exasperation.

“Who really only wanted to find the dragon so he could fuck it—”

His face twisted in rage, and to the surprise of literally no one, you were Silenced yet again. Though this one felt the most like a victory so far.

And thus, the cycle repeated itself. Every quarter hour or so, the spell would drop and you’d start babbling some sacrilegious, borderline pornographic, nonsense that had him cursing you all over again. You counted each round of mockery softly in your head. Half to keep time, half to—

Your gaze trailed past the intricate, stone, entryway and caught. Perched atop the overhang were two gargoyles. Which was quite odd, seeing as you’d spent half a month living out of this room now and had never noticed them before (and you certainly would have, what with your host’s propensity for pointing out the gothic carvings each and every time one popped up in the castle’s architecture). Not to mention, they looked an awful lot like the pair of grey monsters which had been guarding the entrance when you’d first slunk in—the very duo that you’d sworn had tracked you and your friends with beady, gemstone, eyes and dug their pointed talons through solid rock.   

Ancient buildings always seemed to have a life about them—never quiet, never still. Always settling with strange noises and shifting shadows that danced oddly along surfaces that were forever decaying. And this castle was no different. So it took you really listening, really closing your eyes tight and straining your ears against the perpetual white noise, to make out the low grinding of the Gargoyles as they shifted atop their perch and curled their sharp claws.

You tilted your head at them, curious, and the one on the left seemed to bristle. As much as stone could bristle. The one on the right very softly dipped its chin, almost like a bow. Its purple, glass, eyes flashed in the lowlight.

‘Wait,’ that look said.

And so you did, sitting straighter and at proper attention.

The group of Dragon Slayers was still milling about making preparations. Eventually, one of the two yet-unclassified hench people slunk from the room, and when your gaze slipped back to the gargoyles, the one on the right was gone.

You made eye contact with the remaining carving, and it curled its lip at you like a grumbly hound.

There was a scream from beyond the threshold, and then a great clattering of noise not unlike an earthquake, or the resonating crunch of a building crumbling at its base.

Immediately weapons were drawn, shoulders hunched in panic. Defensive magic swirled through the air like ink in water.  

“What’s going on?!—”

With a shrieking roar, the remaining gargoyle lurched forward and collided with one of the armored attackers. The impact was like a crack of thunder, and it rattled around your skull like a gong.

And with that—dragon or no—the battle against the Hunters had officially begun.

With a panicked squawk, you began worming your still very bound self out of the dead center of this tornado of chaos. You flopped across the floor like a particularly determined caterpillar, or someone trussed up a in a sleeping bag with no limbs. You made it almost a solid twenty feet before you were scooped up by the back of your collar and dropped onto your knees.  

“Not so fast, you little cretin.”

And then there was a curved knife at your throat and a set of hands trapping your own. You gulped and the blade bobbed against your chin. Stupid rogues with their stupid stealth. You grit your teeth and clenched your fists, willing the meager scraps of magic that twirled in your veins to bob to the surface. You could feel the trace rumblings of a Thunderwave reverberating down your limbs, and it was certainly no Fireball, or Lightning Bolt, but maybe it would be enough to—

There was a spray of red, red, red and the Striped Rogue at your back collapsed in a puddle of gore.

Standing over the corpse of the felled assassin was a boy. Or, well, something that very much looked like a young boy. Or, not young. Just… It was strange. He was small, slight, with a cheerful youthfulness to him. But the mirthful expression lighting his crimson eyes chilled your bones like the seeping cold from a long-forgotten tomb. It was like looking at someone with dozens—hundreds—of faces. A kaleidoscope of lifetimes. It was disorientating.

“Hello, you,” the little demon cooed. He reached out to tap a clawed finger against your forehead and the arcane binds holding your limbs shattered on impact. “Let’s get you out of here, hmm?”

Something tugged at your brain as you gaped at that mess of choppy, black-and-pink, hair, and the glittering irises that matched the blood splattered across his cheeks almost too horribly well.

“Are you… Lilia?” you asked, dazed.

“Well done, little human,” he trilled, lips curling in delight as he hauled you back to your feet. “But there will be time for proper introductions later. Let’s get you somewhere safe first, before my silly ward really does tear this whole castle down.”

“Tsunotarou is here?” you frowned, anxious. “But these people are here to kill him.”

“We’ve done our best to keep him away for as long as possible,” Lilia hummed. “But I doubt he has much more patience for skulking about in the shadows. He never did,” He sighed, long and world weary. “And I loved this old haunt so much too. I hope it survives.”

“You—” you gawked. “You’re talking about the castle?!”

“Of course,” Lilia smiled, perfectly sweet. “Swatting these pests is going to cause more damage than they’re worth to begin with—”

You were yanked out of the path of an encroaching blade, and Lilia sidestepped the pair of you smoothly to safety.

“You’re not going anywhere!” the Paladin thundered, hand whipping out to leash a whirl of vibrating, bright, magic around Lilia’s wrists. “This fight is mine! And you will have no other!”

“Ah,” your savior sighed, looking down at the faint, yellow, glow circling his skin. “Now that is a doozy.”

The great sword came down with a crash, and Lilia ducked away from the destruction with ease. He gave you a light tap on the shoulder, pushing you forward, and you felt the flush of a Haste spell nibbling at your limbs.

“Go on ahead,” he said, with all the nonchalant politeness of someone lamenting that they were going to be late for afternoon tea. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

BOOM went the now glowing sword as it sliced through the air where your savior had been standing not a moment before.

“Do not take me so lightly, wretch,” the Paladin spat, and Lilia’s civil little smile twisted into something that sent shivers racing down your spine.

“If you insist,” he beamed, with a level of enthusiasm that was bordering on sociopathic.

You didn’t stay to see the fallout. Lilia’s orders to flee aside, you knew well enough what a cat looked like before it pounced—that smug, animalistic, satisfaction that came after deciding that it was going to play with its meal for as long as it liked. And the grinding, snapping, howling noises coming from their direction was enough to reinforce that looking back would be a very terrible idea indeed.

You’d only just made it past the threshold and out in the grand hall beyond when there came a whining groan that sounded familiarly enough like the protesting noises the banister would make whenever Tsunotarou dropped too much of his weight on top of it. You peered back into the room, and from the darkness at its rear emerged a long, thin, snout.

The Great, Ebony, Dragon slithered forth from the blackness like a snake through the grass. The sharp drag of his claws against the stone was earsplitting, and when he spread his wings behind him, he seemed to cast the entire cavern into shadow. Faster than you could blink, one, two, three of the Slayers were scooped up by those massive, pointed, teeth and tossed through the air—wherein the pair of gargoyles descended upon them like a set of well-trained attack dogs. Your dragon swiveled to spit black smoke across the rest of the echoing room and its occupants. Between the swirling smog seeping from his throat and the blackness of his wings, the brilliant, green, glow of his eyes were the only source of light in the gloom. It was all horribly eerie, but mesmerizing in a way that reminded you exactly why so many ballads and epics had been written about the terrible might of Dragons.

He reared his head back and roared. His bellowing seemed to shake the very foundation of the castle, and the sparks jumping from behind his canines bit through the smoke with harsh little pop-pop-pops. And man oh man, he reallymust have been taking it easy on you and your duo of idiots, because this would have had the three of you shitting your pants on the spot.

From there, the battle more or less became a one-sided massacre. The stone soldiers flew through the air, decimating the opponents as their master demanded. Occasionally there was a flash of pink, and then a cheerful laugh followed inevitably by a noise that was all kinds of unpleasant. And at the center of it all was your newfound friend—picking apart the opposition with all the careful rage of someone determined to sear the consequences of these Hunters’ folly into the memories of their lineages for ages to come.

And then—amidst all the quite frankly epic fighting that you would have to tell Ace and Deuce all about when they came back to visit—you noticed that not far from where you were hiding observing was a familiar, angry, gaunt face. Lord Flamm’s elaborate black and maroon robes swirled around his ankles as he paced, and he was leering at the chaos unfolding not a hundred feet away with an expression that calling murderous would have been kind.

You bristled immediately, limbs lancing through with a tight sort of indignation.

He was just—right there! Standing all the way out here! When the rest of his party was busy being chewed to itty-bitty pieces!

And sure, rationally you knew that Wizards were squishy, glass-canons not meant for close combat more intense than a round of rock-paper-scissors. Sure, when you and your idiots had been facing down a dragon, Ace and Deuce had ordered you and your equally ill-armored self to run for it. Someone had probably hurled the Elf from the room the moment combat began, or demanded he whirl away to safety.

But you wanted to be angry. Because this was the man who had strode, eyes wide open, into a hornet’s nest with the sole intention of crushing the poor bugs beneath his heel. He deserved to bear the brunt of the miserable, stinging, backlash.

It certainly didn’t help that he was glaring down Tsunotarou with near frenzied loathing. The tome in his hands was flipped open to a dense spell that you couldn’t even begin to make sense of, and he was casting. Something tedious, and extravagant, and with enough somatic nonsense to make your head spin. His gloved fingers glowed beneath a growing mote of magic that shone horrible and bright in the natural shadows of the castle. Whatever sort of magic it was, it was strong enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end and push frantic adrenaline through your veins. Sigils swam through the air, and you swore you could feel it sapping at your own tiny pool of mana. If this was some kind of spell that would gobble up magic, then a dragon who was nothing but magic—then Tsunotarou—he would—This spell might actually—

You ran at that wretched little bitch with everything you had, and tackled him to the ground just as a bolt of crackling, pale, force magic boomed from between his fingers. The spell shot wide, and you thanked every divine being you could think of for the enduring shittiness of Wizard Muscles.

“I should have known you’d risk your life to save that unholy monster,” he seethed, rolling back to his feet and sending you tumbling off the side.

You stood firm and silent between this awful, garbage, Elf and the Dragon he so hated.

Lord Flamm raised a hand in your direction, incensed, and then you watched as something sharp and frightened slithered its way across his features. No sparks danced along his fingertips, no black miasma curled from his palms. You shoved your hands into your pockets and rocked back and forth on your heels like the most obnoxious piece of shit you could be.

“Wow,” you drawled, low in your throat. “That was impressive. I mean. How many times did you cast all those spells on me earlier? I’m shocked you have anything left.”

The already dark look coloring his face twitched into something truly foul.

“You were doing that on purpose,” he snarled. “You vile, loathsome, bumbling ignoramus of a bard!—"

“Ah, stop, stop!” You beamed, fanning yourself with a limp wrist. “You’re going to make me blush~”

You ducked out the way with a yelp as a mote of fire whizzed past your ear—singeing far too many hairs at it went. Because fuck fuck fuck. Cantrips were still a thing. And he was powerful enough that those simple, little, bits of magic would still probably be more than enough to fry the meat off your bones.

“It’ll be enough to kill you,” he seethed—like he could read your thoughts—teeth tugged into a hideous, gaping, sneer.

Your mind zipped through every possible escape route and settled frantically on the only option that had ever truly seemed to save your ass.

“What white teeth you have?” you tried.

He roared and another shot of brilliant, red, flames careened over your head.  

You ducked out of the way with a squawk just in the nick of time, nearly faceplanting into a wall in your haste.

And thus ensued a terrifying but morbidly hilarious Benny Hill chase through pillars, and behind rocks, and into holes. You killed your singular, daily use of Misty Step just trying to get out of one of said holes. And your brief attempt at tossing up a Mirror Image to throw off his groove did little but get you whacked with a Counterspell that made your bones ache.

Just as you’d burned through the last of your meager magic and were genuinely preparing to just try and deck the guy again, black smoke began to curl through the hall—soon followed by the ominous roll of thunderous growls and the heavy grindingof a gigantic beast clawing its way into the room.

You threw yourself at the dragon with more enthusiasm than was probably proper for a situation like this, and he immediately ducked his head to catch you against his snout. He curled himself around you with a rumbling snarl and your vision was drowned in a shifting sea of ebony scales. You squished yourself into his bulk with a shuddering sigh, fingers clutching a bit uselessly at the slippery surface of his natural armor.

A burst of orange flames rolled harmlessly off Tsunotarou’s scaled side and his lips curled unpleasantly over his canines. You could see the licks of emerald fire rolling off his tongue—dancing along his white teeth and lighting the hall in an ominous, sickly, glow.

Before the pair of you, Lord Flamm looked half-mad. If not fully consumed. His party wiped, his hostage freed, and the creature he hated so fiercely baring down on him with no escape.

He let his head fall back with a discordant trill of laughter and grinned at the approaching dragon without a hint of repentance. Fear, perhaps. Panic, certainly. But no remorse. He raised his hands once more, and another dredge of his own fire sparked along his fingers.

“And he shall smite the wicked and plunge them into the fiery pit.”

The Great Briar Beast of Old opened his gigantic, black, maw and choked the hall in a torrent of emerald fire.

And Lord Flamm and his Dragon Slayers were no more.

You stared intently at the singed corridor, as if waiting for one of the piles of ash to jump to its feet and pull a sword. Which you might have excused as paranoid fretting if you hadn’t heard of necrotic magics capable of doing exactly that. But after a long moment of waiting with bated breath and tight fists, the monsters did not rise from their graves, and all seemed to be truly well and over.

You let out a gigantic gust of a breath and collapsed bonelessly against the dragon at your side. After a solid minute or two of just awkwardly trying to find a good way to hug a giant lizard more than a dozen times your size, Tsunotarou slipped out of his scales, and then he was warm and fleshy in your arms once more. Still too big, still earth-shatteringly strong, but human-shapedenough that you could merrily settle into his embrace without the risk of becoming a pancake.

“Tsunotarou!” you chirped past the lingering haze of smoke. “You’re okay!”

“Me?” he gawked at you. It was an awkward angle to make eye contact, seeing as he’d latched himself onto you like a particularly determined koala, but he managed nonetheless. “You were worried about me during all of that?” He blinked those wide, neon, eyes at you like you were some horribly long and tedious math equation that he couldn’t even begin to make sense of. “You were the one who was captured!”

“They were Dragon Slayers,” you entreated, brow furrowed. “They didn’t need me for much of anything. Of course I was worried more about you.”

When the constipated look on his face refused to fade, you prodded him gently in his side.

“Look, I promise if we ever run into Bard Poachers I will be exponentially more cautious.”

He didn’t look particularly convinced—whether because he was trying to suss out of if something like ‘Bard Poachers’ were an actual, factual, threat upon your person, or because you’d just openly hurtled yourself at a clearly overpowered, feral, wizard with no regards to your already shitty constitution to speak of, so a promise to ‘be more cautious’ was about as good as saying that maybe next time you wouldn’t outright flirt with death. Only subtly. A lil’ bit.

You reached up to smoosh your thumb along the sharp slant of his frown and smooth out the harsh edges that were practically digging into his jaw.

“Tsunotarou, if you keep making that face, it’s going to get stuck like that,” you warned.  

“Malleus,” he interrupted, firm. You blinked up at him slowly and your hand fell back to rest in the nonexistent space between you.

“A what?”

“Malleus,” he repeated, and you felt the weight of the word dance through the air like sparks. Like an invocation, or a curse. “My true name.”

You waited a moment in shocked silence before slowly repeating your own name back at him. He startled and snorted a laugh into your neck, some of that lingering, terrible, tension finally seeming to seep out of him.

“I am well aware of what you are called, Child of Man.”

“…I know that,” you mumbled, fighting the urge to fidget. Malleus, Malleus, Malleus. The syllables sat heavy on your tongue, like your mouth couldn’t figure out how to push them past your lips. “I thought you said that dragons don’t give out their real names.”

He drew back just enough to cup your cheeks in his ashy palms, brushing a clawed finger back and forth against one of the small cuts littering your jaw.

“There is power in a name,” he said. “It is not a gift readily bestowed.”

Then why—

You swallowed, nervous, and one of his thumbs tracked the movement along the hollow of your throat.

“This way, if you call for me, I will always hear you,” he promised, eyes going flinty and venomous as he gazed at the cinder piles of smoking intruders. “And something like this will never happen again.”

“I—I mean,” you spluttered. “Me being—And this being—I mean—” You cleared your throat. “That hardly seems like a good enough reason to—to—” To put something so important into the hands of someone who literally broke into your house less than a month ago. To give something so precious to someone so human.

“Isn’t it?” he smiled, that sharp anger melting back into something painfully soft. Your poor heart kickstarted itself all over again. He ducked forward to press his nose into your temple, and you could feel the soft puff of his breath as his grin sharpened into a smirk. “Though I would have liked to bestow my titles on you in other ways as well, if this little hero would be amenable.”

You squawked, and the only thing that shook you out of the immediate spiral into ‘did he really just ask me to—am I really going to be stuck in every goddamn bard’s trope existence of—of—'  was the merry laughter that bubbled up from somewhere behind you. 

“Careful, my Prince,” Lilia hummed from his place perched atop a particularly large heap of rubble. “If you come on too strong, you’ll only scare them away. Humans are flighty like that, I’m afraid.”

You could feel Malleus’s pout against your forehead.

“Not my human,” he grouched. His hands dropped from your cheeks to encircle your waist and clutch at your lower back. “And that besides,” he continued testily, “you were the one who only just this morning insisted I take decisive action.”

“That’s true,” Lilia agreed with a gentle bob of his head, resting his pointed chin against his palm. “But perhaps three sentences at least before the proposal?”

Malleus blinked, slow and serpentine, before flicking his neon gaze back to you. “That does seem fair I suppose. What do you think?”

“I think,” you gawked, trying and failing to process any of the words that were coming out of their fanged mouths, “that I am having a stroke.”

“NOT ACCEPTABLE!” boomed a voice from overhead. “YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FALL ILL AFTER ALL THE EFFORTS WE TOOK TO KEEP YOU SAFE!”

You jolted in shock, and Malleus’s talons flexed reassuringly at your waist as he gently turned you back-to-chest so that you could face your accuser. He nestled his chin into your shoulder, and you could feel his horns bump against your skull as he tried to burrow in as close as possible. Which all would have been thoroughly distracting, but then you noticed that one of the Gargoyles from early had landed directly across from you. Its spiked head was swiveling back and forth as it appraised you like some particularly ruffled cockatoo. And that in itself was bizarre enough to help you focus on something other than the weight along your back and the steadily rising heat in your cheeks.

“Uhm, hello?” you tried.

“WE HAVE ALREADY MET!” It screeched. “THERE IS NO NEED FOR INTRODUCTIONS!”

“It talks,” you blanched.

“OF COURSE I SPEAK, YOU IGNORANT ENTERTAINER!” The Gargoyle thundered. Its yellow eyes flashed in indignation. “HOW COULD I NOT LEARN TO COMMUNICATE IN A RESPECTABLE FASHION WHEN SERVING SOMEONE SO MAJESTIC AS HIS MAJESTY?!”

“I think,” the other Gargoyle said, slipping forward so silently you could hardly believe it was made of such strong stone at all, “that what Sebek is trying to say, is that we are happy to finally be able welcome you into our home, even if it is under less than ideal circumstances. And that we are very pleased to be able to speak with you.”

“THAT IS WHAT I ALREADY SAID, SILVER!” the spiky one snarled. No one else looked particularly bothered by his ceaseless volume, so it was probably normal. He stuck his carved nose into the air with a harumph. “AND I HAVE HEARD OF THE WAYS OF YOU TRAVELING STORY TELLERS! IF YOU BREAK MY MASTER’S HEART, YOU WILL SUFFER AN ETERNITY OF TORMENT AT MY HAND!”

Malleus growled, low and rumbling, from over your shoulder. Instantly his stalwart guardian cowed—head dipping like a kicked a puppy.

“Of course,” it continued, much softer. “I don’t think this human would do that. And—And I think my master has made a very good choice in his mate, and I will be happy to serve you too.”

Lilia sighed a sigh that sounded very much like a doting mother overflowing with parental affection. Like the kind of noise one may hear on a cozy Sunday afternoon while helping prepare dinner, or while sitting on a little, floral, couch and sifting through little paintings of grandchildren. There was still blood splattered all along his cheeks.

“It’s so lovely to have the family all together again,” he cooed. “And I do think that you will make such a marvelous addition.”

“Oh. Well. Thank you,” you nodded jerkily, just as your knees buckled and you collapsed to the floor.

.

.

On the first day of the new month, Ace and Deuce made their way back to the forgotten castle nestled in a pool of lava.

“We should never have left them,” Deuce grumbled for what was maybe the ten thousandth time. Ace was sick of hearing it. He was even more sick of the fact that despite being constantly inundated with various versions of ‘oh, we’re such terrible friends,’ the little, twisting, spike of guilt in his gut never grew any duller. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to work? Something-something-repetitive-exposure-therapy, or whatever? This sucked. He wanted a refund on this whole ‘conscience’ thing. Maybe it wasn’t too late to sell his soul and become a Warlock or whatever. Surely that would help.  

“We didn’t have a choice,” Ace reminded him. Again. “They’re okay. I know they are. We’re going to show up and they’ll be, I don’t know, lying in a bed of gold being hand fed grapes or something.”

Deuce made a rumbly, whining, kind of noise that made him sound even more pathetic than usual and Ace sighed, determined to instead focus on the rickety rope bridge swinging beneath their feet.

The ancient, looming, monstrosity of a building was just as cold and dark as it had been the first time. If anything, it was more filthy. With walls stained with seeping ash and the charred, skeletal, remains of something that Ace was definitely, absolutely, not going to think about scattered throughout the grime.

The two of them made their way to the heart of the castle until they were standing at the entrance of a grand, cavernous, chamber that may have once been some sort of ballroom.

Ace didn’t know what he was expecting. Slaver’s coils maybe. A chain around your ankles and rags drooping from your shoulders. Or maybe you wouldn’t even be there at all—long since swallowed down as a little, midnight, snack.

He certainly wasn’t expecting to see you lounging contentedly atop a mountainous heap of soft blankets, with the master of this castle—terror-incarnate, death from above, an eldritch beast ripped straight out of legend—curled along the lumpy hills of your grandiose pillow fort, its great head nestled at your back as you reclined against its scales and chattered away. Like the goddamned, rambling, idiot you had always been.

One of the dragon’s large, green, eyes shifted towards the intruders at its door, and Ace froze in place. You paused your chattering to raise your hand with an excited little wave. Your tattered traveler’s clothes had been replaced with something silken and soft enough that it would probably melt in his fingers, and it swayed like mist around you as you made your way to your feet. You were practically dripping in platinum, and diamonds, and emeralds, and—he was going to stop counting them before he gave himself a conniption.

And yeah… it wasn’t exactly a throne of gold and gemstones, but it was almost just as impressive. And immediately indignation swept through Ace with a horrible kind of vengeance. Because how dare you actually be living it up over here when he had been so fucking worried just lying about all that cool stuff to keep Deuce from storming the castle gates?

“You made it!” you chirped, perfectly merry despite the gigantic maw full of sharp teeth hovering at your shoulder.

“Of—Of course we did,” Deuce stuttered, his blue eyes flicking back and forth so quickly from the dragon, to you, to Ace, to the dragon, to you—that Ace genuinely thought he might be having a seizure. “We promised we would.”

You stopped in front of them with a considerate little hum, sharp eyes tracing and cataloguing their varying reactions. After a moment of what was obviously some very smug preening and even smugger ‘I win this round’ silent gloating, you slipped out of the piles of entangled jewels with an exaggerated shrug. With the exception of an intricately carved emerald pendant hanging softly between the hollows of your collarbones, the rest of the infinitely expensive and rare gems fell to the ground with a series of clattering chatter.

“All that shit is so heavy,” you whined. Whined. Like you had any right to complain about anything at all for the rest of your existence. You leaned forward with a wink. “I was just hoping it’d make your thieving, money-hungry ass, jealous.” You smirked, proud. “And it looks like it worked, you goddamn traitors.”

Ace was about to splutter out the most scathing remark his spiteful little brain could come up with, when Deuce ruined everything by rushing forward like the blubbering idiot he was and scooping you up into a bearhug.

“You’re okay! You’re okay!” he wailed. “We missed you so much!”

“Speak for yourself,” Ace huffed, and twinged miserably when it came out sounding far too soft. He cleared his throat and decided to take a different approach. “You know, last time I was sort of joking about the whole ‘bards and dragons’ thing. But it looks like you’ve made yourself real comfortable. And here I thought you were always super opposed to the ‘fucking my way out of my problems’ stereotype.”

However, because the universe seemed determined not to give Ace any kind of win for the rest of his natural existence, instead of getting all embarrassed and mousey, you just huffed and turned up your nose at him.

“Well obviously not as a dragon,” you complained. “Do you know how big he is? How would that even work, huh?” The aforementioned dragon lowered his gigantic head to settle on the ground at your side, and you leaned against him good-naturedly when he grumbled low in his throat. “Yeah, no,” you said to the beast, rolling your eyes. “Nice try, but no.”

Deuce immediately choked and started hacking up a lung, and Ace wanted to die.

“You can talk to it?” the redhead asked instead of keeling over.

You shrugged.

“Not like this. But I’ve learned to interpret most of it.” You wiggled your fingers. “It’s my sixth sense.”

Ace’s nose scrunched. “Yeah, right. If anything, it’s your ‘I’ve been dicked down by a dragon and think that makes me soooo special now’ sense—”

The great, ebony, monster growled and the Fighter’s mouth snapped shut like someone had taken a hammer to his jaw. You snickered goodhumoredly and elbowed your companion gently at the base of one of its long, sharp, horns.

“He’s just joking around,” you said to the winged horror. “You don’t have to get all defensive.”

There was another grumpy sneer, but the dragon simply settled more heavily at your side with a defeated sort of huff. The gust of a sigh sent a wave of scorching heat along Ace’s front, and he fought the urge to cow immediately and beg for his life. Because apparently that wasn’t going to be necessary, because you had—you had—

“Are you in love?” Deuce blurted, because unlike Ace, the Barbarian was pure, and good, and still didn’t fully understand how eggs worked, let alone the concept of Fuck or Die.

And then you surprised him yet again by getting as flustered as he’d expected you to when he’d accused you (rightly) of bending over for a goddamn fucking dragon.

But before you could answer, the dragon lifted its head to press its temple against yours. Or, as well as it could do that when it dwarfed the lot of you the way an elephant might hover over a mouse. Mostly it just ended up being a very, very, delicate head bump. A deep, warbling, purr started from its chest and rolled all the way up and past its sharp, white, canines.

“Uhm,” you tried again. “You guys are invited to the wedding, I guess.”

“The what?!” Deuce howled, before promptly falling to his knees to fan himself like a devasted matron in a church.

You sighed and rubbed at the back of your head, clearly embarrassed. You mumbled something under your breath that sounded a bit like ‘it’s kind of a whole saga, y’know.’ And Ace, in all his infinite good will, decided to take pity on you just this once. And also because you were clearly loaded now, and all good friends know that sharing is caring, right?

“Come on then, Bardy,” he smirked, leaning down to kick Deuce flatter to the floor—half to knock the guy out of his frantic spiraling, half so he could perch on his back like a chair. Because the stone floor looked really uncomfortable, and he had a feeling that trying to slip into that nice nest of blankets of yours would not end well. “Tell us a story.”

.

.

.

[TAG LIST] CLOSED

@marvelous-maxi, @ilikefanfics4, @jackalope08, @crocwork-clockodile, @cosmicobubisi, @buttplugs-stuff, @pomefleur, @decemebercircus, @ailynyan, @genzombie, @meliade-ot, @sunlightocean, @theofficialantitherapist, @hermiona18, @sailorenthusiast, @fantasy-dating-sim-trash, @thefiasco-onyourblock, @insideous-beez, @its-clockwork-princess, @liliasleftpinkytoe

@novaloptr, @imlost-sendhelp, @matcha-berry @preciosayorgullosa @whoretaglia, @kookygirlwholikescookiesandcoke, @nanauedorian, @trixeraptops, @voxnipop, @starkling25, @thedum1, @horcrux-alchemist, @sleepykitty21, @apathicace, @instantregret101, @nekanecorvus, @looney-mori, @re-ducing, @my2phetaliaheadcanons, @naughtybodypillow, @rendy-a, @carmen-404, @candy284, @thealiennamedterry, @their-name-is-fake, @huetolog, @glacticrose, @seraphinariddle, @rabioa, @sn00zl4x, @dreasimping, @jeidoreech, @ai-dev, @galaxyshine24-7, @fatally-incorrect, @juulranch, @camrastuff, @nocteetdie, @stargaryengirl,

#twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #Malleus Draconia x Reader #Malleus x Reader #Malleus Draconia #Malleus x Yuu #Dragon Malleus #Monster Mayhem #My Writing #Twst Fantasy AU #Sebek Zigvolt #Lilia Vanrouge #Silver Twst #Rollo Flamm #Slight Rollo Flamm x Reader #Ace Trappola #Deuce Spade #Monster Mayhem Malleus Part 4

[yellowmagicalgirl]

Come Into the Light

Douxie and Archie go exploring a not-so-abandoned castle. Douxie finds himself making a deal for Archie's safety.

Guess who finally wrote the Beauty and the Beast AU ey had mentioned in discord back in 2021! I have more planned, and even some of the next scene written, but I couldn't get it done in time for @krexieweek. I'll try to publish a sequel sometime this summer.

AO3

FFN

It had been almost an hour, and Douxie was tired of waiting. It should have been simple. Archie would fly in, check to see if there were any obvious traps in the first part of the castle, and report back to Douxie. It shouldn't have taken more than twenty minutes, unless perhaps there was a pool of fish inside.

"I swear we need to find some sort of telepathy spell," Douxie grumbled as he cast the spell to light up his bracer. There were a lot of spells that Douxie wish he knew. Telepathy, for one, but also general quality-of-life spells. Sure, Merlin had had a point about hard work. There was a difference, though, between hard work at the castle and Douxie having to loot abandoned castles to be able to pay for food and lodging while also having time to keep an eye on any signs of Morgana's magic.

(Maybe he could get a job with the false alarm they had encountered. Then again, Douxie had no idea which guild Claire's mother represented, nor if she knew that her daughter was a shadowmancer. Just because the city-state of Arcadia Oaks was more tolerant than Camelot had been didn't mean it was safe to tell secrets like this.)

The castle wasn't as abandoned as it had looked. There wasn't any dust, and no cobwebs clung to the walls or ceiling. There was a hallway and two stairways coming off the main entrance. One led up, and the other led down.

“Arch? Archie, where are you?” Douxie called out. He heard a panicked yowl come from the downwards staircase. Douxie broke into a run and descended the stairs. “I’m coming, Arch!”

“No! Go back!” The desperation in Archie's voice only spurred Douxie further to him.

When he reached the bottom of the staircase, Douxie came to a long hallway with closed doors on either side, as well as a passageway veering off to the left. At the end of the hallway was a faintly glowing transparent dome. Underneath it was Archie. The dome's color was almost the same as Douxie's magic, if not a little more and vibrant. Douxie suppressed a shiver as he walked towards his familiar. Nothing, not even an uncomfortably similar color of magic, could stop him from helping Archie.

“Douxie, you need to go!” Archie hissed. “There's a strange monster in here; it’ll trap you!”

“Not without you.” Douxie knelt by the dome, inspecting it. He touched it, searching for a weakness, and found nothing.

“And just what are you doing with my prisoner?” The voice came from the hallway to the left.

Douxie glared into the darkness. While there was a faint cyan glow coming from it, it wasn't strong enough for him to make out any details. “He’s not yours. He’s my familiar, and he’s coming with me.”

“Your familiar? So, you’re a wizard, then.”

“What’s it to you?”

“Well, you’re obviously not a changeling. As a wizard, you should be more useful to me than your familiar is. I’d be willing to let him go if you were stay with me and obey my orders. Don’t worry; I’m not planning on ordering you to do anything directly harmful to yourself.”

There were many things that Douxie should have been.

“How long would I be here?”

“As long as I need you for.”

“Douxie, you can’t possibly be thinking of doing this.” Douxie turned to his familiar.

“I’m immortal, Arch; I'm not a little kid anymore. I can make my own decisions.” He could make his own sacrifices for the people he loved. Besides, Merlin had always liked Archie better than Douxie. He turned back to the monster. “Come into the light.”

Douxie had to suppress the snicker that battered at his lips. The so-called monster was a man who, when not counting his hair, was no taller than Douxie. Sure, he had strange eyes, four arms, and blue skin. He also had a complete and utter baby face. Maybe if he wasn’t holding Archie captive, Douxie would have found him adorable. For all the arrogance in the man’s voice, his posture and facial expression marked him as clearly uncomfortable under Douxie’s scrutiny.

“This is the monster you were talking about?” Douxie asked his familiar. What next, was Charlemagne only the Devourer of Fruit Pies? “I can handle him.”

“Douxie, don’t do this. Please.”

“I’m sorry, Archie, and thank you for everything.” Douxie looked directly at the man's face. “Let him go. Take me instead.”

The man reached to a device on his wrist, one that reminded Douxie uncomfortably of his own spellbook bracer. The man then pulled up an illusion and manipulated it. A similar barrier appeared around Douxie as the one around Archie. The barrier around Archie lifted off the floor in a bubble that floated next to the man.

“I’ll escort your familiar out, and then I'll be back for you.”

Archie pawed at the barrier. “I’ll come back for you, Douxie! I’ll find a way!”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” the man said as he and Archie disappeared into the darkness.

Douxie was left alone for fifteen, maybe twenty, minutes. Long enough to regret that he had left his lute back at the inn. That was another spell he wished he could learn, one that provided him with an instrument wherever he went. Even if they had had more time together, Merlin would have been more likely to teach Douxie shadowmancy than to summon a lute. And for all her so-called kindness, Morgana hadn’t been willing to teach Douxie such a spell, either.

What did the four-armed man want a wizard and not a dragon for?

Douxie had promised to stay and be the man’s prisoner. He hadn’t promised to actually be helpful. Both Merlin and Morgana had found Douxie annoying, and in their own ways they had tossed him out. And Douxie hadn’t even been trying with them!

This man didn’t know what he had gotten himself into.

The man came back and dismissed the barrier around Douxie. “Come. I’ll show you to your room.”

“Oh, really? You’re not making me stay in the dungeon?”

“Do you want to stay in the dungeon?” The man rolled his eyes. “Besides, I need you at your best.”

The man led Douxie through the castle. It was like nowhere Douxie had ever been – there was so much metal on the floors and ceiling. Cyan lights came on in the orbs embedded in the walls as the two of them passed.

“When you’re not working,” the man said, “you can go almost anywhere you like in the castle – just stay out of the West Wing.”

“Oh? What’s in there?”

The man glared over his shoulder. “None of your concern if you value your life.”

Well, so much for the earlier reassurance.

The man opened the door to a surprisingly lavish room. The bed looked more comfortable than anything Douxie had ever slept upon. “I have two servants, Ricky and Lucy. If you need anything, they will attend you.”

“So, I suppose they’ll give me your name? You never exactly introduced yourself.”

The man flinched. “I, well, you and your familiar intruded! But it’s, I’m, you can call me Krel. He called you Douxie?”

Douxie tried to be friendly most of the time, he really did. He had no intention of being friendly now. “You can call me Hisirdoux.”

A/N: As a fun fact, I was tempted to sneak in a joke along the lines of "I can handle him"/"In a fight, right?" but I just couldn't find a way to make it fit the tone.

#krexieweek #krexie #hisirdoux casperan #toa archie #krel tarron #beauty and the beast #enemies to lovers #i guess this fulfills two day's worth of prompts but i wrote this for day 4 #my writing #tales of arcadia #3below #toawizards

[xxxdragonfucker69xxx]

Can you tell more about the boss fight you built on the Cain and Lucifer exchange? 👀

this was in dnd 5e and one of my players was a skeleton named jimmy. also theyre all pirates

previously we had established that jimmy had been revived by a siderea ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H wizard-god named Moshut, who had given the party a couple of fetch quests: the gods threatened by an incipient clockwork sun, he sent them to go get divine artifacts that he could eat for juice. on this occasion they chose to go find the crown of atlantis

by the way, jimmy has reached the brink of death like three times, and weaseled out of it every time: made a deal with davy jones, or moshut rescued him, or he was briefly a reverse wereturtle.

so we journeyed to atlantis, and then down to atlantis, and then through the successive rings of the atlantean city. they kept getting flashes of deja vu, and sophie cthulhu (no relation) (mindflayer) (some relation) found the very stones of the city alive and crawling with mindless hunger. so they sort of just thought it might be that.

but when they reached the doors of the atlantean palace, jimmy put his hand on the door and it swung open, and there inside, encased in amber......

...ah. it's you.

Prince Zhemaios of Atlantis once upon a time made a deal with Cthulhu for immortality. Unfortunately for him, Cthulhu doublecrossed him by imprisoning him in amber forever as a living statue. Unfortunately for everyone, Zhemaios had preemptively triplecrossed him by making another deal with a wizard-god from the south; Moshut made for him a crown that would allow him to broadcast his mind into another's, a puppet body that Moshut made and that decayed over the years into a skeleton that forgot its original purpose. Enraged, Cthulhu sank Atlantis beneath the sea, though its domes of crystal kept the citizens alive for a little while.

Did I mention that the party had been calling Moshut Jimmy's daddy for some time now.

Zhemaios was a rogue, like jimmy, but also a warlock. He spent the whole fight laughing at them, playing on all the weaknesses he knew through Jimmy's eyes, but as he neared death for the first time in millennia he panicked. He began to beg, though the party didn't quite understand for what; obviously playing some kind of mind game, but they couldn't figure out to what end. Doesn't matter. Alejandro (hobbit) (bard/fighter) (spaniard) (foxboy) stabbed Zhemaios through the heart, and the crown fell to the ground.

And when Jimmy picked it up, he put it on. And flesh ran down his bones like ooze, crawled over his limbs, and Prince Jimmy lived on, mighty, everlasting, terrified.

Also then the mountain behind the city opened its eyes and amber-encased Cthulhu began to roar.

#that game was built entirely on me procrastinating my whole college decree #camping in the dining hall and coming up with recursively unhinged shit

[lamuradex]

Eight Deaths

Part 3 - Prev - All Parts - Next

Third Death - Sleep

The Wizard Artemis had settled down at camp, again toying with the lantern, it’s eerie green glow like a firefly behind the glass. The only sound was the cracking of his campfire, even the wind standing still.

“Well, if it isn’t the wizard,” a smooth voice beckoned. Artemis raised his wand ready.

A figure emerged from the trees. They looked… normal. Tall, thin, but just a man, wearing a trim three piece black suit. His cheeks were hollow and gaunt, there were bags under his eyes, and his hair was rather scruffy, but besides that there was nothing to arouse concerns.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but what was your name again?” the stranger asked.

“Artemis,” Artemis said judgingly. “Sickness asked the very same thing,”

“Well, we don’t exactly talk,” the figure smiled. “I’m sure she was just curious of the same thing as me though. Wondering why Naraja would…” the figure stopped. Their eyes locked onto the lantern, still in Artemis’s hand. “Oh. Now I get it,” they grinned.

Artemis pocketed the lamp, holding his wand firmly. “Cut the talk. Which one are you?”

The stranger ignored him. “No wonder The God of the Dead sent us. You’ve managed to get a soul back from the underworld. You’re not supposed to do that,” he chuckled ominously.

“Who are you?”

The figure locked eyes with him, and a chill ran down Artemis’s spine.

“Haven’t you guessed yet?” they said. “I think you can rule a few out, right? But as you did ask, let’s cut the chatter. I am Sleep,” the figure pronounced darkly.

Artemis’s face fell. “Oh…”

“Yes,” Sleep confirmed his dread. “The one Death that many hope for, but none can plan for. They wish for me when they are old, but some would say I am the cruellest, because no one sees me coming. Death while they dream, never to open your eyes again. Greetings.”

Artemis stared at the being before him. His pulse quickened. It had taken a seat across from him beyond his campfire.

“You’re being awfully casual about this, aren’t you?” he joked. The Death’s smile didn’t break.

“Well, I didn’t think there was a point in chasing you, not like Wrath and Sickness. Besides, I was curious why would Naraja want you dead, but I guess I’ve got that answer now. So, now we wait. You’ll be mine soon enough,” Sleep smiled.

Artemis breathed slowly, his mind whirring.

“So… how do I fight you?” he said eventually, more just thinking out loud. “Wrath is beaten by peace. Sickness is beaten by cures. How do I beat you? Stay awake forever?”

“If you can? It’s a bit of a conundrum, isn’t it?” the Death shrugged.

“Then why play these games?” Artemis thought aloud.

“Why not? Got to spend the time we have somehow, right?”

“But you’re just going to sit and wait for me to die?”

“Sleep or old age, whichever comes first.”

“I am somewhat immortal,” Artemis informed.

Sleep shrugged and sat back to watch.

The pair sat in silence. Sleep watched him. His finger tapped impatiently at the dirt. Finally, after about a minute, he threw his head back and sighed.

“Fine then. Let’s not wait. I’ll give you an opportunity to survive this. It would be boring not to give you a chance, right?” it said distractedly. “That is how you mortals do things? How the God of the Dead might do it too? Gods are playful, and what’s the point of doing this if we don’t play fair?”

“I’d… appreciate it,” Artemis accepted warily.

“Okay then, if we must.” The figure stood. “A game. It has simple rules. To the East of here, about four days walk, is a tower. It has a glass dome atop it which shines in the morning sun. If you can make it there, then you win. And if not… well,” Sleep smiled deviously.

“Four days? I’ve gone more than four days without sleep before,” Artemis considered.

“Exactly. Perhaps I’ve made it too easy. But I’ve set the terms now. Make it inside that tower, that’s all you have to do. But, do remember…” In a blink, Sleep was inches from Artemis’s nose. “You shut your eyes to long, you doze off for a second, you decide to rest that little bit too deeply, and you’re mine.”

The dark figure stood tall again, grinning from ear to ear.

“Good luck!”

And they vanished into thin air… like a dream.

Artemis stood, hurried to pack, and set off east.

For hours, he marched. The sun had long since set, but the air wasn’t cold. He summoned a fireball from his spell book, holding it over his hand for a torch. The flame cast lights over the branches and brush, shifting shadows, vague and unearthly shapes. After a few hours however, he realised he wasn’t being pursued. He was alone. The monotony of his steps began to bother him, so he whistled as he went. The moon was high, so he looked up at the glittering stars. And then he passed the treeline, and exited out into the vast fields of grass that made up the meadows.

With barely a landmark, he walked for hours. Finally, a small boulder became visible, the only thing for miles of rolling green hills. He stopped to sit, letting the flame extinguish and the moon light his way.

He yawned.

Like he’d been stung, he sprang to his feet, slapping his cheeks to wake himself. He pinched his hands, trying to drive away his tiredness. He started moving again.

The next day dawned and it only drew attention to Artemis’s tired eyes. He recoiled at the light, not used to seeing sunrises. The rolling meadows rose and fell, and finally one hill gave way to a large valley, where he could see for many, many miles.

There was no sign of the tower. He sighed and marched on.

The day rolled on without incident. Not a sight or sound to rouse worry. He stopped to eat twice, drank as he walked, and amused himself reciting songs and legends by heart. Then the sun started to set. He looked back the way he had come.

Something stood on the horizon. Against the setting sun. A large shadow.

And then the sun set and Artemis was alone.

He walked through the night. His feet hurt, but he was used to travelling by foot. He’d never owned a horse, not in a thousand years of life. But he was pushing himself. Maybe walking faster than he should. His legs creaked, his eyes were dry, his brain ached. He stopped at a stream to refill his waterskin, splashing his face to wake him up. He looked back.

Something moved in the dark. Something grey, eyes shining against the moonlight. Something slow, but definitely following him.

Artemis moved faster.

The next day dawned and there was no sign of anything behind him. He checked repeatedly throughout the day. His eyes hurt, his mind was sluggish, and by now his every joint was in pain. Twice, he summoned an ice spell just to shock his senses. The third time it barely stirred his eyelids.

That night, as the sun set, he looked back. There it was, the grey… thing. Tall as a man, but lumbering on two of four limbs like a gorilla. Almost spiderlike, but with more of a lolloping gate. He squinted to try and get a better impression through the setting light.

It sprinted at him.

The lolloping turned into a gallop, the thing covering yards by the second. Artemis’s heart pounded. He turned and ran. The thing was catching up, thudding steps thundering up behind. Finally, Artemis span, summoned a fireball, and fired it into the things glinting black eyes.

The flames washed over it like it was nothing, as two grey, pincer like limbs stopped moments from Artemis’s heart. They stopped, frozen. Artemis didn’t dare move.

The thing laughed.

“Like I could kill you like this,” it chuckled, the form reducing and shrinking. Soon enough, the grey form had become something almost human, wearing a black suit. “You know the deal. There’s only one way you die to me.”

“You bastard…” Artemis swore, catching his breath and clutching his chest. His heart was going like a woodpecker.

“Adrenaline is a funny thing, isn’t it?” Sleep said. “It burns through the blood, keeps the body moving, keeps the animal alive. But it has its toll. It all comes due. And when that fuel runs out, then…” They made a popping noise with their mouth. “I’ve heard some humans just… pass out after a good scare. Funny thing that.” They smiled, exposing rose of sharp animal teeth.

Artemis’s teeth were chattering, his heart still pounding. He took a meditative breath, trying to calm down. It did little to help.

“Well, don’t let me keep you. You’re making good time,” Sleep waved a hand, sending Artemis on his way.

Artemis turned and left.

The sun rose again, and a sight lifted Artemis’s heart. Something gleaming on the horizon. A dome atop a tower. He walked double speed, or at least he tried. By midmorning, he was walking half his normal. Muscles burned, his eyes drooped, his feet hurt. He yawned more breaths than he didn’t. He’d already consumed whatever food he had that might wake him up, coffee beans and some sharper berries, but he pushed on.

He reached the tower by mid afternoon, the roof gleaming atop it. With aching everything he stumbled up to the door and grabbed the handle.

It was locked.

With one last groan, and a gathering of whatever energy he had left, he summoned a lightning spell from his book and blew out the lock. With a final gasping breath, he crossed the threshold and entered.

Sleep was there to greet him.

“Congratulations, wizard, you did it. And in spectacular time too. I must say, I’m impressed. And would you look at that, aren’t you in luck? This place used to be a guard tower, so it has beds and everything. A perfect reward for your little trial. So, why don’t you lie down and relax?”

Artemis watched his adversary, trying to keep his eyes open. Sleep just stood there, gesturing to a straw bed. Artemis’s blood ran cold.

“You’re lying, aren’t you?” he guessed.

“Of course I was lying, Artemis. Why would I arbitrarily just let you win?” the Death asked matter-of-factly. “I mean, I was sent here to kill you.”

Artemis collapsed to his knees. His brain felt like it was shutting down. He slapped himself awake, but it hardly mattered.

“Not to say I’m not impressed, but this is where this ends.”

“Then why the games?” Artemis demanded.

“Pardon? I thought it was apparent I was exhausting you.”

“No, not that. You and the other Deaths. You appear one at a time, you each announce yourselves, somewhat anyway, and you attack me alone. Why the games, if you so want me dead?”

Sleep grinned. “I can’t speak for all, but I think they were just curious. I certainly was. Not many earn the ire of Naraja. Fewer still inspire him to send us as assassins. Usually we’re just buzzing away in the background, functions of the world, reapers to the souls who die by our causes. As for why we attack alone… We don’t tend to work together. We don’t get on. Not that it matters.”

“But why would he let you mess around with your prey? You could have killed me when I rested after Wrath attacked me. Why play with me like this!” Artemis growled. Then he paused. “Unless Naraja’s curious too? He wants you to draw this out.”

“Could be,” Sleep half confirmed.

“He wants to know how, or why, or maybe who. He wants to know about this!” Artemis held up the lantern from his pocket.

“Clever, aren’t you?” Sleep mocked.

“Well, he’ll have to come and get those answers himself,” Artemis stuffed the lamp back in his pocket. “I just need to beat you.”

“Good luck. You’ve got minutes.”

Artemis stared into the floor, trying to force his brain to think faster. He considered summoning lightning to shock himself awake, but new he’d barely be able to focus on the spell. He might hurt himself, badly.

An idea formed. A dark glee lit up his face.

“I’ve got you,” he laughed, turning his head to face Sleep.

“Go on then?”

“You’re taking turns. By order of Naraja, you’re taking turns to get answers out of me. I just have to forfeit your turn.”

Sleep raised an eyebrow. “And how are you going to do that?”

“By offering my death to another one of you.”

Both eyebrows went up. Sleep looked perplexed.

“Which one, may I ask?” the fiend wondered. “I don’t think you can inflict Wrath on yourself, and I don’t see you succumbing to a Sickness before you fall asleep. Chance by definition can’t be forced. Most of the others seem impossible because they require another person. There’s only really…” Sleep stopped. His eyes scanned Artemis, to see if he was serious.

“Yep,” Artemis confirmed.

“You… are an insane fool. But good luck to you, if you’re serious. I’d prefer to die in my sleep, honestly,” the Death warned him.

“I can get out of this,” Artemis asserted, summoning a lightning spell to his hand.

“You’d better hope you’re right, because otherwise…” Sleep left the sentence hanging.

Artemis took a moment to brace himself, his tiredness forgotten for a moment. Fear welled up in his chest and drowned it out.

“You realise you’re killing yourself to avoid dying?” Sleep clarified.

“I can do this,” Artemis assured. He aimed the lightning at his chest. With a shaking hand, he put a bolt of lightning through his heart.

His heart stopped.

He felt his body failing. He collapsed sideways, not even feeling the impact with the floor. Sleep loomed over him.

"You'd better be right, because you’re going to meet the very worst of us.”

Everything went black, as the world faded away.

“You’re going to meet Despair.”

Artemis died.

#writeblr #short story #lamura dex writes! #writing #writers on tumblr #EightDeathsStory #Sleep #Artemis Sahir #fantasy #magical fantasy

[danishmuseuminterns]

I Like Kansas

Recently I had the chance to visit the Midwestern state of Kansas. Located in the heart of the United States, Kansas is sometimes considered flyover country for many tourists – those places you see from the airplane while you travel between the metropolises of the West and East Coast.

The state of Kansas is much more than just a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. With the Latin state motto, per aspera ad astra, meaning “our aspirations take us to the stars,” Kansans has across time and place repeatedly shown what they are made of.

Just to mention two famous Kansans, who reached out for the stars and defined the times in which they lived:

The first was a farm boy raised in Abilene, who later became the main architect of D-Day. As Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War II, he saved Europe from the evilness of Nazism. Later, he became the 34th president, a Cold War warrior, and an icon of 1950s America.

The other famous Kansan I would like to highlight was a female pilot born in Atchison. She used to explore her town; later she would explore the world by becoming the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean – the very definition of a trailblazer.

I had to opportunity to experience the places that shaped both President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower and Amelia Earhart, both honoring their state’s motto.

As I crossed the border to Kansas, I arrived in Atchison, which is the birthplace of aviation symbol Amelia Earhart. She grew up in a beautiful all-American home on top of a hill with a direct view of the Missouri River. Growing up next to the longest river in the United States must have ignited her early interest for exploring and her adventurous life, which led to triumph, as the first solo female pilot to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 1932, but also to deadly tragedy, as she disappeared in 1937.

Following my short visit to Atchison, I went to Topeka to see the state capital. As mentioned in an earlier blogpost, I am very fascinated by visiting state capitals in the United States as I think they are good way to understand how unique each state is politically, historically, and culturally.

What impressed me most about the Kansas state capitol was a magnificent sculpture named ‘Ad Astra,’ placed on the top of dome. It depicts a Kansa Native American with a bow and arrow pointed at the North Stars – a reference to the slogan of the state. Politically, Kansas is also very interesting. Original a hub for Midwestern populism, as described by historian Thomas Frank in his 2004 bestseller ‘Whats the Matter with Kansas,’ it was actually one of the first states to demand direct election of senators to the United States Senate.

Also, the building has a lot of interesting murals, including the famous ‘Tragic Prelude,’ created by first-class artist John Steuart Curry. The mural shows the period of internal fighting in the Kansas Territory between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions, a period known as Bleeding Kansas. This conflict is considered a prelude to the following American Civil War.

Next, I went to visit the OZ Museum in Wamego to pay my respect to another important, but fictive, Kansan, the loveable Dorothy Gale.

Dorothy Gale became immortal when Judy Garland portrayed her in the beloved film ‘The Wizard of Oz’ from 1939 and made cinema history when she uttered the iconic words: “Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.” The town of Wamego has transformed itself into the Land of Oz with a yellow brick road filled with Oz-linked murals – and as a visitor, you can enjoy a taco from Toto’s Tacoz, try some wine from Oz Winery, and visit the OZ Museum, the crown jewel of Wamego, featuring a collection of over 25,000 artifacts related to author L. Frank Baum’s world of Oz and the film from 1939.

My third stop was in Abilene, where I visited the presidential library and boyhood home of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a quintessential American hero, who despite being born in Texas, considered Abilene to be his hometown (the family moved to Abilene when he was two years old.) I found the Place of Meditation Chapel with quotes from Eisenhower’s speeches to be a very interesting place and I also really loved the gift shop filled with ‘I Like Ike’-related stuff, such as hats, t-shirts, coffee mugs, and even socks – had myself a souvenir there.

My final and last stop before heading home was a historic burger joint located in Salina. Operating since 1922, the Cozy Inn has been in business for 100 years. I was served their acclaimed sliders, a bag of cheddar Doritos, and delicious A&W Root Beer. I was introduced to root beer by a colleague at the Museum of Danish America weeks ago and I have been hooked ever since.

I had a great trip to the Sunflower State – and luckily, there’s still way more to explore in the great state of Kansas, where dreamers continue to rise and reach out for their slice of the American Dream as past Kansans did, as presents Kansans do, and as future Kansans will.

Best from Anders Tornsø Jørgensen

#kansas #eisenhower #amelia earhart #wizard of oz

[rexichexi]

the last thing you see before you die.

#my art #oscar pine #professor ozpin #rwby #for my dad and son AU in haven :3 #immortal dome wizard #wizard farm boy #ozpin #oscar

[mithrilwren]

echoes

or, some angsty Shadowgast in honour of Caleb’s new telepathy powers

There was a time when a voice from the darkness was comforting. Hearing his own name in the moments between rest and wakefulness – sleepy recognition and then the warmth of fond annoyance as Jester poured her unfiltered thoughts into his mind, so loud and bright that none of the anxietyfearshame could force its way through. In the moments when Essek was most alone, he used to crave it – that too-brief cacophony of words, that intrusion without intent to coerce, or harm. A brief reprieve from the solitude of a lonely mind.

Unbelievable, isn’t it?

Why then, when Caleb’s soft accent finds its way into his head for the first time, does his heart clench instead of calm?

Perhaps it is unfamiliarity, he almost manages to convince himself by the time they find their battered, bleeding way to rest, tucked amidst the vacant streets of the floating city of Aeor. He has grown accustomed to Jester’s voice, to its unpredictable cadence and pitch. While Caleb’s measured tone, his soft accent and carefully chosen words, are not new to his ears, they are new in their closeness: a touch without touch, below the skin, so desired and feared that the thought of it makes him dizzy. 

Essek pulls a blanket over his knees, preparing to meditate and wincing as the bruises of the day make themselves known. Caleb is on first watch. He sits crosslegged, staring out past the broken walls of the Cognouza Ward towards the curtain of endless night, but he looks up at the sharp intake of breath Essek can’t quite manage to hold in. His eyes soften in sympathy, and the words come so softly Essek can imagine them as a whisper drifting across the dome – only Caleb’s lips do not move.

We wizards are made too fragile, ja?

Should he respond? Can he respond? It makes Essek unexpectedly nervous, to realize he does not know the answer. How far can this new ability take Caleb? Can he only plant words in Essek’s mind, or can he reach beyond and pluck the thoughts from Essek just as easily? A slow, sickening curl forms in the pit of his stomach, and for a moment he sees yellowed teeth and cruel grey eyes, laying words he had not spoken down on the table between them like so many sharpened knives. A name, a fear, a secret longing laid bare, all in service of obtaining so-called loyalty...

But Caleb is not Ikithon. This, above all else, he knows. He trusts Caleb. He will be cautious, but he will not question that certainty. No matter what these mysterious eyes are, no matter what powers they lend, he trusts Caleb to know the limit. Gods know how little he deserves the same trust in return. 

And so he inclines his head with a small smile, to show he’s heard and understood, and returns his gaze to his lap, and reminds himself to be grateful that he is cared for, by whatever method that care comes.

---

They risk the tower the second night of hunting, exhausted after spending the day dodging architecture that seems determined to divide their party in two, or failing that, their heads from their bodies. Nobody is eager to chance the cobblestone collapsing out from under the dome for a second night.

Caleb and Beau each have two new eyes. If they’ve informed anyone in the group about any new powers, no one has passed the information along to Essek, and he is not certain he wants to ask. The thought of any further changes makes him queasy, though Caleb and Beau themselves seem in good spirits, apart from complaints of headaches and phantom voices. A smile through gritted teeth is still a smile, and he tries to accept the reassurance for what it is, without letting instinctual suspicion sour whatever tenuous bonds he’s formed with the others. 

Essek completes his meditation with four hours left over before the rest of the Nein will awake. He leaves his room, intending to peruse the star chamber that Caleb showed to him on his last visit, and hoping the quiet space will be a good place to think. As much as he cares for the Nein, he is still at his heart a solitary creature, and it has been a long while since he has spent so many nights in the company of others. The black emptiness of the expanse will be a welcome comfort.

The solitude does indeed do him good, and he is feeling measurably more level-headed when the sound of footsteps interrupts his quiet contemplation. He turns to see Caleb on the threshold, tired-eyed but smiling softly.

“I thought I’d find you here,” he says, and at the time, Essek has no reason to question what intuition brought Caleb to his location so easily. 

“Trouble sleeping?” he asks, and Caleb huffs a small laugh.

“More often than not… but not tonight,” he says before walking forward. To Essek’s surprise, he sits down on the floor, with every appearance of making himself comfortable there for a long while. After a moment, Essek follows his lead and lowers himself down as well, robes spilling out over his own feet and just brushing the edge of Caleb’s. Essek reaches a hand out to pull the fabric back into his lap, but the sound of Caleb’s voice catches him unawares, and his hand stutters to a stop in midair.

Do you see that constellation? 

Essek’s head whips towards Caleb, smile still in place and splayed across unmoving lips. Caleb cocks his head, eyes crinkling in confusion as Essek stares, and stares.

“We are alone,” Essek reminds him at last. “Is there a reason not to speak aloud?”

Caleb hesitates just a moment too long for Essek’s comfort before responding. He ducks his head, auburn hair falling away to reveal the slightest sliver of red on the inside of his jaw. “No. No reason,” he says, and when he looks back up at Essek, his look is mischievous enough to startle the lingering unease out of Essek’s chest. Involuntarily, he finds his own lips quirking up at the twinkle in Caleb’s eye. 

“What?” he asks.

Caleb reaches out and taps the back of his hand with a finger, and a familiar magical lightness fills Essek’s chest, as the legs that were resting against the floor begin to float. Then Caleb’s fingers find his, pulling him away into the air, and speechless, he lets himself be pulled up – up, up – until the two of them are floating so high above that the floor is nothing but a dull sheen amid the endless stars. 

“We are alone,” Caleb echoes, low and dark, and Essek’s stomach swoops with a vertigo that has nothing to do with their height. “So, shall we dance? Here, at the end of the world?”

Yet again, Essek is caught speechless, but when Caleb’s other hand lands gently on his waist, he manages a nod. And in the silence of starlight, they begin to spin.

Essek cannot say when he closes his eyes, or why – whether the motion of the light and dark becomes too much, or if it’s the look in Caleb’s eyes: too warm, too close to bear. There are so few inches between them that when the words come – those soft, terrible, wonderful words, that leave his face hot and hands cold – it’s impossible to tell whether they were spoken aloud, or merely heard. And in the darkness, he finds he does not care. 

It is Caleb’s voice that envelops him, as they drift together among the stars, and that is all he needs to know.

---

The trail never quite grows cold, and yet Lucien and Cree remain elusive. Frustration turns to despair and back to frustration again, as each time they seem on the precipice of catching their prey, another obstacle springs up in their path: a cosmic creature, a horde of spirits, an unscalable spire that wasn’t there the night before. Essek begins to lose track of the days they’ve spent wandering the city. The hours bleed together, and it’s only Caleb’s clockwork reminders that keep them bedding down at the right intervals. Every day feels shorter than the next, and more than once Essek bites his tongue, wanting to ask if Caleb is sure the time is right, if they really have been wandering for as long as he says. 

But every time, he stops himself. His body must be confused, or perhaps time works strangely in this immortal city. Caleb would have no reason to lie. And once they are safe in the tower, he cannot bring himself to complain about the energy that still thrums, unspent, beneath his skin. Not when the others sleep, and Caleb and Essek have the nights to themselves.

And yes, Essek is concerned that he and Beau have stopped sleeping. Of course he is. He is concerned about the eyes, and the faraway look that Caleb gets when he stares too long at a window, or an empty doorframe. But when they are together, Caleb is never far away. He is here, unmistakably present, for the hours that Essek is awake while the others sleep, and he has never imagined- could never have imagined how incredible that could be. How much he would give up, to not surrender this.

Caleb knocks on his door, and he answers without any hesitation.

“Join me,” Caleb says, a half-smile still playing over his lips – just formal enough for plausible deniability, if anyone was to hear. They might be going to do research, or discuss battle strategy. But instead, Caleb leads him to his own room, and they are barely through the door before Essek’s back is pressed to it, Caleb’s breath hot against his throat, and he has swiftly learned to love the racing chill of being held beneath a weight greater than his own. 

They stay there a moment, Caleb’s eyes searching for permission before he leans in, a question held and asked before anything is taken. Essek never imagined that being trapped could feel so... safe.

“Join me,” Caleb’s lips say again, before they press themselves to Essek, and Essek swallows the words away, lets heavy breath suffocate the mismatched sounds that pass out of reach before he can fully grasp their shape: the words Caleb didn’t say, but that Essek hears, or thinks he does, or maybe has been imagining all along. 

An echo, in the corner of his mind. Nothing more. 

Join us.

(Join us)

(Join us)

#critical role #cr spoilers #shadowgast #my writing #this is the first fic ive written in months #and i definitely needed to re-oil the brain gears lol #but i couldn't not try and write at least a little something before tomorrow's ep

[pinkpruneclodwolf]

Okay speaking about cores. This got my jjk-verse brain thinking bc in jjk the brain is seen as the "soul" along w the body since the soul and body are intertwined along w the mind (the psyche of a human being) and something blah, blah, blah BUT this isn't Jujutsu Kaisen so moving on---But why I brought that up is that basically what I'm trying to say is that the core---while their is a heart and the brain---the core is the most fundamental part to the body in the world of TWST---it's their soul essentially.

This is why wizards are often times seen as superior above those who can't use magic since those who have and can use magic have essentially tapped into their "true potential" as a person---as an individual. This is also why blocking out or nulling someone's magic is an "extreme" act against them (for reference see Ace's reaction during chapter 1---for us this just seems like a decent punishment for breaking the rules but in the world of TWST it's NOT) since to them it would be the same as loosing their five senses. Having your magic---your soul essentially be "oppressed" is the same as "killing" them in a way.

Going back to the cores---everyone in TWST has it but not all cores are the same, each core differs from the person to another even those being magicless. While you might be magicless that doesn't mean that your core's useless either since your core is the one doing the magic regulation that your body needs to do after having been exposed to magic. Each core caters to a specific individual and the needs of their bodies (for example you're a wizard who's element is fire your core emanates a cool energy for your body despite the core being hot or something along those lines). Essentially a core is a representative of one's individuality.

There is no person or individual in TWST that doesn't have a soul/core. It's just impossible.

(This is also essentially what the magic mirror meant with Yuu being magicless or soulless---Yuu doesn't have a core which essentially means that in TWST standards Yuu isn't well human or a "person" so to speak.)

But that's just my opinion what do you think?

Wait you're actually onto something—i kinda considered the soul, the mind, and the core separate since depending on a singular source to keep you alive seems insane but I then realized how useful that is—you can die from just biting your tongue off, or getting stabbed in the wrong organ which is problematic when you consider that Beastmen, Fae, and Merfolk exist.

Yes arteries still exist but the effects of puncturing the jugular won't be as severe, there's still a window of time.

Essentially this makes magicians semi immortal in the sense that even though a stab to the lung is still considered fatal its not on par with the many many many ways one could die—like im willing to die on the hill that twst!humans are in a whole new ball park than us casuals bc monsters do exist—Jabberwocky probably chilling in the Rose Kingdom as we speak.

So the idea of sealing someone's core will render them defenseless, a hit to the neck could kill someone since I don't consider magicians that reliant on building muscle unless they've come from environments where they need to—look at Ace, he's a lil twig, I could smoke him, roast him even.

But the thing about cores is even if Ace take a cauldron to the dome (do you know how big that Cauldron was? He should be dead) he'll still have some layer of protection since the core is trying to protect its holder (and itself essentially)

Cores are highly individualized, like finger prints, no one person can have the same core

Cores also adapt to the primary magic the holder uses—as you said, a fire user will need a core to cool them down lest they overheat and cook themselves, they'll still need to exercise control but a core mitigates it. An ice mage will need a hot core to keep them warm.

Yuu being considered soulless in twst means they have to rely on imbued objects in order to use magic and purge blot (something Crowley hasn't done)

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst theory #@hiraya manwari #scream into the void and i'll answer

[firesidefantasy]

DRAGONFOLK | DRAGMA 

A half-human, half-dragon race fuelled by selfish desires and a love of hoarding all things shiny and old. Shrouded in mystery and legend, nobody really knows much about the dragonfolk. It is of popular belief that they are an ancient and wise race of an almost divine nature who chose not to meddle in the lowly affairs of mortals. There are few things that could be further from the truth. Dragonfolk are a turbulent race who rarely lack the social skills to form communities, never mind cities and governments strong enough to allow them the technological and social progression many assume they have long since achieved. A couple of dragonfolk cities are situated in the land around The Walled City and Vara, often near mountain ranges where they thrive best. It is really the Dragonborn, a subculture within the Dragonfolk, that make the biggest impact on the world beyond legend. 

CREATION

The Dragonfolk were evolved from relations between humans and dragons, although how exactly this happened is a mystery to most. Even the Dragonfolk themselves do not believe in such a tame beginning, however. Stories of their creation range from divine intervention, to being born out of the flame of an almighty dragon, to being forged in the heart of a volcano. Whatever the story is, for there are many, it is guaranteed to elevate them to heights undeserved through their own merit.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

Dragonfolk vary in physical attributes. Most are tall and lean with long, magnificent tails and the ability to breath fire. Some have scaled skin, others have pointed ears or horns poking out from a long mop of hair. Many have large wings, others have small, stubby wings, and some have no wings at all. The look of a Dragonfolk varies as much as both humans and dragons themselves do.

THE DRAGONBORN

A subculture of Dragonfolk dedicated to the search for ancient relics and shiny treasures. They could easily be compared to a community of treasure hunting pirates; often violent and harmful in their methods and willing to fight both one another and innocents for ownership of the most interesting of treasures. The Dragonborn are shrouded in legend more so than even the Dragonfolk themselves. Many plays and children’s stories are centred around the adventures of the Dragonborn. They are not studied in history classes so much as literature - very few believing of their existence until their most important relics have been stolen and it is much too late. 

The Dragonborn can often be found banding together. Individualism runs deep in their community, but many recognise that there is power in numbers - especially when competing against one another for ownership of treasures. This leads them to forming Bands or Gangs. It is common for these to have a formal hierarchy of power and leadership. New Dragonborn will join a Band and work their way up the food chain, although a rare few will strike out on their own. 

Bands often have a central headquarters in the mountains, used for the storage of their hard earned treasures. These are hoarded and guarded by dragons. 
Dragonborn spend as much time stealing from one another as they do hunting for new relics. 

Wars between Bands are increasingly common. 

Much like pirates, Dragonborn make use of ships to house their crew and temporarily store their treasures. Individuals often have simple water ships and their adventures are relatively tame. Others make use of dragons, trading treasures and adventure for the manual labour of pulling a ship through the air. For the biggest bands, often with several immortals or self-proclaimed ‘wizards’ on board, magic is an option for keeping their ships afloat and often invisible as they explore the skies. These ships are large and decorated with banners, flags, and symbols. They have room for the storage of both treasure and supplies, and places for members of the crew to take turn sleeping. 

Few Bands have risen to a position so infamous as the Igni. These Dragonborn are the most notorious treasure hunters; known to be the most ruthless, but also the most effective in result. They will stop short of nothing to obtain the shiniest treasures and most ancient and historic of relics. Orlaskan, their ringleader, is perhaps the most infamous Dragonborn assassin in most human mythology. Although few get his name right, and even fewer believe he exists, his name is enough to strike fear into the heart of any Dragonborn. Many Bands take the Igni on, but none have ever been victorious in doing so. Their ship is bigger than some small villages and is kept afloat, invisible, and shield-protected by the magic of a highly regarded Dragonborn immortal - one who is bribed with the most expensive of treasures for her service. Their ship is decorated in full black, and always looks as if it is being swallowed in flames. A simple illusion, but one good for keeping away all sorts of predators.

rothkal, flight and dragons under the cut

ROTHKAL 

Rothkal is the biggest and most important Dragonfolk city; often claimed to be the capital of Dragonfolk society as a whole. The city spans a large amount of land in the plains between The Walled City and Vara and has existed longer than either, although it now keeps itself hidden behind an invisibility shield; a protective measure after the spark of plague that almost crumbled both of these countries. Rothkal can only be found by pureblood Dragonfolk and is more of a trading hub for smaller Dragonfolk communities than a home for a larger population.

Rothkal is often the hosting grounds for sporting festivals, for which Dragonfolk from all over the globe attend. It’s markets are unrivalled and as such, Dragonfolk merchants travel here to trade with one another rather than striking deals between one another. Rothkal is also a religious ground for the Dragonfolk and it’s mountains are believed to house Tomergana; ironically given the same name as the dragon god of the Kiribiani religion. Religious pilgrimages to Rothkal are rare but not unheard of, and in some communities, is even a requirement for those wishing to join the ranks of religious leaders. 

As of the current time, Rothkal is under the rule of Xarxan; a well known assassin who’s line of work likely had something to do with his rise to power. The long line of previous tyrants will not be missed, however, and it is believed that Xarxan will bring a sense of stability to the Dragonfolk capital for some time now. As the population of Rothkal is relatively limited, and the government almost non existent outside of a small chamber of advisers to the tyrant, there is nobody to question such changes to a serious extent. As long as the population is fed, entertained, and the markets go on, no Dragonfolk care enough about this government to protest it. After all - they could just as easily move away or start a community of their own. Those living in Rothkal primarily do so for work, convenience, religion, or family ties. For the independent, unattached Dragonfolk, these things could very easily cease to matter.

Rothkal as a city has some of the most marvellous architecture ever seen. The intelligence and power of the Dragonfolk is relatively unrivalled, and it is something of a shame that they cannot collect themselves long enough to put it to good use. Arches, domed roofs, and soaring skyscrapers built of marble are just some of the artistic masterpieces created by the Dragonfolk. Everything from their religious buildings to castles to farm houses are a piece of art. The city has largely been turned from wood and brick to an architectural masterpiece of stained glass and marble in the last 200 years. It is perhaps one of the few positives of the tyrannical reign of the Drazavur family.

FLIGHT

Many Dragonfolk have wings and therefore have the ability to fly. This is taught at around the same time as toddlers are learning how to walk. Some parents toss their toddlers off high platforms in order to force them to use their wings, others have a more progressive view to fight and teach it incrementally. Regardless, by the time a Dragonfolk is ready to begin their education - either informally, outside of the city; or formally, for those living in a city - they are expected to know how to use their wings. Many Dragonfolk cities are organised with flight in mind; meaning the buildings are not always accessible by foot and stairs are not always provided. 

Of course, not all Dragonfolk have wings. Some have small wings that make flight difficult, and some have either lost their wings in an accident or were never born with them at all. These Dragonfolk are more common than any able-bodied Dragonfolk are willing to take into account. Those without wings are often looked down upon and excluded from society, some literally outcasted and others just put into poorer positions. Even in more progressive societies, where they are treated as equals, provisions will not be made for them. 

It should be noted that this is one area where the Dragonborn are better than their law abiding counterparts. Orlaskan, the infamous leader of the Igni band, does not have natural wings. Artificial wings have been crafted for him instead, and it is well known that they are more envy-inducing than many treasures in and of themselves. Similar provisions are provided for any Dragonborn without wings, and because of this, many who are outcasted turn to the Dragonborn life. Dragonborn without wings are often put into positions of authority, as it is believed that those without wings have greater leadership qualities than those with - largely a mirroring of respect and awe for Orlaskan. 

Flight within Dragonfolk communities is not only an important aspect of life practically, but also in sport. Air races, gymnastics, and mess ball are all massively important aspects of the cultural and social lives of Dragonfolk. These are some of the only times individuals and communities will come together and celebrate in their shared heritage and culture. Sporting tournaments similar to the early Olympics have emerged over the past hundred years and are a point of pride for all Dragonfolk. Even the occasional Dragonborn band will drop in to compete. 

DRAGONS

Although Dragonfolk largely ignore their human ancestors (and often deny being their descendants at all, for they find humans tiresome and irritating at the best of times), they are very close with the dragons from which they descend, and are quite proud of this heritage. There are many different types of dragons, and as such, the relationship between the Dragonfolk and the dragons differs largely. Small fruit dragons can often be found in the houses or camps of Dragonfolk; family pets or lifelong companions in a very similar way as a dog might be to a human. These bumbling, clumsy creatures are more than happy to be domesticated, and largely safer for it.

The largest and most powerful dragons are often worshipped and served within communities. One town has many problems with neighbouring villages due to their need to feed their dragon with cattle from local farms - a story for another day, most likely. Tomergana is the most fearsome of dragons and she is worshipped by almost all Dragonfolk cultures; although a mythical dragon, most likely. 

Many dragons are put to work by both Dragonfolk and Dragonborn; on farms, transport, and war. They are paid fairly for their work and where they are not, dragons rights activists will be shortly on your tail. Dragons are much more powerful than their half-human counterparts and will not work where they do not wish to do so. 

For Dragonborn, dragons are often used for raids and wars. Their fire breathing abilities make them invaluable, and although Dragonborn can fly, it is much easier to think and fight where another is doing this for them. 

Dragons are even used as disability animals for some. 

The bond between Dragonfolk and their Dragons is fierce and unbreakable, and the two races will protect, defend, and support one another to their final breath.

#worldbuilding #world building june #fantasy #writeblr

[thedcdunce]

Wonder Girl

“We do this to help people, right? Save lives. So even if we die saving one it's worth the trade-off. Right?” - Wonder Girl

Real Name: Cassandra "Cassie" Elizabeth Sandsmark

Aliases:

Drusilla Priam

Donna Prince

Gender: Female

Height: 5′ 3″

Weight: 124 lbs (56 kg)

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Blonde

Race: Demigod

Powers:

Demi-Goddess Empowerment

Superhuman Strength

Superhuman Speed

Superhuman Durability

Superhuman Reflexes

Flight

Immortality

Abilities:

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced)

Leadership

Swordsmanship

Weaknesses:

Maternal Depowerment

Equipment:

Gauntlet of Atlas

Sandals of Hermes

Lasso of Lightning

Universe: New Earth

Base of Operations: 

Titans Tower, San Francisco

Gateway City

Philadelphia

Georgetown

Citizenship: American

Parents: 

Zeus; father

Helena Sandsmark; mother

Marital Status: Single

Occupation: Student

First Appearance: Wonder Woman Vol 2 #105 (January, 1996)

Last Appearance: Teen Titans Vol 3 #100 (October, 2011)

Powers

Demi-Goddess Empowerment: She was eventually granted abilities by Zeus, who granted "her fondest wish." This gift's import proves to be rather vague, and Cassie could arguably have access to more powers than she has previously been aware of. After Zeus and the other gods had left the mortal realm which left her bereft of her powers, Ares secretly made a pact with her and made her his champion on Earth, restoring and increasing her powers even further. After her fight with Lycus, she lost her powers under Ares but managed to access abilities of her own demi-god heritage and power.

Superhuman Strength: Her Olympian flesh and bone is about one and a half times as dense as similar human tissue, contributing to the Olympians' superhuman strength and weight.

Superhuman Speed: Cassie can move at supersonic speeds.

Superhuman Durability: Cassie' s durability is not vulnerable to bullets.

Superhuman Reflexes

Flight

Immortality

Abilities

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced)

Leadership

Swordsmanship

Weaknesses

Maternal Depowerment: Discouraged by previously shown arrogance in his children, Zeus also blessed Cassie's mother with the ability to take away her powers for a short time via a simple touch. However, this may not be true now that she is no longer drawing her strength from Zeus.

Equipment

Gauntlet of Atlas

Sandals of Hermes

Lasso of Lightning: Ares approached her and gave Cassie her own magic lasso. Unlike Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth, Cassie's is a weapon which channels Zeus' lightning.

History

Cassandra "Cassie" Sandsmark was the second person to be called Wonder Girl; the first being Donna Troy. Cassie was the daughter of Dr. Helena Sandsmark and the Greek god Zeus.

Origin

Cassie spent most of her time at her mother's place of work, the Gateway City Museum of Antiquities, where she had a penchant for getting into trouble. She quickly befriended her mother's new employee, Wonder Woman, and was eager to help her. During a fight with a Doomsday clone and another battle with Decay, she created a costume and used magical acquirements to help Wonder Woman, much to her mother's horror. Cassie later had the opportunity to ask Zeus for a boon, and requested real superpowers. Zeus granted her request, but gave Dr. Sandsmark the ability to deactivate them. Dr. Sandsmark, however, reluctantly accepted her daughter's wish to be a superheroine and rarely, if ever, used this ability. Artemis was assigned as her teacher.

Even without her power, Cassie was a problem child, and frequently had to change schools. Throughout her teens, she attended Holliday School for Girls, Brewer High School, Dennis Peterson High School, Gateway City High School, and eventually the Saint Elias School for Girls.

Young Justice

Cassie heavily idolized Donna Troy, the original Wonder Girl, and to that effect wore a black wig over her natural blond hair. Donna gave Cassie the second costume she wore as Wonder Girl, but Cassie was afraid to wear it lest it were ruined. As Wonder Girl, Cassie joined Young Justice due to her crush on Superboy. She became close friends with Arrowette, Secret, and Empress. During her time with that group, the dark god Oblivion caused Wonder Woman's Wonder Dome palace to destroy Gateway City. Artemis ordered Cassie to help with crowd control instead of wasting time putting on her Wonder Girl disguise. Agreeing with her, Cassie revealed her secret identity before news cameras for the first time in her superhero career. Cassie eventually became the leader of the team, after beating Robin during an election for command. Her secret identity was again publicly revealed when the second Silver Swan attacked her at her high school. Young Justice was disbanded after Optitron offered to fund both the Titans and Young Justice. Donna Troy was thought to have been killed by a rogue Superman android, leaving Cassie shaken and causing both teams to disband.

Teen Titans

Cassie later joined some former members of Young Justice in the newest incarnation of the Teen Titans. She was gifted with a lasso by Ares, the Greek god of war and frequent enemy of Wonder Woman and the Amazons. Despite appearing similar to Wonder Woman's lasso, Cassie's expels Zeus' lightning when used in anger. Ares appeared to Wonder Girl, usually to warn her about "the coming war." During her time with the Titans, Cassie also developed a relationship with Superboy, whom she had harbored feelings for during their time together in Young Justice.

Crisis

During a battle against Brother Blood and a handful of zombie Titans, she acknowledged that her powers were fluctuating and sometimes disappearing altogether. Despite this, Cassie attempted to help Superboy after he was beaten to near-death by Superboy-Prime. After intervening and subsequently saving him, Cassie and the Titans infiltrated a Lexcorp laboratory to find a way to cure Superboy. While the other Titans flew to Blüdhaven following an attack from the Society, Cassie remained at Titans Tower to watch over Superboy. When he awoke, the pair of them reconnected and remembered their past in Young Justice, which seemed so much happier and easier. Conner then took Cassie to Smallville, and, afraid that it would be their last night together, consummated their relationship.

Ares appeared to her again, informing Cassie that the reason behind her weakening power was Zeus taking back the powers he had granted to her as he left the mortal plane. Ares then offered Cassie some of his power in exchange for becoming his champion and acknowledging him as her brother. She joined Superboy and Nightwing up north, with powers returned, to assist in the assault on Alexander Luthor's tower. Superboy sacrificed his life to defeat Superboy-Prime and destroy the tower. He died in Cassie's arms.

The Cult of Conner

In the aftermath of Superboy-Prime's actions, the Teens Titans fell apart. Cassandra left the Titans following Robin's departure. She felt abandoned by her best friends.

Bereaved and desperate, Cassie became involved in an online cult heavily influenced by Kryptonian culture that she believed could bring Superboy back to life. She set up an altar in Titans Tower with Kryptonian crystals and a gold figure with the Superman-insignia, which meant "hope" on Krypton. Soon, Ralph Dibny approached her because someone defaced the grave of his wife Sue with an upside down "S" Shield, which in Kryptonian means "resurrection."

About five days later, Cassie and her fellow cult members meet with Ralph. Cassie mentioned that it was another member, Devem, who led her to join. Cassie explained that the goal of the cult was to resurrect Superboy. As a test of their process, they intend to resurrect Sue Dibny. Cassie and Ralph attended a ceremony designed to resurrect Sue, but Ralph grew suspicious and with the help of other superheroes, disrupts the ceremony, destroying the Kryptonite which was essential to the process. Cassie left with Devem, blaming Ralph for destroying her chances to resurrect Superboy. After stopping Weather Wizard in Metropolis, Cassie met Supernova and referred to him incorrectly as Kon-El, actually turning out to be Booster Gold in disguise.

Return to the Teen Titans

Wonder Girl attempted to stop Gemini of the Brotherhood of Evil from escaping S.T.A.R. Labs with valuable technology, revealing that she had been following the Brotherhood for some time. She also donned a new costume influenced by that of the late Superboy, wearing a Golden Age Wonder Woman-themed t-shirt and denim jeans.

She "temporarily" rejoined the team, under the suggestion of Cyborg so that they may combine their forces to defeat the Brotherhood of Evil. Both Robin and Cyborg hoped that she would agree to return permanently. When Kid Devil was mortally injured during a battle with the Brotherhood, the Doom Patrol arrived on the scene, offering to help. Yet there was a large rift between the two teams, and Wonder Girl seemed particularly upset that Beast Boy left the team to rejoin the Doom Patrol. After the combined efforts of the Teen Titans and Doom Patrol defeat the Brotherhood of Evil, she decided to rejoin the team permanently. When she went to tell Robin of her decision, she discovered his secret failed attempts to bring back Superboy. In their shared grief, the pair kissed one another, but upon realizing what they had done, Wonder Girl flew away from Robin. The pair never talked about the incident beyond coming to the agreement that it was a mistake, but both discussed it with others. With her life in disarray, Cassie was having difficulty with her personal life, often having major confrontations with her mother. Cassie had however gained a new friendship with the recently returned Supergirl, who had shared with her in mourning the loss of Superboy and Paradise Island.

Cassie and Tim tried to convince Raven to resurrect Superboy, as she had recently brought back Jericho. However, Raven claimed that Superboy's soul had already transcended their plane of existence. The discussion was cut short when Cassie was captured by Deathstroke's villainous Titans East, along with Robin and Raven after an attack by Inertia and Match. Each member of Titans East had been recruited to counter a specific Titan. Deathstroke selected Match, a clone of Superboy, to counter Cassie. Not only could he match her strength, but Match's appearance had a psychological advantage over the Teen Titans.

The Titans battled furiously against the Titans East, during which they were able to convince Batgirl and Duela Dent to switch sides. Unfortunately that team was defeated by Slade's, but thankfully Raven, Cyborg and Duela Dent managed to get aid from Nightwing, Donna Troy, Beast Boy and Flash. Together, the two generations of Titans overcame Slade, who along with Inertia, managed to escape.

Cassie was still very furious at Diana, who she felt abandoned her during the last year. She was also not pleased that Robin was aware of Diana's disappearance, but never told her about it. Diana and Cassie had not been able to discuss their past differences, partially due to the kidnapping of Donna Troy. When Donna questioned Cassie's hesitance to be near Match due to his resemblance to Superboy, Cassie finally broke down and told Donna how hurt she was over Superboy's death after all that time. Adding to her pain, Cassandra attended Bart Allen's funeral. During a heated and controversial eulogy, she vowed to get revenge for Bart's death.

Cassie and Supergirl discovered that their friends and family had been placed in an internment camp due to their ties to the Amazons. After a failed attempt to aid them, the two heroes agreed to bring the U.S. President to Hippolyta in order to stop the war. They are ambushed by a group of Amazons in the process, which caused the President to become mortally wounded. The actions of the Amazons and Wonder Girl's own involvement caused public outcry and hatred against all those who had followed in Wonder Woman's footsteps. Ultimately, Cassie declared that despite her training and past, she was not an Amazon, preferring her ties to the Teen Titans over that of Paradise Island. Accepting her decision, Artemis wished her well and left Cassie to her devices. Wonder Girl celebrated by sharing another kiss with Robin in front of her teammates.

In the months following the kiss, Cassie and Tim continued to go through "will-they-won't-they" moments in which they both questioned the validity of their relationship. It was after a battle against an army of future Titans, the pair finally decided to date. Unfortunately, their relationship is short-lived, as after their first official date Cassie ended the relationship, feeling guilty that she was using Tim. This resulted in a growing animosity between the pair, which began to bleed into their relationships with the other Titans.

Wonder Girl

Cassandra attempted to redeem herself for the mistakes made by the Amazons on her own. Cassie adopted a secret identity, taking up the name "Drusilla." However, as she attempted to apprehend a group of mystical beasts left over from the Amazons' attack, she found herself confronted by her half-brother Hercules, who claimed he wanted to help her become a true champion of the gods and to rebuild Olympus. Cassie was reluctant to trust him. Hercules persisted and chased after Cassandra, taking the form of Superboy in order to get her attention.

Together, Hercules and Cassie tried to discover who was attacking the remaining Olympian gods. Soon into their search, they were attacked by the Female Furies. Hercules stopped the fight by explaining that he had allied with the Furies in hopes of rescuing the gods, or, failing that, starting a new pantheon with them. The Furies had their own plans and were only using Hercules to get to Cassie. The Furies soon betrayed them, with Bloody Mary using her bite to influence Hercules. The Furies kidnapped Cassie's mother to lure her into a trap. Aided by the Olympian, Cassandra went into battle, being forced to fight her own brother. The Teen Titans, Empress, Arrowette and Wonder Woman showed up to help. After Bloody Mary was murdered by the New Gods killer, Hercules was freed from her spell and immediately saved Cassandra from being kidnapped by the Furies. Hercules went free after he revealed he was now a demi-god and that Zeus released him to help stop "the Great Disaster". Hercules then left to perform certain "labors." Cassandra eventually reconciling with Wonder Woman, who told Cassie that she has become her own woman.

Cassie was later attacked by her nephew Lycus, the son of Ares. He attempted to take her title as Ares' avatar, along with her power. Although he was successful in stealing Cassie's powers derived from Ares, Cassie discovered that she no longer needed to be blessed with powers from the gods as she willed her own innate power to surface. Cassie now possessed a high level of super-strength of her own.

Robin made the decision to leave the Teen Titans for an undetermined length of time in the wake of Batman's death, leaving Cassie with the task of assembling and leading a new team. After an unsuccessful attempt by Kid Devil to recruit teen metahumans such as Klarion, Shining Knight, and the teen members of the Justice Society of America, Cassie eventually gaieds three new Titans in Static, Aquagirl, and Kid Eternity. Kid Eternity's ability to summon the spirits of the deceased briefly tempted Cassie into having him summon Conner's spirit. She eventually decided against it, telling Eternity never to grant her such a request, even if she were to beg him.

Return of Superboy

Cassie became aware of Conner's rebirth by Brainiac 5's hand. Despite meeting him briefly on his return, Cassie decided to wait until Martha Kent herself, now sheltering Conner at her place, invited Cassie for dinner, essentially granting Cassie and Conner a date. At first skeptical and fearing to "end as Lana Lang", she was touched by Conner opening his heart to her about her fears and dreams for their future life, and thus decided to tell Conner about herself and Tim Drake. Conner quickly forgave her, explaining that even if Cassie still loved him, she could not have known of his impending resurrection. Happily, Cassie agreed to rekindle their relationship.

Leader of Teen Titans

Due to personal responsibilities, neither Conner nor Bart returned to the team, though Cassie still continued to lead. However, following the demise of Red Devil, Cassie started questioning her leadership and began to make mistakes. During a massive battle with Cinderblock in downtown San Francisco, Cassie refused to let her team attack the villain directly, causing massive destruction to the area. The heroes continued in their fruitless stalemate until Beast Boy arrived and took command of the team, leading to their victory. In the aftermath of the battle, Beast Boy told Cassie that she had to stop dwelling on Red Devil's death or else more innocent people were going to get hurt, something she did not take kindly.

A few days later, Beast Boy made the decision to move back into Titans Tower and replace Cassie as the head of the team, declaring that they needed a more experienced leader to get back on track. Though Cassie initially said nothing about this, she ultimately becomes angry and told Beast Boy that no one asked for his help, and that she can lead the team just fine. Beast Boy simply replied by saying that the Teen Titans need help, and that everyone, including Cyborg, though so.

Defending Titans Tower

Cassie joined Kid Flash and Beast Boy as part of a small group of past and present Titans who assembled at Titans Tower. Lacking assistance from Static, Miss Martian, Blue Beetle, Bombshell, and Aquagirl, the team barely survived the onslaught.

After Dove used her abilities to destroy the Black Lanterns, Cassie and the others traveled to Coast City in order to assist the Flash and Green Lantern in there battle with Nekron. To the horror of the gathered heroes, Nekron used his abilities to transform several once-dead heroes into Black Lanterns, including Superboy, Kid Flash, Donna and Wonder Woman. In the ensuing battle, Cassie was killed when Wonder Woman violently tore her heart out. However, the entire battle was a mental ruse by Aphrodite, and Cassie was still be alive. When Black Lantern Conner attacked Cassie, all the while attempting to break free from the Black Ring's control, Conner managed to break the control in temporary, short lapses, which he used to alert Cassie of the solution to his Black Ring problem. The battle moved to the fortress, where Cassie realized what Conner was referring to when he told them to move to the Fortress of Solitude where Conner's corpse was placed as he awaited his resurrection in the future. The Black Ring, confused, left the living Conner and tried to attach itself to his corpse. Conner used his freeze breath ability, freezing the ring, and Cassie threw it into orbit. After reconciling, the trio headed back to Coast City for the final battle.

Fun Facts

Cassandra was in love and in a relationship with Superboy, before he died. After his recent resurrection they have decided to put their feelings on hold to allow Cassandra to better lead the Teen Titans, after Red Robin joined the team, however, she relinquished control of the Titans and still has not rekindled her relationship.

#wonder girl #cassandra cassie elizabeth sandsmark #cassandra elizabeth sandsmark #cassandra sandsmark #cassie elizabeth sandsmark #cassie sandsmark #Teen Titans #Young Justice #drusilla priam #donna prince #dc #DC comics #thedcdunce

[yellowmagicalgirl]

X Me: Krel and Douxie meeting again after some time spent apart, where Krel looks more like his parents in form and height and Douxie's reaction! Can be romantic or platonic, or whatever you wish. Happy writing!! :)

Leave a “X Me” in my ask, and I will write whatever it is that you wish, [specify.]

So RotT just didn't happen in this fic, and Jim stayed a half-troll at the end of Wizards.

By the way, I will not be accepting new prompts from this list. I start a new semester on Monday, and will not be as active. Any new prompts sent in will be deleted. (There are four other prompts currently in my inbox that I do plan on working on, but it will take me some time.)

~

As it had been for the past eleven years, Thursday night was laundry night. Now, technically, Douxie could just clean his clothes with magic, but the spell he knew made them stiff and smelling like cloves, as opposed to soft and smelling like lavender as per modern detergent.

It was a Thursday night, and Douxie was folding his laundry at the kitchen table. While there was more of a distance to walk if he did it here instead of on his bed, the table was a better height for folding. That was something Douxie had learned a decade ago, back when with every breath he took he was afraid that the Order would find them. He should have known better. The timespans of immortals were so slow, and immortals as old as Bellroc and Skrael had eternity to plan. Decades were nothing to them.

Decades weren't much to Douxie, either, except he was friends with so many mortals. They'd moved on with their lives, most of them enjoying the relative peace of the last eleven years after a summer of apocalypses. Even Jim and Claire, with their prolonged lifespans, were only beginning to realize how much a gift and a curse time was.

It was lonely, especially since Douxie was still hiding in New York City. Maybe he'd finish this second decade and move back to Arcadia Oaks. Maybe then it would be safe to return. Or maybe they would have to relocate again, to a different sprawling city where there'd be such a mass of people that Nari would be well-hidden.

Douxie heard footsteps behind him. They were too heavy to be Archie or Nari's. Claire's portals always made noise, and she had learned to announce her and anyone else's presence. (Unless she was attempting a surprise party, but it was October, not May right now.)

Douxie whirled around, creating a large domed shield and replicating Merlin's chain spell. The intruder batted it away with a shield of his own, held in one of his four blue hands.

"Hey! Watch it!" the intruder said. The voice was familiar, and Douxie squinted.

"Krel? You're back?" Soon after becoming queen, Aja had begun changing unjust laws of Akiridion-V. However, she could only do so much before earning the ire of the emperor of Akiridion-I, and six years ago Krel had left Earth to help her.

Krel smiled at him. Even though he'd traded his baby-face for a crest at the top of his face-plate in their time apart, his smile was still the same, and it still inspired the same warm feeling in Douxie's chest like it always had.

"Hopefully for good this time." Douxie allowed his shield to dissipate, and Krel moved in for a hug. As he did so, Douxie realized just how much taller Krel was now. Douxie didn't like it. He had liked it when Krel's true form was the same height as Douxie. Now that Krel was so much taller, Douxie would have a harder time gazing into Krel's beautiful ringed eyes.

Douxie couldn't easily spontaneously kiss Krel like he should have when Krel was shorter and Douxie still had the chance. Not that kissing Krel like this would be unpleasant, but Douxie would have to levitate or stand on his toes or grab a stool or drag Krel down to his level.

Wait.

What?

Where had that thought come from?

send me characters and a prompt (no longer accepting)

#krexie #krel tarron #hisirdoux casperan #tales of arcadia #3below #toawizards #i couldn't find a way to make krel seem more alien sorry 😅 there was no organic place to fit it in. #my writing #answered ask #anonymous

[drthetasigma14]

Lovecraft Fic/RP Prompts

The Commonplace Book of H.P. Lovecraft

This book consists of ideas, images, & quotations hastily jotted down for possible future use in weird fiction. Very few are actually developed plots—for the most part they are merely suggestions or random impressions designed to set the memory or imagination working. Their sources are various—dreams, things read, casual incidents, idle conceptions, & so on.—H. P. Lovecraft

Presented to R. H. Barlow, Esq., on May 7, 1934—in exchange for an admirably neat typed copy from his skilled hand.

1. Demophon shivered when the sun shone upon him. (Lover of darkness = ignorance.)

2. Inhabitants of Zinge, over whom the star Canopus rises every night, are always gay and without sorrow.

3. The shores of Attica respond in song to the waves of the Aegean.

4. Horror Story. Man dreams of falling—found on floor mangled as tho’ from falling from a vast height.

5. Narrator walks along unfamiliar country road,—comes to strange region of the unreal. 

6. In Ld Dunsany’s “Idle Days on the Yann.” The inhabitants of the antient Astahan, on the Yann, do all things according to antient ceremony. Nothing new is found. “Here we have fetter’d and manacled Time, who wou’d otherwise slay the Gods.”

7. Horror Story. The sculptured hand—or other artificial hand—which strangles its creator.

8. Hor. Sto. Man makes appt. with old enemy. Dies—body keeps appt.

9. Dr. Eben Spencer plot.

10. Dream of flying over city.

11. Odd nocturnal ritual. Beasts dance and march to musick.

12. Happenings in interval between preliminary sound and striking of clock—ending— “it was the tones of the clock striking three”.

13. House and garden—old—associations. Scene takes on strange aspect.

14. Hideous sound in the dark.

15. Bridge and slimy black waters.

16. The walking dead—seemingly alive, but—.

17. Doors found mysteriously open and shut etc.—excite terror.

18. Calamander-wood—a very valuable cabinet wood of Ceylon and S. India, resembling rosewood.

19. Revise 1907 tale—painting of ultimate horror.

20. Man journeys into the past—or imaginative realm—leaving bodily shell behind.

21. A very ancient colossus in a very ancient desert. Face gone—no man hath seen it. 

22. Mermaid Legend—Encyc. Britt. XVI—40.

23. The man who would not sleep—dares not sleep—takes drugs to keep himself awake. Finally falls asleep—and something happens. Motto from Baudelaire p. 214.

24. Dunsany—Go-By Street. Man stumbles on dream world—returns to earth—seeks to go back—succeeds, but finds dream world ancient and decayed as though by thousands of years. 

1919

25. Man visits museum of antiquities—asks that it accept a bas-relief he has just made—old and learned curator laughs and says he cannot accept anything so modern. Man says that ‘dreams are older than brooding Egypt or the contemplative Sphinx or garden-girdled Babylonia’ and that he had fashioned the sculpture in his dreams. Curator bids him shew his product, and when he does so curator shews horror. Asks who the man may be. He tells modern name. “No—before that” says curator. Man does not remember except in dreams. Then curator offers high price, but man fears he means to destroy sculpture. Asks fabulous price—curator will consult directors. Add good development and describe nature of bas-relief.

26. Dream of ancient castle stairs—sleeping guards—narrow window—battle on plain between men of England and men of yellow tabards with red dragons. Leader of English challenges leader of foe to single combat. They fight. Foe unhelmeted, but there is no head revealed. Whole army of foe fades into mist, and watcher finds himself to be the English knight on the plain, mounted. Looks at castle, and sees a peculiar concentration of fantastic clouds over the highest battlements.

27. Life and Death. Death—its desolation and horror—bleak spaces—sea-bottom—dead cities. But Life—the greater horror! Vast unheard-of reptiles and leviathans—hideous beasts of prehistoric jungle—rank slimy vegetation—evil instincts of primal man—Life is more horrible than death.

28. The Cats of Ulthar. The cat is the soul of antique Ægyptus and bearer of tales from forgotten cities of Meroë and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle’s lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten.

29. Dream of Seekonk—ebbing tide—bolt from sky—exodus from Providence—fall of Congregational dome. 

30. Strange visit to a place at night—moonlight—castle of great magnificence etc. Daylight shews either abandonment or unrecognisable ruins—perhaps of vast antiquity.

31. Prehistoric man preserved in Siberian ice. (See Winchell—Walks and Talks in the Geological field—p. 156 et seq.)

32. As dinosaurs were once surpassed by mammals, so will man-mammal be surpassed by insect or bird—fall of man before the new race.

33. Determinism and prophecy.

34. Moving away from earth more swiftly than light—past gradually unfolded—horrible revelation.

35. Special beings with special senses from remote universes. Advent of an external universe to view.

36. Disintegration of all matter to electrons and finally empty space assured, just as devolution of energy to radiant heat is known. Case of acceleration—man passes into space. 

37. Peculiar odour of a book of childhood induces repetition of childhood fancy.

38. Drowning sensations—undersea—cities—ships—souls of the dead. Drowning is a horrible death.

39. Sounds—possibly musical—heard in the night from other worlds or realms of being.

40. Warning that certain ground is sacred or accursed; that a house or city must not be built upon it—or must be abandoned or destroyed if built, under penalty of catastrophe. 

41. The Italians call Fear La figlia della Morte—the daughter of Death.

42. Fear of mirrors—memory of dream in which scene is altered and climax is hideous surprise at seeing oneself in the water or a mirror. (Identity?)

43. Monsters born living—burrow underground and multiply, forming race of unsuspected daemons.

44. Castle by pool or river—reflection fixed thro’ centuries—castle destroyed, reflection lives to avenge destroyers weirdly.

45. Race of immortal Pharaohs dwelling beneath pyramids in vast subterranean halls down black staircases. 

46 . Hawthorne—unwritten plot. Visitor from tomb—stranger at some publick concourse followed at midnight to graveyard where he descends into the earth.

47. From Arabia Encyc. Britan. II—255. Prehistoric fabulous tribes of Ad in the south, Thamood in the north, and Tasm and Jadis in the centre of the peninsula. “Very gorgeous are the descriptions given of Irem, the City of Pillars (as the Koran styles it) supposed to have been erected by Shedad, the latest despot of Ad, in the regions of Hadramaut, and which yet, after the annihilation of its tenants, remains entire, so Arabs say, invisible to ordinary eyes, but occasionally and at rare intervals, revealed to some heaven-favoured traveller.” // Rock excavations in N.W. Hejaz ascribed to Thamood tribe.

48. Cities wiped out by supernatural wrath.

49. AZATHOTH—hideous name.

50. Phleg′-e-thon: a river of liquid fire in Hades.

51. Enchanted garden where moon casts shadow of object or ghost invisible to the human eye.

52. Calling on the dead—voice or familiar sound in adjacent room.

53. Hand of dead man writes.

54. Transposition of identity.

55. Man followed by invisible thing.

56. Book or MS. too horrible to read—warned against reading it—someone reads and is found dead. Haverhill incident.

57. Sailing or rowing on lake in moonlight—sailing into invisibility.

58. A queer village—in a valley, reached by a long road and visible from the crest of the hill from which that road descends—or close to a dense and antique forest.

59. Man in strange subterranean chamber—seeks to force door of bronze—overwhelmed by influx of waters.

60. Fisherman casts his net into the sea by moonlight—what he finds.

61. A terrible pilgrimage to seek the nighted throne of the far daemon-sultan Azathoth.

62. Live man buried in bridge masonry according to superstition—or black cat.

63. Sinister names—Nasht—Kaman-Thah.

64. Identity—reconstruction of personality—man makes duplicate of himself.

65. Riley’s fear of undertakers—door locked on inside after death.

66. Catacombs discovered beneath a city (in America?).

67. An impression—city in peril—dead city—equestrian statue—men in closed room—clattering of hooves heard from outside—marvel disclosed on looking out—doubtful ending. 

68. Murder discovered—body located—by psychological detective who pretends he has made walls of room transparent. Works on fear of murderer.

69. Man with unnatural face—oddity of speaking—found to be a mask—Revelation.

70. Tone of extreme phantasy. Man transformed to island or mountain.

71. Man has sold his soul to devil—returns to family from trip—life afterward—fear—culminating horror—novel length. 

72. Hallowe’en incident—mirror in cellar—face seen therein—death (claw-mark?).

73. Rats multiply and exterminate first a single city and then all mankind. Increased size and intelligence.

74. Italian revenge—killing self in cell with enemy—under castle.

75. Black Mass under antique church.

76. Ancient cathedral—hideous gargoyle—man seeks to rob—found dead—gargoyle’s jaw bloody.

77. Unspeakable dance of the gargoyles—in morning several gargoyles on old cathedral found transposed.

78. Wandering thro’ labyrinth of narrow slum streets—come on distant light—unheard-of rites of swarming beggars—like Court of Miracles in Notre Dame de Paris.

79. Horrible secret in crypt of ancient castle—discovered by dweller.

80. Shapeless living thing forming nucleus of ancient building.

81. Marblehead—dream—burying hill—evening—unreality.

82. Power of wizard to influence dreams of others.

1920

83. Quotation “. . . a defunct nightmare, which had perished in the midst of its wickedness, and left its flabby corpse on the breast of the tormented one, to be gotten rid of as it might.”—Hawthorne

84. Hideous cracked discords of bass musick from (ruin’d) organ in (abandon’d) abbey or cathedral.

85. “For has not Nature, too, her grotesques—the rent rock, the distorting lights of evening on lonely roads, the unveiled structure of man in the embryo, or the skeleton?” Pater—Renaissance (da Vinci).

86. To find something horrible in a (perhaps familiar) book, and not to be able to find it again.

87. Borellus says, “that the Essential Salts of animals may be so prepared and preserved, that an ingenious man may have the whole ark of Noah in his own Study, and raise the fine shape of an animal out of its ashes at his pleasure; and that by the like method from the Essential Salts of humane dust, a Philosopher may, without any criminal necromancy, call up the shape of any dead ancestor from the dust whereinto his body has been incinerated.”

88. Lonely philosopher fond of cat. Hypnotises it—as it were—by repeatedly talking to it and looking at it. After his death the cat evinces signs of possessing his personality. N.B. He has trained cat, and leaves it to a friend, with instructions as to fitting a pen to its right fore paw by means of a harness. Later writes with deceased’s own handwriting.

89. Lone lagoons and swamps of Louisiana—death daemon—ancient house and gardens—moss-grown trees—festoons of Spanish moss.

1922

90. Anencephalous or brainless monster who survives and attains prodigious size.

91. Lost winter day—slept over—20 yrs. later. Sleep in chair on summer night—false dawn—old scenery and sensations—cold—old persons now dead—horror—frozen?

92. Man’s body dies—but corpse retains life. Stalks about—tries to conceal odour of decay—detained somewhere—hideous climax.

93. A place one has been—a beautiful view of a village or farm-dotted valley in the sunset—which one cannot find again or locate in memory.

94. Change comes over the sun—shews objects in strange form, perhaps restoring landscape of the past.

95. Horrible Colonial farmhouse and overgrown garden on city hillside—overtaken by growth. Verse “The House” as basis of story.

96. Unknown fires seen across the hills at night.

97. Blind fear of a certain woodland hollow where streams writhe among crooked roots, and where on a buried altar terrible sacrifices have occur’d—Phosphorescence of dead trees. Ground bubbles.

98. Hideous old house on steep city hillside—Bowen St.—beckons in the night—black windows—horror unnam’d—cold touch and voice—the welcome of the dead.

1923

99. Salem story—the cottage of an aged witch—wherein after her death are found sundry terrible things.

100. Subterranean region beneath placid New England village, inhabited by (living or extinct) creatures of prehistoric antiquity and strangeness.

101. Hideous secret society—widespread—horrible rites in caverns under familiar scenes—one’s own neighbour may belong. 

102. Corpse in room performs some act—prompted by discussion in its presence. Tears up or hides will, etc.

103. Sealed room—or at least no lamp allowed there. Shadow on wall.

104. Old sea tavern now far inland from made land. Strange occurrences—sound of lapping of waves. 

105. Vampire visits man in ancestral abode—is his own father.

106. A thing that sat on a sleeper’s chest. Gone in morning, but something left behind.

1923

107. Wall paper cracks off in sinister shape—man dies of fright.

108. Educated mulatto seeks to displace personality of white man and occupy his body.

109. Ancient negro voodoo wizard in cabin in swamp—possesses white man.

110. Antediluvian—Cyclopean ruins on lonely Pacific island. Centre of earthwide subterranean witch cult.

111. Ancient ruin in Alabama swamp—voodoo.

112. Man lives near graveyard—how does he live? Eats no food.

113. Biological-hereditary memories of other worlds and universes. Butler—God Known and Unk. p. 59.

114. Death lights dancing over a salt marsh.

115. Ancient castle within sound of weird waterfall—sound ceases for a time under strange conditions.

116. Prowling at night around an unlighted castle amidst strange scenery.

117. A secret living thing kept and fed in an old house.

1924

118. Something seen at oriel window of forbidden room in ancient manor house.

119. Art note—fantastick daemons of Salvator Rosa or Fuseli (trunk-proboscis).

120. Talking bird of great longevity—tells secret long afterward.

121. Photius tells of a (lost) writer named Damascius, who wrote “Incredible Fictions,” “Tales of Daemons,” “Marvellous Stories of Appearances from the Dead”.

122. Horrible things whispered in the lines of Gauthier de Metz (13th cen.) “Image du Monde”.

123. Dried-up man living for centuries in cataleptic state in ancient tomb.

124. Hideous secret assemblage at night in antique alley—disperse furtively one by one—one seen to drop something—a human hand—

125. Man abandon’d by ship—swimming in sea—pickt up hours later with strange story of undersea region he has visited—mad??

126. Castaways on island eat unknown vegetation and become strangely transformed.

127. Ancient and unknown ruins—strange and immortal bird who speaks in a language horrifying and revelatory to the explorers.

128. Individual, by some strange process, retraces the path of evolution and becomes amphibious.

1925

129. Marble Faun p. 346—strange and prehistorick Italian city of stone.

130. N.E. region call’d “Witches’ Hollow”—along course of a river. Rumours of witches’ sabbaths and Indian powwows on a broad mound rising out of the level where some old hemlocks and beeches formed a dark grove or daemon-temple. Legends hard to account for. Holmes—Guardian Angel.

131. Phosphorescence of decaying wood—called in New England “fox-fire”.

132. Mad artist in ancient sinister house draws things. What were his models? Glimpse.

133. Man has miniature shapeless Siamese twin—exhib. in circus—twin surgically detached—disappears—does hideous things with malign life of his own.

134. Witches’ Hollow novel? Man hired as teacher in private school misses road on first trip—encounters dark hollow with unnaturally swollen trees and small cottage (light in window?). Reaches school and hears that boys are forbidden to visit hollow. One boy is strange—teacher sees him visit hollow—odd doings—mysterious disappearance or hideous fate.

135. Hideous world superimposed on visible world—gate through—power guides narrator to ancient and forbidden book with directions for access.

136. A secret language spoken by a very few old men in a wild country leads to hidden marvels and terrors still surviving.

137. Strange man seen in lonely mountain place talking with great winged thing which flies away as others approach.

138. Someone or something cries in fright at sight of the rising moon, as if it were something strange.

139. DELRIO asks “An sint unquam daemones incubi et succubae, et an ex tali congressu proles nasci queat?” [Red Hook]

140. Explorer enters strange land where some atmospheric quality darkens the sky to virtual blackness—marvels therein.

1926

141. Footnote by Haggard or Lang in “The World’s Desire”: “Probably the mysterious and indecipherable ancient books, which were occasionally excavated in old Egypt, were written in this dead language of a more ancient and now forgotten people. Such was the book discovered at Coptos, in the ancient sanctuary there, by a priest of the Goddess. ‘The whole earth was dark, but the moon shone all about the Book.’ A scribe of the period of the Ramessids mentions another in indecipherable ancient writing. ‘Thou tellest me thou understandest no word of it, good or bad. There is, as it were, a wall about it that none may climb. Thou art instructed, yet thou knowest it not; this makes me afraid.’ Birch Zeitschrift 1871 pp. 61–64 Papyrus Anastasi I pl. X, l.8, pl. X l.4. Maspero, Hist. Anc. pp. 66–67.

142. Members of witch-cult were buried face downward. Man investigates ancestor in family tomb and finds disquieting condition.

143. Strange well in Arkham country—water gives out (or was never struck —hole kept tightly covered by a stone ever since dug)—no bottom—shunned and feared—what lay beneath (either unholy temple or other very ancient thing, or great cave-world).

144. Hideous book glimpsed in ancient shop—never seen again.

145. Horrible boarding house—closed door never opened.

146. Ancient lamp found in tomb—when filled and used, its light reveals strange world.

147. Any very ancient, unknown, or prehistoric object—its power of suggestion—forbidden memories.

148. Vampire dog. 

149. Evil alley or enclosed court in ancient city—Union or Milligan St. 

150. Visit to someone in wild and remote house—ride from station through the night—into the haunted hills—house by forest or water—terrible things live there.

151. Man forced to take shelter in strange house. Host has thick beard and dark glasses. Retires. In night guest rises and sees host’s clothes about—also mask which was the apparent face of whatever the host was. Flight.

152. Autonomic nervous system and subconscious mind do not reside in the head. Have mad physician decapitate a man but keep him alive and subconsciously controlled. Avoid copying tale by W. C. Morrow.

1928

153. Black cat on hill near dark gulf of ancient inn yard. Mew hoarsely—invites artist to nighted mysteries beyond. Finally dies at advanced age. Haunts dreams of artist—lures him to follow—strange outcome (never wakes up? or makes bizarre discovery of an elder world outside 3-dimensioned space?)

154. Trophonius—cave of. Vide Class. Dict. and Atlantic article.

155. Steepled town seen from afar at sunset—does not light up at night. Sail has been seen putting out to sea.

156. Adventures of a disembodied spirit—thro’ dim, half-familiar cities and over strange moors—thro’ space and time—other planets and universes in the end.

157. Vague lights, geometrical figures, etc., seen on retina when eyes are closed. Caus’d by rays from other dimensions acting on optick nerve? From other planets? Connected with a life or phase of being in which person could live if he only knew how to get there? Man afraid to shut eyes—he has been somewhere on a terrible pilgrimage and this fearsome seeing faculty remains.

158. Man has terrible wizard friend who gains influence over him. Kills him in defence of his soul—walls body up in ancient cellar—BUT—the dead wizard (who has said strange things about soul lingering in body) changes bodies with him . . . leaving him a conscious corpse in cellar.

159. Certain kind of deep-toned stately music of the style of the 1870’s or 1880’s recalls certain visions of that period—gas-litten parlours of the dead, moonlight on old floors, decaying business streets with gas lamps, etc.—under terrible circumstances.

160. Book which induces sleep on reading—cannot be read—determined man reads it—goes mad—precautions taken by aged initiate who knows—protection (as of author and translator) by incantation.

161. Time and space—past event—150 yrs ago—unexplained. Modern period—person intensely homesick for past says or does something which is psychically transmitted back and actually causes the past event.

162. Ultimate horror—grandfather returns from strange trip—mystery in house—wind and darkness—grandf. and mother engulfed—questions forbidden—somnolence—investigation—cataclysm—screams overheard—

163. Man whose money was obscurely made loses it. Tells his family he must go again to THE PLACE (horrible and sinister and extra-dimensional) where he got his gold. Hints of possible pursuers—or of his possible non-return. He goes—record of what happens to him—or what happens at his home when he returns. Perhaps connect with preceding topic. Give fantastic, quasi-Dunsanian treatment.

164. Man observed in a publick place with features (or ring or jewel) identified with those of man long (perhaps generations) buried. 

165. Terrible trip to an ancient and forgotten tomb.

166. Hideous family living in shadow in ancient castle by edge of wood near black cliffs and monstrous waterfall.

167. Boy rear’d in atmosphere of considerable mystery. Believes father dead. Suddenly is told that father is about to return. Strange preparations—consequences. 

168. Lonely bleak islands off N.E. coast. Horrors they harbour—outpost of cosmic influences.

169. What hatches from primordial egg.

170. Strange man in shadowy quarter of ancient city possesses something of immemorial archaic horror.

171. Hideous old book discovered—directions for shocking evocation.

1930

172. Pre-human idol found in desert.

173. Idol in museum moves in a certain way.

174. Migration of Lemmings—Atlantis. 

175. Little green Celtic figures dug up in an ancient Irish bog.

176. Man blindfolded and taken in closed cab or car to some very ancient and secret place.

177. The dreams of one man actually create a strange half-mad world of quasi-material substance in another dimension. Another man, also a dreamer, blunders into this world in a dream. What he finds. Intelligence of denizens. Their dependence on the first dreamer. What happens at his death.

178. A very ancient tomb in the deep woods near where a 17th century Virginia manor-house used to be. The undecayed, bloated thing found within.

179. Appearance of an ancient god in a lonely and archaic place—prob. temple ruin. Atmosphere of beauty rather than horror. Subtle handling—presence revealed by faint sound or shadow. Landscape changes? Seen by child? Impossible to reach or identify locale again?

180. A general house of horror—nameless crime—sounds—later tenants—(Flammarion) (novel length?).

181. Inhabitant of another world—face masked, perhaps with human skin or surgically alter’d human shape, but body alien beneath robes. Having reached earth, tries to mix with mankind. Hideous revelation. 

182. In ancient buried city a man finds a mouldering prehistoric document in English and in his own handwriting, telling an incredible tale. Voyage from present into past implied. Possible actualisation of this.

183. Reference in Egyptian papyrus to a secret of secrets under tomb of high-priest Ka-Nefer. Tomb finally found and identified—trap door in stone floor—staircase, and the illimitable black abyss.

184. Expedition lost in Antarctic or other weird place. Skeletons and effects found years later. Camera films used but undeveloped. Finders develop—and find strange horror.

185. Scene of an urban horror—Sous le Cap or Champlain Sts.—Quebec—rugged cliff-face—moss, mildew, dampness—houses half-burrowing into cliff.

186. Thing from sea—in dark house, man finds doorknobs etc. wet as from touch of something. He has been a sea-captain, and once found a strange temple on a volcanically risen island.

1931

187. Dream of awaking in vast hall of strange architecture, with sheet-covered forms on slabs—in positions similar to one’s own. Suggestions of disturbingly non-human outlines under sheets. One of the objects moves and throws off sheet—non-terrestrial being revealed. Sugg. that oneself is also such a being—mind has become transferred to body on other planet. 

188. Desert of rock—prehistoric door in cliff, in the valley around which lie the bones of uncounted billions of animals both modern and prehistoric—some of them puzzlingly gnawed.

189. Ancient necropolis—bronze door in hillside which opens as the moonlight strikes it—focussed by ancient lens in pylon opposite?

1932

190. Primal mummy in museum—awakes and changes place with visitor.

191. An odd wound appears on a man’s hand suddenly and without apparent cause. Spreads. Consequences.

1933

192. Thibetan ROLANG—Sorcerer (or NGAGSPA) reanimates a corpse by holding it in a dark room—lying on it mouth to mouth and repeating a magic formula with all else banished from his mind. Corpse slowly comes to life and stands up. Tries to escape—leaps, bounds, and struggles—but sorcerer holds it. Continues with magic formula. Corpse sticks out tongue and sorcerer bites it off. Corpse then collapses. Tongue become a valuable magic talisman. If corpse escapes—hideous results and death to sorcerer.

193. Strange book of horror discovered in ancient library. Paragraphs of terrible significance copies. Later unable to find and verify text. Perhaps discover body or image or charm under floor, in secret cupboard, or elsewhere. Idea that book was merely hypnotic delusion induced by dead brain or ancient magic.

194. Man enters (supposedly) own house in pitch dark. Feels way to room and shuts door behind him. Strange horrors—or turns on lights and finds alien place or presence. Or finds past restored or future indicated.

195. Pane of peculiar-looking glass from a ruined monastery reputed to have harboured devil-worship set up in modern house at edge of wild country. Landscape looks vaguely and unplaceably wrong through it. It has some unknown time-distorting quality, and comes from a primal, lost civilisation. Finally, hideous things in other world seen through it.

196. Daemons, when desiring an human form for evil purposes, take to themselves the bodies of hanged men.

197. Loss of memory and entry into a cloudy world of strange sights and experiences after shock, accident, reading of strange book, participation in strange rite, draught of strange brew, etc. Things seen have vague and disquieting familiarity. Emergence. Inability to retrace course.

1934

198. Distant tower visible from hillside window. Bats cluster thickly around it at night. Observer fascinated. One night wakes to find self on unknown black circular staircase. In tower? Hideous goal.

199. Black winged thing flies into one’s house at night. Cannot be found or identified—but subtle developments ensue.

200. Invisible Thing felt—or seen to make prints—on mountain top or other height, inaccessible place.

201. Planets form’d of invisible matter.

202. A monstrous derelict—found and boarded by a castaway or shipwreck survivor.

203. A return to a place under dreamlike, horrible, and only dimly comprehended circumstances. Death and decay reigning—town fails to light up at night—Revelation.

204. Disturbing conviction that all life is only a deceptive dream with some dismal or sinister horror lurking behind.

205. Person gazes out window and finds city and world dark and dead (or oddly changed) outside.

206. Trying to identify and visit the distant scenes dimly seen from one’s window—bizarre consequences.

207. Something snatched away from one in the dark—in a lonely, ancient, and generally shunned place.

208. (Dream of) some vehicle—railway train, coach, etc.—which is boarded in a stupor or fever, and which is a fragment of some past or ultra-dimensional world—taking the passenger out of reality—into vague, age-crumbled regions or unbelievable gulfs of marvel.

1935

209. Special Correspondence of NY Times—March 3, 1935 “Halifax, N.S.—Etched deeply into the face of an island which rises from the Atlantic surges off the S. coast of Nova Scotia 20 m. from Halifax is the strangest rock phenomenon which Canada boasts. Storm, sea, and frost have graven into the solid cliff of what has come to be known as Virgin’s Island an almost perfect outline of the Madonna with the Christ Child in her arms. The island has sheer and wave-bound sides, is a danger to ships, and is absolutely uninhabited. So far as is known, no human being has ever set foot on its shores.”

210. An ancient house with blackened pictures on the walls—so obscured that their subjects cannot be deciphered. Cleaning—and revelation. Cf. Hawthorne—Edw. Rand. Port.

211. Begin story with presence of narrator—inexplicable to himself—in utterly alien and terrifying scenes (dream?).

212. Strange human being (or beings) living in some ancient house or ruins far from populous district (either old N.E. or far exotic land). Suspicion (based on shape and habits) that it is not all human.

213. Ancient winter woods—moss—great boles—twisted branches—dark—ribbed roots—always dripping. . . .

214. Talking rock of Africa—immemorially ancient oracle in desolate jungle ruins that speaks with a voice out of the aeons. 

215. Man with lost memory in strange, imperfectly comprehended environment. Fears to regain memory—a glimpse. . . .

216. Man idly shapes a queer image—some power impels him to make it queerer than he understands. Throws it away in disgust—but something is abroad in the night.

217. Ancient (Roman? prehistoric?) stone bridge washed away by a (sudden and curious?) storm. Something liberated which had been sealed up in the masonry of years ago. Things happen.

218. Mirage in time—image of long-vanish’d pre-human city.

219. Fog or smoke—assumes shaped under incantations.

220. Bell of some ancient church or castle rung by some unknown hand—a thing . . . or an invisible Presence.

221. Insects or other entities from space attack and penetrate a man’s head and cause him to remember alien and exotic things—possible displacement of personality.

#prompts #fic prompts #rp prompts #starters #rp starters #drabble prompts #lovecraft #cw: horror #cw: death #cw: body horror #ooc? what's ooc?

[harrelltut]

Lo!… JEHOVAH OKCULT BIBLE [JOB] WIZARD Me [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] from the Ægyptian [JE = JESÚS = EL CHRISTO NEGRO] OCCULT MILITARY [NOM = NOMMO] RELIGION of Inner Earth’s [HADES] Most Darkest [Occulted] GOLDEN 9 Ether Subterranean Energy AGHARTA [SEA] KINGDOM PRIESTHOOD of Ægyptian HITTITE SUN Queen Tiye's [MAMA T's  = TIAMAT’s] Hi:teKEMETICompu_TAH [PTAH] MOTHERSHIP [PM] NIBIRU… since iBEE ENQI NUDIMMUD's Biblically Ancient [BABYLONIAN] FUTURISTIC 9 Ether ALUHUM ANUNNAQI CHRIST MESSENGER who Intuitively [MI = MICHAEL] Internalize the TELEPATHIC Understanding of THEOCRATIC [iTUT] DYNASTY [I.D.] Languages of SIRIUS Astronomically Intelligent ANUNNAKI [AIA = AMÚN] SUN GOD [RA] PHYSICS [RAPS] from Interstellar 9 [i9] Ether Planet RIZQ's 8th Tri-Solar SUN Systems of UTU + AFSU + SHAMASH Coordinates Generated by the Interactive [CGI] QUANTUM HARRELL TECH [QHT] SKY DOME Compu_TAH [PTAH] of Immortal DEATH [I.D.] GOD OSIRIS… who Intuitively + Mentally & Ancestrally COMPREHEND [iMAC] My [I’M] Highly Complex [ADVANCED] Ancient 9 Ether Cosmic Algorithmic [CA] Computation [Compton] STAR Mathematics Engineering [ME] Intergalactic MANIFESTATIONS of ACCELERATED Celestial [iMAC] SKY Mechanics from the EXTRAGALACTIC [ME] BETELGEUSE MOON Universe [MU] of the AUGMENTED RIGEL STAR [MARS] UNIVERSE [MU] of Interactive [MI = MICHAEL] 9 Ether Geometrical Objects on Digital [GOD] Cloud Networks ILLUMINATING MESOAMÉRICA’s [I’M] 9 Ether Antediluvian 900 A.D. MU America [MA = ATLANTIS]… 200 MILLION AZTECAN Years Ahead [MAYA] of Lost 2022 [VI] America

MU:13

#quantumharrelltech #6G QHT AT&T #MU:13 Occult Tech Illuminati #QUEEN TIYE #kingtutdna #QUEENTIYEDNA #U CAN'T HANDLE THIS ESOTERIC TRUTH!!! #2022 9 ETHER CHRIST OF MU

[forsoothsayer]

Venetian Interior, 1889 by Richard Howard

   for David Kalstone

Stand to one side. No, over here with me:   out of the light but out of darkness too,   where everything that is not odd or old is gold and subjugates the shadows. There,   now you will be no trouble and behold none— anything but trouble, at first glance, last chance to see what I say is worth a look. This whole palazzo is the property of a middle-aged and penniless dilettante, Pen Browning (Robert’s son), who has made terms   —palatial terms, in fact—with towering premises afforded by the tact of his New York heiress, Fannie Coddington   Browning, dutiful daughter-in-law, doubtful wife. Yet who would not be full of doubts, perplexed   at having to define Pen’s talents and finance his tastes? Their Ca’ Rezzonico itself is dubious. The ripened fruit of centuries, rat- and roach-infested, peeling, rank, withers with each tide that rots the piles, though apt withal to weather these tenants as well ... He is painting from the model: Dryope, undressed of course but draped against the draft   in a looping swathe of silver-printed stuff   that seems to move, glistening over flesh— it does move! lapped in its silver mesh are coils   of a python wrapped in loving torpor round   the contadina’s undistracted torso. The afternoon is numb: Dryope sleeps   in her pose, the python slips a little down the umber slope of her thigh, and Pen,   spired, slaps a dashing curlicue across his canvas. “I had the Jew come by   with this brocaded velvet yesterday— I bargained some old clothes against it, Fan, so you needn’t ask how much it cost in dollars.” To whom does Pen speak, his eyes intent, his hands   “working busily”? Beyond his “subject,” look   past the unimposing Dryope, look through the tufts of pampas grass extending up to the tufa vault whose patination casts a pall of watery splendor on the scene— if you manage to overlook the sumptuous junk,   jasper urns, a suit of Japanese armor, two stuffed bears, on the divan bearskins too—   there, or in this atmosphere let me say lo! on that very divan Robert Browning lolls, a short and foreshortened colossus with feet of clay   but the hardest imaginable cranium, among his son’s possessions slightly ill at ease though well bestowed on slippery pelts, and plays (against the wealthy Fannie—see her white shawl?) at draughts with agate pieces, red and green, like a page from some old parchment of kings and queens.   In approbation of his son’s economies   the old man smiles now—but does she? The skull interfering with our view of Fannie is, I believe, or was the Mahdi’s which Pen keeps   beside his easel (Victorians could make   anything into a tobacco jar). “I took my pipe through Cannareggio on a long tramp   yesterday morning, right into the Ghetto,   looking for likely faces, which I found! Didn’t you say, Father, a satisfactory Jew is worth a dozen Gentiles? The one who sold   that velvet to me is sure to be ready by Spring:   for Lear, you know, or Lazarus at least ...”   Pen chatters on to charm the python, not   Dryope or Fannie who look up only when the poet, roused, exclaims— as rapt before himself as a child in front   of the Christmas tree: “A satisfactory Jew!   Setting mere Rothschildsplay aside, Pen,   I never saw but one in all my life: Dizzy, I mean—the potent wizard himself,   at Hampton Court a dozen years ago,   murmuring at the Queen’s ear like a wasp who hoped to buzz his way into the diamonds ...   With that olive cast and those glowing-coal-black eyes   and the mighty dome of his forehead (to be sure,   no Christian temple), as unlike a living man as any waxwork at Madame Tussaud’s: he had a face more mocking than a domino— I would as soon have thought of sitting down to tea with Hamlet or Ahasuerus ...” As if on cue, the poet’s high voice fades, the lights on his tree go out. Yet we have seen   enough and heard enough: the secret of losing   listeners—did Browning never learn?— is to tell them everything. We lose details.   The Mahdi’s skull and Fannie’s coincide ... The scene blurs and the sounds become no more   than exaggerated silence. Stand with me another moment till our presence is sacrificed to transitions altogether. Time will not console—at best it orders into a kind of seasonable chaos. Let me tell you, it will not take much longer than a medical prescription— give you ingredients, no cure ...   Visitors to the palazzo used to speak of the dangerous ménage—the menagerie!   yet the Costa Rican python that cost Pen (or Fannie) sixteen pounds was the first to go,   untempted by the rats of Rezzonico; Dryope followed Dryope underground,   the girl carried off by a chill and buried   at San Michele, the great daub interred   in the cellars of the Metropolitan ... “Dear dead women, with such hair, too,”   we quote, and notice that hair is the first of ourselves to decay before—last after—death. In a year Robert Browning too was dead, immortal;   in another, Fannie dropped her shawl and took   the veil and vows of an Episcopalian nun; and Pen? Oh, Pen went on painting, of course— buono di cuore, in yellow chamois gloves, obese, oblivious, dithering into debt and an easy death. The sale of what we saw or saw through in Venice realized, as they say,   some thirty thousand pounds at Sotheby’s.   I told you: first glance is last chance. Darkness slides over the waters—oil sludge   spreading under, till even Venice dies, immortally immerded. Earth has no other way,   our provisional earth, than to become invisible in us and rise again. Rezzonico ... Disraeli ... We realize our task.   It is to print earth so deep in memory that a meaning reaches the surface. Nothing but   darkness abides, darkness demanding not   illumination—not from the likes of us— but only that we yield. And we yield.

#richard howard #american poetry

[sainterly]

Excerpts from H. P. Lovecraft’s commonplace book.

This book consists of ideas, images, & quotations hastily jotted down for possible future use in weird fiction. Very few are actually developed plots—for the most part they are merely suggestions or random impressions designed to set the memory or imagination working. Their sources are various—dreams, things read, casual incidents, idle conceptions, & so on.

—H. P. Lovecraft

-

4 Horror Story Man dreams of falling—found on floor mangled as tho’ from falling from a vast height.

5 Narrator walks along unfamiliar country road,—comes to strange region of the unreal.

“Here we have fetter’d and manacled Time, who wou’d otherwise slay the Gods.”

7 Horror Story The sculptured hand—or other artificial hand—which strangles its creator.

8 Hor. Sto. Man makes appt. with old enemy. Dies—body keeps appt.

11 Odd nocturnal ritual. Beasts dance and march to musick. 

12 Happenings in interval between preliminary sound and striking of clock—ending—

“it was the tones of the clock striking three”.

13 House and garden—old—associations. Scene takes on strange aspect.

14 Hideous sound in the dark.

15 Bridge and slimy black waters. [Fungi—The Canal]

17 Doors found mysteriously open and shut etc.—excite terror.

20 Man journeys into the past—or imaginative realm—leaving bodily shell behind.

21 A very ancient colossus in a very ancient desert. Face gone—no man hath seen it.

23 The man who would not sleep—dares not sleep—takes drugs to keep himself awake. Finally falls asleep—and something happens. Motto from Baudelaire p. 214.  [Hypnos]

24 Dunsany—Go-By Street Man stumbles on dream world—returns to earth—seeks to go back—succeeds, but finds dream world ancient and decayed as though by thousands of years.

1919

25 Man visits museum of antiquities—asks that it accept a bas-relief he has just made—old and learned curator laughs and says he cannot accept anything so modern. Man says that

‘dreams are older than brooding Egypt or the contemplative Sphinx or garden-girdled Babylonia’

and that he had fashioned the sculpture in his dreams. Curator bids him shew his product, and when he does so curator shews horror. Asks who the man may be. He tells modern name. “No—before that” says curator. Man does not remember except in dreams. Then curator offers high price, but man fears he means to destroy sculpture. Asks fabulous price—curator will consult directors.

Add good development and describe nature of bas-relief.

27 Life and Death Death—its desolation and horror—bleak spaces—sea-bottom—dead cities. But Life—the greater horror! Vast unheard-of reptiles and leviathans—hideous beasts of prehistoric jungle—rank slimy vegetation—evil instincts of primal man—Life is more horrible than death.

28 The Cats of Ulthar The cat is the soul of antique Ægyptus and bearer of tales from forgotten cities of Meroë and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle’s lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten.

29 Dream of Seekonk—ebbing tide—bolt from sky—exodus from Providence—fall of Congregational dome.

30 Strange visit to a place at night—moonlight—castle of great magnificence etc. Daylight shews either abandonment or unrecognisable ruins—perhaps of vast antiquity.

31 Prehistoric man preserved in Siberian ice. (See Winchell—Walks and Talks in the Geological field—p. 156 et seq.)

32 As dinosaurs were once surpassed by mammals, so will man-mammal be surpassed by insect or bird—fall of man before the new race.

33 Determinism and prophecy.

34 Moving away from earth more swiftly than light—past gradually unfolded—horrible revelation.

37 Peculiar odour of a book of childhood induces repetition of childhood fancy.

38 Drowning sensations—undersea—cities—ships—souls of the dead. Drowning is a horrible death.

39 Sounds—possibly musical—heard in the night from other worlds or realms of being.

40 Warning that certain ground is sacred or accursed; that a house or city must not be built upon it—or must be abandoned or destroyed if built, under penalty of catastrophe.

41 The Italians call Fear La figlia della Morte—the daughter of Death.

42 Fear of mirrors—memory of dream in which scene is altered and climax is hideous surprise at seeing oneself in the water or a mirror. (Identity?)

44 Castle by pool or river—reflection fixed thro’ centuries—castle destroyed, reflection lives to avenge destroyers weirdly.

45 Race of immortal Pharaohs dwelling beneath pyramids in vast subterranean halls down black staircases.

Visitor from tomb—stranger at some publick concourse followed at midnight to graveyard where he descends into the earth.

47 From Arabia Encyc. Britan. II—255

Prehistoric fabulous tribes of Ad in the south, Thamood in the north, and Tasm and Jadis in the centre of the peninsula. “Very gorgeous are the descriptions given of Irem, the City of Pillars (as the Koran styles it) supposed to have been erected by Shedad, the latest despot of Ad, in the regions of Hadramaut, and which yet, after the annihilation of its tenants, remains entire, so Arabs say, invisible to ordinary eyes, but occasionally and at rare intervals, revealed to some heaven-favoured traveller.” // Rock excavations in N.W. Hejaz ascribed to Thamood tribe.

48 Cities wiped out by supernatural wrath.

49 AZATHOTH—hideous name.

50 Phleg′-e-thon—

a river of liquid fire in Hades.

51 Enchanted garden where moon casts shadow of object or ghost invisible to the human eye.

52 Calling on the dead—voice or familiar sound in adjacent room.

53 Hand of dead man writes.

54 Transposition of identity.

55 Man followed by invisible thing.

56 Book or MS. too horrible to read—warned against reading it—someone reads and is found dead. Haverhill incident.

57 Sailing or rowing on lake in moonlight—sailing into invisibility.

58 A queer village—in a valley, reached by a long road and visible from the crest of the hill from which that road descends—or close to a dense and antique forest.

59 Man in strange subterranean chamber—seeks to force door of bronze—overwhelmed by influx of waters.

60 Fisherman casts his net into the sea by moonlight—what he finds.

62 Live man buried in bridge masonry according to superstition—or black cat.

64 Identity—reconstruction of personality—man makes duplicate of himself.

65 Riley’s fear of undertakers—door locked on inside after death.

66 Catacombs discovered beneath a city (in America?).

67 An impression—city in peril—dead city—equestrian statue—men in closed room—clattering of hooves heard from outside—marvel disclosed on looking out—doubtful ending.

68 Murder discovered—body located—by psychological detective who pretends he has made walls of room transparent. Works on fear of murderer.

69 Man with unnatural face—oddity of speaking—found to be a mask—Revelation.

70 Tone of extreme phantasy Man transformed to island or mountain.

71 Man has sold his soul to devil—returns to family from trip—life afterward—fear—culminating horror—novel length.

75 Black Mass under antique church.

76 Ancient cathedral—hideous gargoyle—man seeks to rob—found dead—gargoyle’s jaw bloody.

77 Unspeakable dance of the gargoyles—in morning several gargoyles on old cathedral found transposed.

78 Wandering thro’ labyrinth of narrow slum streets—come on distant light—unheard-of rites of swarming beggars—like Court of Miracles in Notre Dame de Paris.

79 Horrible secret in crypt of ancient castle—discovered by dweller.

80 Shapeless living thing forming nucleus of ancient building.

81 Marblehead—dream—burying hill—evening—unreality.

82 Power of wizard to influence dreams of others.

1920

83 Quotation “. . . a defunct nightmare, which had perished in the midst of its wickedness, and left its flabby corpse on the breast of the tormented one, to be gotten rid of as it might.”—Hawthorne

84 Hideous cracked discords of bass musick from (ruin’d) organ in (abandon’d) abbey or cathedral.

85 “For has not Nature, too, her grotesques—the rent rock, the distorting lights of evening on lonely roads, the unveiled structure of man in the embryo, or the skeleton?”

Pater—Renaissance (da Vinci).

86 To find something horrible in a (perhaps familiar) book, and not to be able to find it again.

87 Borellus says, “that the Essential Salts of animals may be so prepared and preserved, that an ingenious man may have the whole ark of Noah in his own Study, and raise the fine shape of an animal out of its ashes at his pleasure; and that by the like method from the Essential Salts of humane dust, a Philosopher may, without any criminal necromancy, call up the shape of any dead ancestor from the dust whereinto his body has been incinerated.” [Charles Dexter Ward]

88 Lonely philosopher fond of cat. Hypnotises it—as it were—by repeatedly talking to it and looking at it. After his death the cat evinces signs of possessing his personality. N.B. He has trained cat, and leaves it to a friend, with instructions as to fitting a pen to its right fore paw by means of a harness. Later writes with deceased’s own handwriting.

89 Lone lagoons and swamps of Louisiana—death daemon—ancient house and gardens—moss-grown trees—festoons of Spanish moss.

1922?

92 Man’s body dies—but corpse retains life. Stalks about—tries to conceal odour of decay—detained somewhere—hideous climax.

93 A place one has been—a beautiful view of a village or farm-dotted valley in the sunset—which one cannot find again or locate in memory.

94 Change comes over the sun—shews objects in strange form, perhaps restoring landscape of the past.

95 Horrible Colonial farmhouse and overgrown garden on city hillside—overtaken by growth. Verse “The House” as basis of story.

96 Unknown fires seen across the hills at night.

97 Blind fear of a certain woodland hollow where streams writhe among crooked roots, and where on a buried altar terrible sacrifices have occur’d—Phosphorescence of dead trees. Ground bubbles.

98 Hideous old house on steep city hillside—Bowen St.—beckons in the night—black windows—horror unnam’d—cold touch and voice—the welcome of the dead.

1923

99 Salem story—the cottage of an aged witch—wherein after her death are found sundry terrible things.

100 Subterranean region beneath placid New England village, inhabited by (living or extinct) creatures of prehistoric antiquity and strangeness.

101 Hideous secret society—widespread—horrible rites in caverns under familiar scenes—one’s own neighbour may belong.

102 Corpse in room performs some act—prompted by discussion in its presence. Tears up or hides will, etc.

104 Old sea tavern now far inland from made land. Strange occurrences—sound of lapping of waves—

105 Vampire visits man in ancestral abode—is his own father.

106 A thing that sat on a sleeper’s chest. Gone in morning, but something left behind.

1923

107 Wall paper cracks off in sinister shape—man dies of fright.

110 Antediluvian—Cyclopean ruins on lonely Pacific island. Centre of earthwide subterranean witch cult.

112 Man lives near graveyard—how does he live? Eats no food.

113 Biological-hereditary memories of other worlds and universes. Butler—God Known and Unk. p. 59.

114 Death lights dancing over a salt marsh.

115 Ancient castle within sound of weird waterfall—sound ceases for a time under strange conditions.

116 Prowling at night around an unlighted castle amidst strange scenery.

117 A secret living thing kept and fed in an old house.

1924

118 Something seen at oriel window of forbidden room in ancient manor house.

120 Talking bird of great longevity—tells secret long afterward.

123 Dried-up man living for centuries in cataleptic state in ancient tomb.

124 Hideous secret assemblage at night in antique alley—disperse furtively one by one—one seen to drop something—a human hand—

125 Man abandon’d by ship—swimming in sea—pickt up hours later with strange story of undersea region he has visited—mad??

126 Castaways on island eat unknown vegetation and become strangely transformed.

127 Ancient and unknown ruins—strange and immortal bird who speaks in a language horrifying and revelatory to the explorers.

128 Individual, by some strange process, retraces the path of evolution and becomes amphibious.

Dr. insists that the particular amphibian from which man descends is not like any known to palaeontology. To prove it, indulges in (or relates) strange experiment.

1925

129 Marble Faun p. 346—strange and prehistorick Italian city of stone.

131 Phosphorescence of decaying wood—called in New England “fox-fire”.

132 Mad artist in ancient sinister house draws things. What were his models? Glimpse.

133 Man has miniature shapeless Siamese twin—exhib. in circus—twin surgically detached—disappears—does hideous things with malign life of his own.

134 Witches’ Hollow novel? Man hired as teacher in private school misses road on first trip—encounters dark hollow with unnaturally swollen trees and small cottage (light in window?). Reaches school and hears that boys are forbidden to visit hollow. One boy is strange—teacher sees him visit hollow—odd doings—mysterious disappearance or hideous fate.

135 Hideous world superimposed on visible world—gate through—power guides narrator to ancient and forbidden book with directions for access.

136 A secret language spoken by a very few old men in a wild country leads to hidden marvels and terrors still surviving.

137 Strange man seen in lonely mountain place talking with great winged thing which flies away as others approach.

138 Someone or something cries in fright at sight of the rising moon, as if it were something strange.

140 Explorer enters strange land where some atmospheric quality darkens the sky to virtual blackness—marvels therein.

1926

141 Footnote by Haggard or Lang in “The World’s Desire”

“Probably the mysterious and indecipherable ancient books, which were occasionally excavated in old Egypt, were written in this dead language of a more ancient and now forgotten people. Such was the book discovered at Coptos, in the ancient sanctuary there, by a priest of the Goddess. ‘The whole earth was dark, but the moon shone all about the Book.’ A scribe of the period of the Ramessids mentions another in indecipherable ancient writing. ‘Thou tellest me thou understandest no word of it, good or bad. There is, as it were, a wall about it that none may climb. Thou art instructed, yet thou knowest it not; this makes me afraid.’

“Birch Zeitschrift 1871 pp. 61–64 Papyrus Anastasi I pl. X, l.8, pl. X l.4. Maspero, Hist. Anc. pp. 66–67.”

142 Members of witch-cult were buried face downward. Man investigates ancestor in family tomb and finds disquieting condition.

143 Strange well in Arkham country—water gives out (or was never struck —hole kept tightly covered by a stone ever since dug)—no bottom—shunned and feared—what lay beneath (either unholy temple or other very ancient thing, or great cave-world).

144 Hideous book glimpsed in ancient shop—never seen again.

145 Horrible boarding house—closed door never opened.

146 Ancient lamp found in tomb—when filled and used, its light reveals strange world.

147 Any very ancient, unknown, or prehistoric object—its power of suggestion—forbidden memories.

148 Vampire dog.

149 Evil alley or enclosed court in ancient city—Union or Milligan St.

150 Visit to someone in wild and remote house—ride from station through the night—into the haunted hills—house by forest or water—terrible things live there.

151 Man forced to take shelter in strange house. Host has thick beard and dark glasses. Retires. In night guest rises and sees host’s clothes about—also mask which was the apparent face of whatever the host was. Flight.

1928

153 Black cat on hill near dark gulf of ancient inn yard. Mew hoarsely—invites artist to nighted mysteries beyond. Finally dies at advanced age. Haunts dreams of artist—lures him to follow—strange outcome (never wakes up? or makes bizarre discovery of an elder world outside 3-dimensioned space?)

155 Steepled town seen from afar at sunset—does not light up at night. Sail has been seen putting out to sea.

156 Adventures of a disembodied spirit—thro’ dim, half-familiar cities and over strange moors—thro’ space and time—other planets and universes in the end.

157 Vague lights, geometrical figures, etc., seen on retina when eyes are closed. Caus’d by rays from other dimensions acting on optick nerve? From other planets? Connected with a life or phase of being in which person could live if he only knew how to get there? Man afraid to shut eyes—he has been somewhere on a terrible pilgrimage and this fearsome seeing faculty remains.

158 Man has terrible wizard friend who gains influence over him. Kills him in defence of his soul—walls body up in ancient cellar—BUT—the dead wizard (who has said strange things about soul lingering in body) changes bodies with him . . . leaving him a conscious corpse in cellar.

159 Certain kind of deep-toned stately music of the style of the 1870’s or 1880’s recalls certain visions of that period—gas-litten parlours of the dead, moonlight on old floors, decaying business streets with gas lamps, etc.—under terrible circumstances.

160 Book which induces sleep on reading—cannot be read—determined man reads it—goes mad—precautions taken by aged initiate who knows—protection (as of author and translator) by incantation.

161 Time and space—past event—150 yrs ago—unexplained. Modern period—person intensely homesick for past says or does something which is psychically transmitted back and actually causes the past event.

162 Ultimate horror—grandfather returns from strange trip—mystery in house—wind and darkness—grandf. and mother engulfed—questions forbidden—somnolence—investigation—cataclysm—screams overheard—

163 Man whose money was obscurely made loses it. Tells his family he must go again to THE PLACE (horrible and sinister and extra-dimensional) where he got his gold. Hints of possible pursuers—or of his possible non-return. He goes—record of what happens to him—or what happens at his home when he returns. Perhaps connect with preceding topic. Give fantastic, quasi-Dunsanian treatment.

164 Man observed in a publick place with features (or ring or jewel) identified with those of man long (perhaps generations) buried.

165 Terrible trip to an ancient and forgotten tomb.

166 Hideous family living in shadow in ancient castle by edge of wood near black cliffs and monstrous waterfall.

167 Boy rear’d in atmosphere of considerable mystery. Believes father dead. Suddenly is told that father is about to return. Strange preparations—consequences.

168 Lonely bleak islands off N.E. coast. Horrors they harbour—outpost of cosmic influences.

169 What hatches from primordial egg.

170 Strange man in shadowy quarter of ancient city possesses something of immemorial archaic horror.

1930

172 Pre-human idol found in desert.

173 Idol in museum moves in a certain way.

175 Little green Celtic figures dug up in an ancient Irish bog.

176 Man blindfolded and taken in closed cab or car to some very ancient and secret place.

177 The dreams of one man actually create a strange half-mad world of quasi-material substance in another dimension. Another man, also a dreamer, blunders into this world in a dream. What he finds. Intelligence of denizens. Their dependence on the first dreamer. What happens at his death.

178 A very ancient tomb in the deep woods near where a 17th century Virginia manor-house used to be. The undecayed, bloated thing found within.

179 Appearance of an ancient god in a lonely and archaic place—prob. temple ruin. Atmosphere of beauty rather than horror. Subtle handling—presence revealed by faint sound or shadow. Landscape changes? Seen by child? Impossible to reach or identify locale again?

182 In ancient buried city a man finds a mouldering prehistoric document in English and in his own handwriting, telling an incredible tale. Voyage from present into past implied. Possible actualisation of this.

183 Reference in Egyptian papyrus to a secret of secrets under tomb of high-priest Ka-Nefer. Tomb finally found and identified—trap door in stone floor—staircase, and the illimitable black abyss.

184 Expedition lost in Antarctic or other weird place. Skeletons and effects found years later. Camera films used but undeveloped. Finders develop—and find strange horror.

185 Scene of an urban horror—Sous le Cap or Champlain Sts.—Quebec—rugged cliff-face—moss, mildew, dampness—houses half-burrowing into cliff.

186 Thing from sea—in dark house, man finds doorknobs etc. wet as from touch of something. He has been a sea-captain, and once found a strange temple on a volcanically risen island.

1931

187 Dream of awaking in vast hall of strange architecture, with sheet-covered forms on slabs—in positions similar to one’s own. Suggestions of disturbingly non-human outlines under sheets. One of the objects moves and throws off sheet—non-terrestrial being revealed. Sugg. that oneself is also such a being—mind has become transferred to body on other planet.

188 Desert of rock—prehistoric door in cliff, in the valley around which lie the bones of uncounted billions of animals both modern and prehistoric—some of them puzzlingly gnawed.

189 Ancient necropolis—bronze door in hillside which opens as the moonlight strikes it—focussed by ancient lens in pylon opposite?

1932

190 Primal mummy in museum—awakes and changes place with visitor.

191 An odd wound appears on a man’s hand suddenly and without apparent cause. Spreads. Consequences.

1933

192 Thibetan ROLANG—Sorcerer (or NGAGSPA) reanimates a corpse by holding it in a dark room—lying on it mouth to mouth and repeating a magic formula with all else banished from his mind. Corpse slowly comes to life and stands up. Tries to escape—leaps, bounds, and struggles—but sorcerer holds it. Continues with magic formula. Corpse sticks out tongue and sorcerer bites it off. Corpse then collapses. Tongue become a valuable magic talisman. If corpse escapes—hideous results and death to sorcerer.

193 Strange book of horror discovered in ancient library. Paragraphs of terrible significance copies. Later unable to find and verify text. Perhaps discover body or image or charm under floor, in secret cupboard, or elsewhere. Idea that book was merely hypnotic delusion induced by dead brain or ancient magic.

194 Man enters (supposedly) own house in pitch dark. Feels way to room and shuts door behind him. Strange horrors—or turns on lights and finds alien place or presence. Or finds past restored or future indicated.

195 Pane of peculiar-looking glass from a ruined monastery reputed to have harboured devil-worship set up in modern house at edge of wild country. Landscape looks vaguely and unplaceably wrong through it. It has some unknown time-distorting quality, and comes from a primal, lost civilisation. Finally, hideous things in other world seen through it.

196 Daemons, when desiring an human form for evil purposes, take to themselves the bodies of hanged men.

197 Loss of memory and entry into a cloudy world of strange sights and experiences after shock, accident, reading of strange book, participation in strange rite, draught of strange brew, etc. Things seen have vague and disquieting familiarity. Emergence. Inability to retrace course.

1934

198 Distant tower visible from hillside window. Bats cluster thickly around it at night. Observer fascinated. One night wakes to find self on unknown black circular staircase. In tower? Hideous goal.

199 Black winged thing flies into one’s house at night. Cannot be found or identified—but subtle developments ensue.

200 Invisible Thing felt—or seen to make prints—on mountain top or other height, inaccessible place.

201 Planets form’d of invisible matter.

202 A monstrous derelict—found and boarded by a castaway or shipwreck survivor.

203 A return to a place under dreamlike, horrible, and only dimly comprehended circumstances. Death and decay reigning—town fails to light up at night—Revelation.

204 Disturbing conviction that all life is only a deceptive dream with some dismal or sinister horror lurking behind.

205 Person gazes out window and finds city and world dark and dead (or oddly changed) outside.

206 Trying to identify and visit the distant scenes dimly seen from one’s window—bizarre consequences.

207 Something snatched away from one in the dark—in a lonely, ancient, and generally shunned place.

208 (Dream of) some vehicle—railway train, coach, etc.—which is boarded in a stupor or fever, and which is a fragment of some past or ultra-dimensional world—taking the passenger out of reality—into vague, age-crumbled regions or unbelievable gulfs of marvel.

1935

209 Special Correspondence of NY Times—March 3, 1935

“Halifax, N.S.—Etched deeply into the face of an island which rises from the Atlantic surges off the S. coast of Nova Scotia 20 m. from Halifax is the strangest rock phenomenon which Canada boasts. Storm, sea, and frost have graven into the solid cliff of what has come to be known as Virgin’s Island an almost perfect outline of the Madonna with the Christ Child in her arms.

The island has sheer and wave-bound sides, is a danger to ships, and is absolutely uninhabited. So far as is known, no human being has ever set foot on its shores.”

210 An ancient house with blackened pictures on the walls—so obscured that their subjects cannot be deciphered. Cleaning—and revelation.

213 Ancient winter woods—moss—great boles—twisted branches—dark—ribbed roots—always dripping. . . .

214 Talking rock of Africa—immemorially ancient oracle in desolate jungle ruins that speaks with a voice out of the aeons.

215 Man with lost memory in strange, imperfectly comprehended environment. Fears to regain memory—a glimpse. . . .

216 Man idly shapes a queer image—some power impels him to make it queerer than he understands. Throws it away in disgust—but something is abroad in the night.

217 Ancient (Roman? prehistoric?) stone bridge washed away by a (sudden and curious?) storm. Something liberated which had been sealed up in the masonry of years ago. Things happen.

218 Mirage in time—image of long-vanish’d pre-human city.

219 Fog or smoke—assumes shaped under incantations.

220 Bell of some ancient church or castle rung by some unknown hand—a thing . . . or an invisible Presence.

#like wine through water #what do i even tag this as?

[hogwartslessons-blog]

Herbology| Wednesday. June 13th, 2018| Lesson Three: Wand Woods and Where to Find Them

A wand is made up of one wood and one core.  Some wands do have two cores, but no more, because more can cause a fatal backfire! It is also not possible to blend wood together to make a hybrid wood, however, a wand may contain a handle of one type of wood and a body of another. The handle represents the heart of the witch or wizard, whereas the wand represents their outward appearance. The best cores are unicorn hair, dragonheart string and phoenix feather.  These cores are the most stable, though other cores are used, such as thestral hair and kelpie hair.

Wands come in different flexibility.  They are ranked in order from speed to strength.  Whippy is the easiest to learn to use and cast spells, but the least powerful, whereas unyielding is the hardest to learn and cast but the most powerful. The scale, from speed to strength is:  whippy, swishy, flexible, springy, sturdy, inflexible, rigid, and unyielding.

The Celtic Tree Calendar

The Celtic Tree Calendar is divided into thirteen lunar divisions, instead of the twelve month calendar that the muggles use. This is because there are 13 full moons in one year. The calendar is based on the letters in the Ancient Celtic Ogham alphabet, where the letters correspond to the name of trees.      

1.       Birch (Beth) - December 24 to January 20

Birch trees (Betula betulaceae) correspond with the ancient Celtic letter, Beth, and are found in the northern hemisphere in relatively moderate climates.  They are small to medium-sized deciduous trees (loses their leaves in Autumn). The broad leaves of these trees often appear in pairs.  The seeds are winged and often called 'keys' or helicopters'.  The bark, which peels off laterally, is white and papery. Three-flowered cone-liked clusters of white, yellow and brown, 3 to 6 mm, can be seen opening with or before the leaves bud.  They grow in light, well-drained, acidic soil.  They are a pioneer species, meaning that they are the first to colonize a damaged ecosystem and after a forest burning, they are the first to grow back.

A wand made of birch is useful in healing, as well as fighting Dementors as it will produce a strong Patronus. These wands are for sale in Hogsmeade, and not in Diagon Alley.

 2.       Rowan (Luis) - January 21 to February 17

Rowan trees (Sorbus rosaceae) are found in cooler moderate climates in the northern hemisphere as well as in the mountains of China and the Himalayas. They are a small deciduous tree, 10 to 20 meters tall that can withstand windy areas. Leaves are arranged alternately (not beside each other on the branch) and the flowers are white with five petals. The fruit is a berry, 4 to 8 mm, that is orange or red, but sometimes pink, yellow or white in the Asian species. Rowan trees grow in well-drained acidic, peaty (partially decayed vegetation) soil.  A magical variety of the Rowan Tree is the Wiggentree.

As a wand, Rowan is reliable and protective and is useful for Charms and Transfiguration. There is an old rhyme that says ' Rowan gossips, Chestnuts drone, Ash are stubborn, Hazel moans'. Its ideal owner is clear headed and pure of heart.

 3.       Ash (Nion) - February 18 to March 17

Ash trees (Fraxinus oleaceae) are mostly deciduous trees, but there are a few subtropical evergreen species. Altogether, there are about 45 to 65 species of Ash, which can be found in Europe, Asia Minor and North Africa. They are medium to large trees, growing up to 40 meters in height. Their branches grow opposite to each other. Their leaves are made up of feathery leaflets and provide a light domed canopy over the ground.  Its seeds are 'helicopters'. While they can grow in a variety of soils, they prefer deep, moist, well-draining, fertile soils on the northern and eastern sides of hills.

As wandwood, Ash is useful in Transfiguration and Divination. Its ideal owner is stubborn, but courageous. Unfortunately, this wand cannot be gifted to another or it will lose its power.

 4.       Alder (Fearn) - March 18 to April 14

Alder trees (Alnusy betulaceae) are found in northern moderate climates and in South America along the Andes to Argentina. They flourish on the river banks with its roots in the water. The serrated (jagged edges), egg-shaped leaves are arranged alternately. They have woody reddish cones that hang from the trees. The bark is mottled, ashy-gray. Alder trees grow well in nitrate-poor soil.  Trees grow to be about 12 to 24 meters tall. There are 30 different species of Alders.

As wands, Alder is not commonly harvested as it is very rare.  They are useful in non-verbal spell work and are only for the advanced. Its ideal owner is helpful and considerate.

 5.       Willow (Saille) - April 15 to May 12

Willow trees (Salix saliceae) are a deciduous tree found in moist soil in cold to moderate climates of the northern hemisphere. They prefer still, settled water and can be planted in any type of soil. They thrive in areas with a lot of rain. There are about 400 different species.Their bark is watery, soft, pliable and tough with slender elongated serrated leaves. The leaves are elongated, green on the upper side and whitish on the bottom side. The flowers are elongated and are produced in early spring before the leaves bud. These trees can grow to 12 meters tall.

Willow as wands are useful for Charms and Healing. There is an old proverb that says 'He who has the farthest to travel will go fastest with Willow'. Its ideal owner is one who has great potential.

 6.       Hawthorn (Uath) - May 13 to June 9

Hawthorn trees (Crataegus rosaceae) are found in the moderate northern climates of Europe, Asia and North America. They can grow between 5 and 15 meters, with a 4 to 6 meter spread. They produce small red berries, hanging on long stalks. The thorns on the branches grow up to 12 cm in length.When the flowers open, they have five white petals with slender pink filaments (thread-like structure). On the back of each flower are five green star-like sepals (similar to tiny green leaves). They prefer moist, alkaline soil in full sun or partial shade. It can live for over 400 years and are capable of producing flowers twice a year.  

As a wand, Hawthorn is useful for Healing and Curses. Its ideal owner is one who is complex and intriguing. The wandmaker Gregorovitch wrote 'makes a strange, contradictory wand, as full of paradoxes as the tree that gave it birth, whose leaves and blossoms heal, and yet whose cut branches smell of death'.

 7.       Oak (Duir) - June 10 to July 7

Oak trees (Quercus fagaceae) are native to the northern hemisphere and can be either deciduous or evergreens. There are about 600 species. They grow in tropical and cool to moderate climates of Asia and the Americas. Their leaves have sharp, pointed lobes with bristle tips.The fruit is called an acorn.  They normally grow to 30 meters tall and because of this, it is known as the 'King of the Forest', towering over all the neighbouring trees. They can grow in a variety of soils, but prefers full sun. Myths include carrying an acorn in your pocket for good luck and catching an Oak leave before it hits the ground so that you'll remain healthy the following year.  

This type of wand is strong and reliable and is useful for Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration, but its sturdiness means it will take longer to learn new spells. Its ideal owner is courageous and strong.  Oak trees grow in the Forbidden Forest, and the front doors of the Hogwarts Entrance Hall is made of Oak.

 8.       Holly (Tinne) - July 8 to August 4

Holly (Ilex aquifoliaceae) is found as trees, evergreens and climbers in the tropics to moderate climate areas, from sea level to high mountains of 2000 meters. There are between 400 to 600 different species of this flowering plant. It has alternate, glossy serrated leaves. They grow up to 25 meters tall. The flower has four greenish white petals.Its berries are usually red to brown or black and each stalk holds about 10 berries. They prefer slightly acidic soil that is moist and well-drained. They thrive in full sun to light shade. The evergreens remind us during the year of the immortality of nature.  

Known for its ability to repel Dementors, wands made of Holly are useful for Defense Against the Dark Arts, but will reduce your power in Hexes. Its ideal owner has a tendency to anger.

 9.       Hazel (Coll) - August 5 to September 1

Hazel trees (Corylus betulaceae) are deciduous trees found in temperate northern climates. They have simple round leaves with double-serrate edges. Flowers are produced early in the Spring. It blooms in the middle of winter and produces hazelnuts which can be harvested in the late Summer. They prefer slightly acidic to neutral range of soil that is very well-drained.

Wands made of Hazel are useful for Charms, Transfiguration and Divination. They are loyal and so devoted to its owner that it will 'wilt and die' when the owner passes. Its ideal owner is sensitive. They can detect underground water and will emit silvery, tear-shaped puffs of smoke if passing over concealed springs.

 10.   Vines (Muin) - September 2 to September 29

Vines (Vitis vinifera) are plants that have a growth habit of trailing and/or climbing stems and runners.  They can be found growing in moderate climates around the world and need full sun and well-drained soil. The leaves are alternate, palmately lobed (3 or more veined leaflets) and broad, about 5 to 20 cm long. The fruit is a berry which grows about 6 mm in diameter that ripens to a dark purplish black.

Vine wands are flexible, but extremely erratic. They are strongly attracted to personalities with hidden depths.

 11.   Ivy (Gort) - September 30 to October 27

Ivy (Hedera araliaceae) is a woody evergreen found climbing or ground-creeping. In nature, it grows in western, central and southern Europe, Macaronesia (group of islands off the coast of Europe and Africa), northwestern Africa and across central-southern Asia east to Japan and Taiwan. On the ground, they tend to be under 20 cm in height, but if climbing can reach 30 meters above the ground. The leaves are either palmately lobed young leaves or unlobed cordate (heart shaped) older leaves on a flowering stem. Flowers are usually greenish-yellow with five tiny petals. The berries are greenish-black, dark purple or yellow. They prefer partial to full sun and well-drained loamy soil. Ivy represents the end of the harvest, but it lives on after its host plant has died.

Due to the thickness of this wood, harvesting is difficult and is rarely used. These wands are for sale in Hogsmeade, and not in Diagon Alley.

 12.   Reeds (Ngetal) - October 28 to November 24

Reeds (Pragmites poaceae) are tall, grass-like plants found in wet areas worldwide from the tropics to moderate climates. They grow very fast, up to 2 to 4 meters high and 3 meters wide. Their leaves are long, growing up to 50 cm. Flowers are produced in late summer and are deep purple spikes from 20 to 50 cm long. They need full to partial sun, but will tolerate light shade. They prefer wet soils and can tolerate moderately salty water.  

Reeds wands are delicate and are difficult to work with however, its wisdom and intelligence are sought after. They will usually choose Ravenclaws.

 13.   Elder (Ruis) - November 25 to December 22

Elder trees (Sambucus adoxaceae) have around 5 to 30 species of deciduous shrubs, small trees and perennial plants. They are found throughout the northern and southern hemispheres in moderate to subtropical climates. The leaves are pinnate (feather-like) with 5 to 9 leaflets. The small clustered flowers are white or cream coloured in the spring, followed by clusters of small black, blue-black or red berries. They need nitrogen rich soil and light, but are not fussy about the soil type or pH level.

This type of wand can be damaged easily, but recovers quickly. It is not a very common type of wand wood. When it backfires, it will kill the wielder. It takes a remarkable wizard to be able to handle this wand. As children, most of you grew up with the fabled Deathly Hallows 'Tale of the Three Brothers'.  The Elder wand is rumoured to be the most powerful wand in wizarding history.

We are missing a date – December 23. This day is not ruled by any tree, but is the traditional day of the proverbial 'Year and a Day'.  A year and a day is based on early European traditions.  In feudal societies (9th to 15th century AD), if a serf (peasant) was absent for a year and a day from his home, he was considered a free man.  In Scotland, a couple who lived together for a year and a day were considered married (Handfasting).

#HogwartsLessons #YearTwo #SecondYear