#when tome came around it got easier. but that also meant it was another mouth to feed so.only a little bit easier </3

[quirkle2]

the angst in your zombie au bREAKS MY HEART INTO PIECES (I LOVE IT VERY MUCH)

okay, okay, so!! if the kagebros got separated from reigen and teru when mob is still fine, i imagine that their reunion would be hEARTWRENCHING also, i'm a bit curious, would mob still be able to recognize teru and reigen? or would he thought about them as strangers?

(tbh, following your lore, i imagine mob would act a similarly like nezuko from demon slayer? but instead of little hums, his zombie sounds would more like babbling and incoherent mumbles :"D)

the reunion is fuckin AWFUL man it's SO gut-wrenching. both reigen and teru feared this for Months while looking for the brothers; pretty much the worst case scenario was that mob or ritsu or Both turned—a lot of humans prefer death over being a zombie any day, so the idea of ritsu or mob having to go through that and wander around aimlessly until starvation or smth else gets them,,,

it hurts them so much to think about. teru forces himself not to dwell on it and he's pretty good at that but reigen thinks abt it a lot and he's honestly not sure what scenario is worse. best case is that they're both alive and unturned, obviously, but what's the worst case? you'd think it's both of them getting killed, or turning, but reigen also knows that if One of them got killed/turned, the other would probably lose their mind, especially if they had to watch. the fact that they're kids makes this all three times worse and reigen has to act like he's Not worrying himself sick over the brothers while he tries to keep teru in high spirits

the reunion itself is rly fuckin gut-wrenching for them. they see mob from afar, wandered off just a bit from ritsu and tome who are just around the bend looting a place, and they book it bc ofc they do, it's mob!! but then they see how pale he is, and when he turns around they don't see that light in his eyes that's usually there and the red is dulled and dead looking,, teru almost moves in for a hug before he realizes mob looks vastly different when he Rly takes him in, and mob doesn't rly react too much besides staring at them blankly. the obvious answer is almost too horrifying to even consider, so it takes them a minute to rly,,realize what's going on

tome comes around the bend and shouts, cuz when humans and zombies mix it's usually guns pointed at zombie heads. ritsu comes running out after her and when he sees reigen and teru his thoughts go, in order: holy shit is that reigen and tero ohmygod oh my god they're alive they're alive ohmy god i could fucking cry, and ohmy god they see shige ohno oh no oh no

ritsu sounds like a lunatic when he pulls mob away from them on instinct and says that he's safe to be around and that he's "still him" and he's "not gone" and he's very aware of that. he's very, intimately aware that he sounds fuckin crazy, bc ofc he does, this is what all the crazy people in zombie movies sound like. but he doesn't care, he doesn't care if reigen or teru dismiss him as nuts—he has to make them understand that his brother is still in there somewhere

and yeah, they both kinda think that ritsu's lost his marbles a little bit, but while teru is focused on that and the fact that mob doesn't look like he's rly tuned into Anything that's happening rn, reigen is a bit more focused on the fact that both ritsu and mob look awful? they're both very skinny and very dirty, obviously barely scraping by. they're cut up and ritsu's jacket is basically blood and dirt with a little bit of green fabric mixed in. and just by the look in ritsu's eyes, reigen can tell, man ... reigen can tell ritsu is like.not okay at this point he's kinda lost it.

i think the most painful thing about this whole reunion in general is that later that night, when reigen and teru r finally like ok we get it he's,, he's still mob. we believe you (they want to believe him... [they Do believe him, later, wholeheartedly]) and they settle down someplace safe, teru asks how long mob's been like this. and ritsu has to answer "since we got separated" and they both have that to stew over while everybody else sleeps

they realize that ritsu likely watched mob turn, watched the entire process, and that process takes a long time. it's at least a week of deteriorating motor functions and cognitive skill, and the fact that ritsu stayed for that to keep mob company is .ough. and it doesn't end there bc ritsu obviously stayed after that too

given how these things usually go, ritsu probably did think about killing mob. it probably did cross his mind, bc that's basically what everybody's been told to do. kill them before they have a chance to do any more damage. and it's obvious that ritsu did not have it in him

ritsu not only did not have it in him to kill him, he didn't even have it in him to leave him there. the kid fucking took him with him. a zombie. and he's somehow made it work, for months. and the next few days are filled with watching him still treat mob like a brother and take care of him and gently steer him away from a bird he tries to follow down the wrong street.ritsu is as gentle and kind as he's ever been with his brother. and even tho they're both hungry and tired and barely making it, ritsu is doing a rly good job taking care of mob with what he's been given

the kid obviously wholeheartedly believes in a cure and that mob is still There. he's gone through the trouble to take care of him, and the grief of continuously seeing a loved one that many would consider effectively dead, to get him that cure. to get him his brother back. and mob doesn't seem to be in any pain or distress, so reigen and teru think that this path ritsu has followed is probably infinitely kinder than the mercy kill method they've been taught to do

i think they have a new respect for ritsu, after that reunion

#qktalks #anon #zombie au #and also yes!! mob Would indeed recognize them and not attack them #i've never seen demon slayer but im assuming ur talking abt the main character's ??little sister?? smth like that #but yes i adore the idea of mob saying rly weird incoherent sentences that Almost sound like real words but like slightly to the left #bein a zombie rewires ur brain completely man .his mind is struggling a lot to say what it wants to say #it takes mob a moment to rly catch onto who's in front of him during the reunion but when he does realize there Is recognition in his eyes #fun fact; if u hug zombie mob muscle memory kicks in and he hugs back! #reigen and teru don't find this out until a few days later. they're a bit.. scared of him snapping at them for a while #but once they see that mob never once snaps at ritsu Or tome they're a little more willing to get near him and touch him #teru finally hugs mob and mob hugs back and it makes teru cry VGEAYEAV #(ritsu has hugged zombie mob enough to where now mob leans into his hugs.just giving u smth to sob over) #still related to the reunion but focusing more on ritsu: #after they reunite reigen notices that ritsu has a lot more..authority in his tone. he's a lot more comfortable taking charge #but he also notices that ritsu looks Exhausted and for a while he has trouble relinquishing the lead role to reigen aka the only adult #and it's entirely bc ritsu is just so used to doing things on his own now that he Forgets he has people to lean on #so it takes a bit for him to remember he has an adult to take care of him now #bro definitely overworks himself a lot in his haste to take care of mob :( #ritsu eventually lets himself lean on reigen when he's tired #poor kid melts into that kind of care after so long of not having that and being the sole provider for him and mob #when tome came around it got easier. but that also meant it was another mouth to feed so.only a little bit easier </3

[commander-diomika]

(Click to Read From the Beginning) Part 5 - Fandom: Rusty Quill Gaming Pairing: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde, literal background Barnes/Carter Rating: Explicit Word Count: ~2500 Additional Tags: Slow Burn, 18-Month Time Gap (Rusty Quill Gaming), Opposites Attract, Masturbation, Accidental Voyeurism, Pining, oh there's yearning in this one lads,

Summary: With the quarantine cell still under construction, it's not quite as soundproof as it ought to be.

It was remarkably easy to keep busy in the business of saving the world. Wilde made it his mission to get to know every face in town, and in turn have them know him, and like him. He made friends easily, the locals charmed by this tall man with his fluent Japanese and endless supply of entertaining stories. For the sake of the job - not just his own lingering fear - he was meeting every person on the island and building a solid network of people who would let him know the moment a new face appeared. The wider his web, the less he found himself reaching for the scar on his face.

Zolf won people over not by charming them, but by helping them. The gruff dwarf at the inn became known as someone the locals could go to when someone fell and broke something, or to use magic to help Stone Shape the stumps of houses that were slipping into sodden earth.

He also worked on supply lines. Trade was still relatively lively, but he and Wilde were in the market for more esoteric items than bread and booze. They needed adamantine for the cell, they needed anti magic equipment, and it was certain Barnes and Carter were going to return having depleted the stock of healing potions they’d taken. Strangely enough there wasn't a steady supply of any of those items on the island.

As much as Zolf wouldn’t admit it, Wilde smoothed the way when it came to trading. He charmed the locals and when Zolf appeared with increasingly obscure demands, he was seen as a friend by association. Zolf knew he wouldn’t have achieved that so quickly.

They both oversaw changes to the inn. Many rooms were separated with nothing but thin paper walls on slides, making the whole space quite modular. Wilde sequestered one of the few solid, seemingly defensible rooms on the ground floor and turned it into an office-cum-sitting room. Before their gentle takeover it had probably been a private dining room for special, or at least rich, guests. Zolf took the time to install a proper bed frame in his room, since his legs made climbing down to the floor-level futon bedding difficult.

On another continent, sentient creatures went wrong, turned on their loved ones, fought, died. Cities were turned and abandoned, and storms ravaged places that had never seen more than a light drizzle. But even knowing that elsewhere things were coming apart at the seams, there was a touch of peace in their little corner of it. For a few weeks they slipped into a routine.

Zolf rose in the mornings before Wilde, wordlessly depositing a coffee in front of the bleary man when he appeared. In the evenings that Wilde wasn’t out liaising they took to Wilde’s sitting room and read, or drank, or talked. Frequently about the mission of course, but there was only so much hashing and rehashing they could do. When things got too heavy, or nothing had changed, topics wandered. Zolf’s stories from the navy. How Wilde became a journalist. Small things. Easy things when they both just needed to put it down for a while.

Wilde would never do something so gauche as ask for forgiveness, or understanding, but some days when he reported another success, it sounded like I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.

Some days when Zolf poured coffee into Wilde’s mug it looked like you don’t have to apologise.

And on the rare mornings when some watery sunshine peeked through the clouds, as Zolf practiced in the yard with his glaive, Wilde followed to idly spectate over the paper and his breakfast, and the action felt like I don’t know why but it’s easier to be around you than not.

Barnes and Carter returned in good enough spirits and got started on their isolation in the mostly-complete cell. As soon as they returned, Zolf felt himself get itchy for action and movement again. He couldn’t even scratch the itch by properly debriefing the returnees yet; the newest information from Curie posited a hive-mind connection between those infected by the blue veins. Still, this was just the way it had to be. Zolf tried to soothe his agitation. Things were just going to move slow for now. He only had to look at Wilde’s scar to help quiet any feelings of angst. A little bit of frustration was something he could cope with if it meant what befell Wilde never, ever happened again.

Four nights after Barnes and Carter returned, Zolf sat in front of the fire attempting to read the Dwarvish tome Wilde had picked up in Damascus. It wasn’t exactly riveting stuff, and his Dwarvish was rusty, but he promised he’d at least make a dent in it. Wilde came in fresh from the bath, his hair wet and wearing the yukata he’d been gifted by one of the locals. As he passed the back of Zolf’s chair, Wilde placed a hand on one of Zolf’s shoulders and leant over to inspect the page.

This close, Zolf could smell him. There was a soft, flowery note that Zolf couldn’t identify, probably whatever he washed his hair with. And then there was the warm, familiar smell of the man himself. Zolf kept his eyes on the page in front of him.

Pointing with his other hand, Wilde spoke. “This character here- the translation guide I was using didn’t even have it. Brought the whole lot to a screeching halt. How are you getting on with it?”

Zolf, nose full of Wilde’s scent and nearness, opened his mouth to reply. “I – er, it’s fine. It’s an older script but I can read it- don’ quite understand what they’re gettin’ at, but, er.” He looked over to Wilde’s face again, profile lined in firelight. His face was so close that Zolf could lean and place a kiss on the man’s unscarred cheek, if he chose.

Wilde glanced up from the book. Their eyes met for the briefest moment before Wilde straightened, letting go of Zolf’s shoulder with a small squeeze.

“Wonderful. Let me know if anything useful comes up, will you?”

Zolf simply grunted in reply, still feeling off-kilter. This wasn’t the first time Wilde had touched him like that. As Wilde started to settle into life at the inn, started to feel a little safer, some of that old comfort was returning. Zolf didn’t mind the touching. He got the feeling Wilde was lonely. He was probably used to a lot more physical contact than he was getting now. For all he had been ingratiating himself with the locals, it was clear as day Wilde couldn’t trust them. If Zolf was the only person Wilde could reach out to…

Zolf shook his head a little and tried to focus back on the text. Wilde collected his own evening reading material, some piece of Japanese fiction, and settled in the other chair. The silence, but for the ever-present sound of rain, was comfortable enough. Their new lot in life involved a lot of waiting, and they were both doing their best to try and make peace with that.

Time passed and Zolf, already struggling to focus on the dull history book, realised he’d read the same sentence three times over. Some essential part of his mind had shifted, noting a change in the soundscape. Previously, there had been nothing but the rain and slight crackle of fire, but now there was a new element in the mix.

Zolf stared blankly at the page, listening hard. It was… conversation? Perhaps, but the innkeeper and his wife had rooms all the way on the other side of the building, and Zolf couldn’t usually hear them. It was… the wind? No, for all it was raining, it was the usual dreary patter, no strong winds to explain the slow rhythm or hint of a moan in those sounds.

Zolf’s heart beat slowly. One, two, three… and suddenly he knew what he was hearing.

Zolf looked up from his book to see if Wilde had noticed. Obviously, whatever he was reading was much more riveting than Zolf’s dry historical facts, because he was still engrossed in his book. Despite his close attention to the pages, Wilde could sense Zolf’s regard. Without Zolf even clearing his throat, he looked up.

“What?” he asked mildly to Zolf’s raised eyebrows.

“You hear tha’?” Either it had gotten louder, or Zolf’s ears had adjusted to picking out rhythmic moans and whimpers.

Wilde slipped a finger in his book to mark his place, cocking his head. With his attention drawn, he contextualised the new sound quickly (much faster than Zolf) and his eyebrows started climbing. When the brows couldn’t get any higher, he straightened in his seat and placed a hand delicately on his chest in feigned shock. “Well, we didsay that Barnes would look out for him, but that’s not quite what I had in mind.”

Zolf tried not to roll his eyes.

“And we knew that Howard would struggle with the isolation period,” Wilde continued, voice artificially prim. “I’m glad they’ve found a way to pass the time.”

Zolf’s efforts to not roll his eyes failed, then he glanced around, puzzled. “How is the sound even…?”

Wilde’s eyes were bright; his expression screaming this was the most fun he’d had in weeks. “The trapdoor. The one in the Teal Sitting Room. It’s still under construction, so…”

“So, sound is travellin’ through it.” Zolf finished the thought, voice level despite the blush he could feel rising in his cheeks.

Barnes and Carter were slowly increasing in volume. Zolf could finally make out the timbre of Carter’s voice specifically, though he’d never heard him make those noises before.

“I didn’t know that Barnes had it in him,” Wilde murmured. “Or, had it in Carter, specifically.” With that puerile comment, Wilde moved. He folded the corner of a page to mark his place and stood, checking the ties on his yukata as he did.

“Where are you going?” Zolf hissed.

Wilde smiled wickedly. “Why, to the Teal Room, of course.”

“Wilde!” Zolf said, flushing angrily. He was trying to formulate a scolding regarding privacy and eavesdropping, but the scoundrel had already stridden off. Zolf’s thighs tensed and relaxed as he went to stand then aborted the movement, debating with himself. Carter voiced a particularly sharp cry and Zolf decided that anything was better than sitting here by himself.

I’m just gonna stop Wilde from doin’ anything inappropriate, he told himself as he stood and followed.

Inside the room, Wilde leant against the doorframe, body languid as if he attended a mere dinner party. There was a tarp covering a half-constructed hole in the centre of the room. When Zolf came to hover beside him in the doorway, any lingering mystery about what was happening downstairs was dispelled.

“Fuck, James, please,”Carter sounded utterly desperate. This close, Zolf could even hear the slow rasp of movement, skin-on-skin. Barnes’ voice was harder to make out, as he responded with something quiet and urgent. There was a breath, then the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and Carter making a choked noise that pulsed straight from Zolf’s ear to his crotch.

Wilde was delighted. He looked sidelong at Zolf and mouthed the word “James?” wrapping his lips around it in impish joy, as though first names were the controversial thing about this situation.

There was a grunt from downstairs that was undoubtedly Barnes

Wilde spoke sotto voce, keeping his voice under the sound of the rain. “I knew he’d be the strong and silent type.”

Zolf didn’t reply. He didn’t know where to even start. He would hate to be overheard like this, but there was something thrilling about it. Fuck, Wilde’s a bad influence on me. He knew he should leave, just walk away, but…

The pace downstairs changed. What had previously sounded like a languorous tease picked up energy. Carter literally wailed as the thump of a cot knocking against a wall started up, one, twice, three times, continuing, not rushed but steady. Carter’s whine cut off in a muffled ermf and Zolf could see in his mind’s eye, agonisingly clear, the way that Barnes had just put his hand over Carter’s mouth.

Zolf’s eyes had been locked, unseeing, on the rough tarp, but at Carter’s stifled moan, he looked up at Wilde. He was gazing back, and Zolf was shocked to see something hungry in those eyes. Mere moments ago, the energy from Wilde had been lewd and juvenile. Something had shifted.

Wilde’s scent was still in Zolf’s nose and suddenly the image in his mind changed.

His hand, hooked behind one of Wilde’s knees, pushing it up toward his chest… fucking him open fluidly, pace keeping time with the rhythmic thudding from below. Wilde’s face flushed cheek to cheek, eyes half lidded, awash with the pleasure of it.

Zolf shut his eyes, hard, hot with shame. When he opened them, Wilde was still staring him down, a touch of that imagined flush now true in his cheeks. There was something knowing in his expression as well, as though he could see straight into Zolf’s mind and the images that lay within.

They had been so in tune with each other lately, after all.

Wilde’s mouth worked as if he was seeking words, but he was interrupted. “Heavens above, James, faster please, I’m going to-”

Wilde sucked his breath in hard as Carter came. The words died on his lips and he half-shoved past Zolf to leave the room, taking long strides and disappearing down the corridor.

Zolf stumbled. If the two men downstairs were in any state to be paying attention to their surroundings, they would have heard Zolf’s clumsy footsteps, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He went to follow, but by the time he’d caught up to Wilde, the bedroom door was shut.

There was no lock. It was only a barrier in that it was one that Wilde chose to put up. Zolf wasn’t about to go barging in where he wasn’t wanted. He lifted a hand to knock. Paused. What exactly was he here to say? To tell Wilde off? To apologise? To say, Look at me like that again, I’ll be ready this time? He lowered his hand.

Later that night in bed, for the first time in months, Zolf found himself firming a spit-slick hand around his cock, breath unsteady. He kept his mind cautiously blank. Every time he was tempted to dwell on the sound of Carter’s whimper, or Barnes’ low rasp, or that ravenouslook in Wilde’s eyes, he drew himself back to sensation alone, pleasure coiling in his gut. He certainly wasn’t thinking of Wilde’s hand on his shoulder, the relaxed set of his body as he listened to Barnes and Carter fuck downstairs, the salacious delight in his eyes.

Zolf pumped his fist faster, definitely not thinking of the thud of the cot against the cell wall downstairs as his hips rolled and breath hitched. Hanging on to awareness by a thread, he remembered the thin walls, and bit his lip to stifle his groan as he came.

His eyes closed, he listened to his hammering heart, breathing slowly. It had been a very strange night. From the buzzing post-orgasm haze, a thought emerged, unbidden.

Lavender. Lavender was what Wilde’s soap had smelled of.

#hank writes #rusty quill gaming #rqg #zoscar #zolfwilde #zolf smith #rqg oscar wilde #rqg fan fic #i don't even know if these are appearing in tags but old habits

[theflashdriver]

Guardian (A Silvaze Fanfic)

For as long as Blaze had known him, Silver had always been an overprotective person. Outside naiveté and obviousness, the hedgehog’s strong sense of justice and want to make things right were his strongest traits by a wide margin; he’d take far countless burdens upon himself of both miniscule and galactic proportions. Even with the future saved, even though he was now living peacefully in the Sol Dimension, that fire had never truly left his heart. His protective passion had merely been lying dormant, searching out something new to focus upon. Well, starting around three months ago, it’d found its new target.

Blaze the cat, the queen and guardian of the Sol emeralds, was lounging atop a floating couch formed from pure psychic energy; being paraded around the library she’d once freely walked. Silver the hedgehog, the king and co-guardian of those aforementioned emeralds, was pulling book after book from the shelves in search of a tome she’d requested, constantly glancing back to make certain that she was comfortable. Psychic aura had begun to flare in an effort to expedite the process; books were being tugged from shelves, held to his eye, and flung back when they were found to be incorrect.

He was being silly, the feline was more than capable of seeking out the book for herself but, truth be told, she was enjoying this little display. Beads of sweat were gathering upon his brow; Silver had only been searching for ten or fifteen minutes but he was clearly worried that he was taking too long. It wasn’t as though they were in a rush and the book was hardly that important, it was just another addition to their ever-growing pile of baby-related literature, but he was seeking it out with the same fervour he’d used to pursue Iblis. This was all so mundane, but Blaze couldn’t help taking joy in it.

“Are you sure we’re in the right section?” He managed to ask, raking ten books from a shelf only to just as quickly throw them back, “We’re getting close to the end.”

“It’s here somewhere,” She cooed, reclining deeper into her floating chair, “I’m certain it was around this section.”

That was all the convincing he needed; Silver doubled his efforts immediately. Books from even higher up began to tumble but refused to contact the ground, encased in psychic cyan light. He threw glances in every direction, knowing instinctually when a book was hovering at his side. To put it plainly, the hedgehog was putting far too much effort into a relatively simple task.

The royal library was quiet today, devoid of visiting scholars and legal practitioners, but it’d been that way for a while now. Certain recent events had caused activity within the palace to slow and work-based visitation to greatly diminish. Well, it wasn’t as though the childcare section was usually bustling with life (in fact, they’d found it quite dusty upon their first visit) but the more complete calm of their surroundings had made their literature reviews far easier. Nowadays they couldn’t leave the palace without someone prying into their lives. It’d been years since life was last like that.

He froze in place, eyes darting twice across a single cover, before it was snatched from the air and presented to her, “Is this the one? The cover’s just like you described it.”

The hedgehog had produced a tome medium in size, only around one hundred pages long and (if she recalled correctly) filled with pictures. Its cover art depicted an array of cartoon fruit and vegetables tumbling free from an overfull mixing-bowl. Now that she’d seen the title, she immediately recalled her frantic flip-through a month ago; Nutrition and Newborns. This was indeed the book she’d requested.

She didn’t take the book immediately; instead, she leant in and beyond his outstretched hand, allowing her lips to weave their way onto his cheek, “Thank you, Silver.”

They’d been married for years and had of course performed acts far more intimate than such a tiny kiss, but watching his blush grow in response to her tenderness had rather become one of Blaze’s pastimes. As the book left his hand, it came to cup that very cheek while his prior beaming smile transformed into a more crooked, embarrassed, grin. He was still so plainly love-struck; rather recently she’d caught him in the wee hours of the morning, rubbing his wedding band and throwing her supposedly sleeping form all manner of tender glances. They’d been married for years but that reality still seemed to surprise him. Well, given the lives they’d lived, he could hardly blame him for feeling that.

“Do you want me to find anything else, do any others come to mind?” He asked, “I could go back through this section, see if we’ve missed anything good?”

“Perhaps later, this will do for now,” She attempted to quell his eagerness, “Let’s take things one book at a time, we’ve still got a few months after all.”

He smiled at that, almost daydreaming as the last books jumped back onto their shelves, “Yeah, just a few more months…” Silver reached up, she quickly took his hand.

Rather than simply float her, it was almost as though they were walking together; he led her back through aisle upon aisle of books to their little workspace. The worn couch and low table rather stood in stark contrast to their surroundings. While the royal library was filled with exquisitely crafted dark-wooden fixtures and floored with a deep emerald carpet, their table was formed of wrought iron and pale driftwood (crafted by Marine the raccoon herself) while the couch had more than a few patches sewn into it but was, mostly, wrapped in a soft red material. Truthfully, getting furniture that better matched their surroundings would have been easy, even if Blaze hadn’t been the queen, but the pair rather loved those mismatched pieces. Those out of place furnishings reminded her, and surely him, of their childhood amongst the flames but not the chaos tied to it. This spot reminded Blaze of ramshackle homes made in prior libraries, schoolhouses and musty old churches, their sanctuaries within a dangerous world.

The feline felt herself turn in the air, her hand slipped from his as she was gently lowered onto the couch; his psychic chair dissolved from the bottom up as it made contact with a real one and left sitting on the couch’s left side. Silver didn’t join her on it though; instead he stood on the far side of the table, concern still plain in his eyes. Knowing what was coming, her mouth curled into a small smile.

“Do you want more pillows or a blanket or…” Silver scrambled for more things to offer. He was trying so hard already, she felt lazy but so very cared for, “Something to eat, a drink…?”

He wanted to help so badly; Blaze felt herself grow softer still. She wanted to give him something to do, “We could take tea and read this together?”

“I’ll make a pot of decaf and hurry back,” He promised, beginning to turn away, “Are you sure that’s all?”

Ah yes, they had to cut back on caffeine… well, only she had to, but he wasn’t willing to let her face that alone. She was well beyond vomiting every morning, but cravings still lingered. The mere consideration of her common cravings caused one to spike.

Pinning her gaze to the book and trying to act nonchalant, she posited, “Perhaps a little bit of chocolate.”

Silver halted. He reached into his back quills and, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, produced a small, unopened, chocolate bar. Without so much as blinking, he presented it to her.

When he, eventually, noticed her befuddled expression, Silver simply smiled, “It’s your most common craving and I don’t like leaving you uncomfortable so…”

She felt heat across her face as she gingerly took the bar from him. Her eyes latched onto it, she could feel her tail flailing wildly, “Thank you, Silver…”

Was she really that obvious? Has she had this hankering that often? He interrupted her train of thought to reaffirm, “I’ll be as quick as I can, just shout if there’s anything else!” Before shooting between a set of bookshelves and towards the door, surrounded by psychic light.

Blaze slowly pulled back the foil and took a bite, but the taste did nothing to dispel her embarrassment. Her royal position had meant that, in this life at least, lots of people had tried to look after her, but none of them did it quite like him. Despite how oblivious Silver was to certain things, the hedgehog could notice the slightest of shifts in her disposition and pick up on things even she didn’t truly understand. Apparently, there were differences in the ways she purred and oddities in how her tail flicked but she’d be hard pressed to describe them. She supposed her cravings were far more obvious than those physical quirks, but it still seemed so bizarre.

Having eaten two of the bar’s eight total squares, the queen folded closed the wrapper and set it aside. She took up the book and scanned through the contents page: Foreword, Introduction, Nutritional-Timelines, Common-Mistakes, Weaning, Liquid-Foods, Solid-Foods and Additional-Recipes. Flipping through, only glancing, Blaze found that the wording was simple yet detailed, intended to be easily read but simultaneously informative. The illustrations also seemed helpful, they’d seemed rather useless on a cursory glance but, in hindsight, the feline needed all the help she could get with regards to cooking.

Before she could make a true judgement on the book’s quality though, the whir of psychic energy re-entered the room. She looked up from her book just in time for him to land in the exact spot she’d last seen him, tea tray in hand and a strong pillar of steam rising from a large pot. His quills had swept back to pin against his head and the sweat on his brow was plain. The kitchen wasn’t too far away but he’d plainly rushed, utilising far more of his power than he probably should have. The tea couldn’t have had more than a moment to brew; they’d have to leave it for now.

Despite this, Silver so very casually set the tray on the table and slunk around to sit beside her, “So, does it look alright? Anything interesting inside?”

“Well, it looks to be half nutritional guide and half cookbook; just like I remembered,” She responded, flicking her way back to the start and shifting to hold the manual between them, “I think it’s intended for slightly younger parents, but that just means it’s thorough and well detailed.”

The hedgehog shifted closer still, outer leg brushed outer leg, “So we’ll get a few new recipes out of it at the very least.”

With that, the pair begun their shared reading session; they quickly worked their way through the foreword and into the meat of the book. Her initial impression was proven correct, as she took in the nutrient-timelines, the information about baby’s requirements was handled gently yet informatively. Unfortunately, however, it was at this stage that Blaze noticed a change in her companion’s demeanour. The hedgehog wasn’t truly looking at the book, rather he was looking through and past it to what lay on the other side; a goofy smile had spread across his muzzle.

Knowing what was distracting him, Blaze rolled her eyes, but her smile grew further, “Go on, get it out of your system so that we can focus properly.”

Upturning the book and placing it upon the couch’s arm, Blaze gently raised the hem of her blouse. Her belly was revealed, still far from its full size but undeniably substantially grown. The royal baby was well on its way; the pyrokinetic feline was four and a half months pregnant. The father of her unborn child dropped to the carpet and began to tickle and brush his way through her white fur, plainly enamour by the growing form residing within her. Parenthood was so strange but it plainly excited him. Well, it excited them both, but he wasn’t literally attached to the baby twenty-four hours per day. He had to make his love known in more sporadic bursts.

They weren’t wandering into this blindly; they’d spent almost a year just questioning whether it was right to do. The life of a royal was one embroiled in politics and, even with the threats to their world long gone, the duties of a guardian were a lifelong burden. Working against that notion were their similar histories; Silver could hardly remember his parents and neither of Blaze’s had lived beyond her birth, their younger years had been wrung of relaxation by terrifying responsibilities. They’d been thoroughly enticed by even the notion of normalcy tied to parenthood. Their potential to give someone the comfort that they’d lacked had finally pushed them to decide.

Other factors had been considered of course, such as whether or how their inherent abilities would be passed on and the latent additional responsibility that would come with them. Silver’s powers were still an anomaly, unknown in origin and genetic nature, while Blaze’s had been consistently passed on for generations. Historically, her family’s powers had never mixed with another so, even as the baby grew inside her; they had no idea what would happen. It’d all been an almost blind endeavour that had, thankfully, come to bear fruit.

Blaze’s eyes closed as she felt his muzzle gently press against the bump and his fingers found her sides, “Hello there, it’s just me again.”

No response came from the baby bump, of course it didn’t, but that didn’t stop the hedgehog from listening intently. From her position it was difficult to make out Silver’s expression but from the way his ears had slightly flopped forward and the steady beating of his tail, Blaze knew this was exactly what he wanted. Despite the effort he’d gone to searching out that book, Blaze found herself forgetting their task as she looked upon him.

“I hope you’re doing okay in there, we won’t get to see each other for a while yet but I can’t wait,” He’d shifted slightly, letting his forehead press against the bump instead, “Your mum is doing wonderfully and I’m trying my best to help. I want things to be perfect when we finally do meet. Things are nicer here than they’ve ever been and we’re doing so much to prepare for you.“

Purrs broke past Blaze’s lips, their rumbling filling the quiet library. Her hand slowly came to mingle among his quills, gently rearranging them with no real purpose. Perhaps she’d braid them again tonight, their evening routine had rather changed due to their upcoming arrival. Where once they’d simply snuggle their way into bed, their journey to the land of the sleeping now took a few twists and turns. They always tried to do something before bed, considering that they’d soon be so much busier, they wanted to cherish such quiet moments. Massages would be given, books would be read, they’d play chess, watch a movie or she’d simply find herself playing with his fur.

Her touch caught his attention, the psychic’s eyes flickered up to her before returning to her midriff, “The baby’s right there, I can practically feel them, but it still doesn’t seem real…” Silver mumbled, leaning backwards and into her view, “I never really thought we’d get to…”

Words left unsaid resonated with Blaze’s very soul. One hand slipped from the depths of his quills to cup his cheek, “I wake up some mornings and question it myself, it almost seems impossible.”

“A-All of it does,” He managed to respond, “Even just being here, that weight being off our shoulders, is ridiculous. W-We’re safe, we’re comfortable, we’re together, we’re married…”

She could feel his wedding band as he brushed and rubbed the bump, hers was pressed against his muzzle, “I don’t regret a single thing, not a single moment.”

His eyes shot to meet with hers, “Me neither! I don’t at all, I just…” His head slumped into her grasp, seeking out her warmth, “Its been years since we settled, and I thought I had fully settled, but this it’s a step even further. This is normal, this is how things were meant to be; so very normal.”

She watched his tears begin to well and couldn’t help but smile. After all this time, he could still be so insecure, “Parenthood seems normal yet abnormal. We know it in theory and have our assumptions but it’s an all-new challenge, a brand-new adventure. No matter how we prepare, I’m certain something will surprise us.”

“We can read all we want but…“ As tears spilled panic came with them, “If I’m going to be a good dad I need to be even tougher than this,” He’d raised the back of his right hand to rub at his eyes, he was trying to hide his expression, “I-I shouldn’t be crying, there’s nothing to cry about, this is wonderful. I’m meant to be strong…”

“You’re still so naïve,” Refusing to let her hold be broken, Blaze thumbed away his tears. He managed to resettle in her grasp, “It’s just as you said; we were so on saving the future, neither of us thought we’d make it this far. You’re allowed to feel like this,” She promised, “We went through so much to get here, that’s why you feel this way. That and, well, parenthood scares most regular people. We’ve not lived the normal life we want for them.”

“You’re going to be wonderful at this,” He relaxed back into her touch, “You’re smart and strong and warm, you’ll do great,” He paused, as if unsure whether to ask his next question, “Do you think I’ll make a good dad?”

“Silver,” She sighed, shifting to cradle his head in her hands, “I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again, you’re going to be a fantastic father. The baby’s not even here yet you’re trying so hard. I can hardly imagine how caring you’ll be when they finally arrive. I doubt you’ll put them down for days.”

He smiled at that but concern still cut his brow, “I’m so excited but so scared, what if we have to fight again? What if they have to fight,” He fretted, leaning deeper into her touch. They’d of course discussed this in the lead up to her pregnancy but, while they’d decided they wanted a child regardless, Blaze had anticipated that worry returning.

“What if we did have to fight again?” She asked, knowing it was best that he finished his train of thought.

“I would, of course I would, but…” He struggled for the right words, “I just really don’t want them to. I don’t want them to have to do what we’ve done,” Fighting for one’s own life was bad enough, the pressure of fighting for whole worlds was terrifying. It was a fact they both knew, first-hand, “I want them to grow up safe and happy and peaceful. I want to be able to look out for them rather than whole universes.”

“Well, then you don’t have to worry about being a good dad, I know you’ll make a great one,” She promised, “You want them to be secure and loved, that’s what’s most important,” The queen insisted, “We’ve done all we can to make sure that they can live peacefully, more than any normal parents could have, even if that wasn’t our intent at the time.”

He’d slowly gone from kneeling to standing; his right hand had shifted to cover the top of her baby bump and the left had arrived to hold her shoulder. The echoes of his tears remained, but his smile was almost blinding. Slowly but surely, he leaned in and closed his eyes. His forehead met with hers as he began to nuzzle. Without a moment’s hesitation, Blaze returned that gentle contact.

Sweet nothings were murmured, her hands found his chest fur and soon they were freely kissing. They were gentle and brief kisses, little more than back and forth pecks, but Blaze could feel his heart in every single one. Silver’s defensiveness had easily led into softness; while he’d fight ferociously to protect others, he would also handle them with care. Blaze knew that she was going to be the sterner parent, she’d be the one to insist that they get out of bed or do their chores, but she was more than fine with that. It was in her nature, not his. For as defensive as he was, for as much as he wanted things to be just, he’d always been softer than her. Of course he was worried that he’d have to feign hardness, she hoped he’d never have to again.

Wispy words broke the quiet library air. She wanted to reassure him, even if she didn’t know what the future held, “We’ve done so much together; we can do anything together.”

“If we can manage something as impossible as this,” She felt his hand trace across his midriff, “Th-Then we can do anything.”

This intimate session could have lasted hours, perhaps even the rest of the evening, but it was interrupted by something neither of them had expected. As Blaze was leaning in again, the words “You’re such a softy” tumbling from her lips, she felt what she could only describe as a small fluttering inside her abdomen. It’d taken a moment to register but by the time the sensation repeated Blaze had realised what it meant. The baby was moving inside her, she’d felt their first touch.

Silver’s eyes had opened wide, “Did you feel that?” He half whispered.

No, they had felt their first touch. This was the quickening, the first tangible sign of life.

She managed a nod in response, her purring grew louder still as she shifted her hands from him and to her sides. Silver dropped back to his knees, returning to eye level with her swollen belly. Ever so gently, he returned his second hand to her form just in time for another flutter, “I-Is that what I think it is? They’re…”

“Y-Yes, I think they’re kicking,” She managed to stutter, closing her eyes in an attempt to focus on the sensation.

This was the first real sign, their child’s first real impact on their world. It’d been clear that they were there for a handful of months now, but they’d never acted; simply grown and waited. This was entirely new; excitement coursed through Blaze’s veins just as it plainly ran through Silver’s.

“Hey there little one, I’m sorry. Am I taking up too much of mummy’s attention?” He responded to her bump, gently rubbing small circles into her fur, “She’s just too lovely, I can’t help myself.”

Her child’s kicks having alleviated thoughts of silliness or feelings of embarrassment, Blaze also began to talk to the baby, “Or is it that I’m taking up too much of daddy’s time? Keeping him from playing with you,” She felt Silver’s eyes upon her and, emboldened, pushed further, “I did marry him you know; I do want to kiss him from time to time. I hope that won’t be a problem for you...”

Another flutter drummed within the feline; the unborn child could only be voicing their outraged. A snicker breached Silver’s lips and was quickly mirrored on Blaze’s own. Soon they were fully laughing; Blaze’s hands slipped to the pillows in an attempt to steady herself as Silver finally pulled away from her belly.

When she’d finally recovered, the hedgehog managed to respond, “I think we might have a problem.”

“Picking favourites already,” The queen jokingly scolded, gently combing through her white fur, “You know, I’m the one carrying you around; he only insists on carrying me because he’s scared that you’re making it hard for me to walk. Your dad can be so overprotective. He’ll go out of his way to solve the smallest of problems, even when there are far more pressing issues,” She was almost chiding him, though she was doing so purposefully, “But I like that about him. He’ll always look out for you, just like I will.”

No further quickening was felt but, in its wake, Blaze couldn’t help identifying a tender calmness that had overcome Silver’s disposition. He managed to make his way back onto the couch beside her, almost dissolving into the floral material.

Bright yellow eyes collided with her amber set, “Did that really just happen?”

“If it’d only been me here, I don’t think I’d have believed it,” Blaze admitted, “I’d have told myself it was something else.”

He was beaming again but the combined endeavours of overly tending her, talking so deeply and observing the phenomena that was his child’s first actions had clearly exhausted him. Reaching just past the book, Blaze drew the chocolate bar and held it out to him. It took no more than a moment for him to understand, lean in and bite off the top square. As Blaze claimed a little more for herself, a blue bioluminescence engulfed the teapot and brought it to pour. The book was flipped open and gentle chatter ballooned to fill their little corner of the library as they shifted ever closer.

They were finally making their own future, no longer struggling to fix other people’s problems. Despite how unreal it all seemed, they were more peaceful than they’d ever had before.

#silvaze #fanfic #Silver the Hedgehog #Blaze the Cat #sonic the hedgehog #sonic #silverxblaze #fanfiction

[justjessame]

Glorious, Before the Burden - The Light ~ 7

While I soaked in the warm water of my chamomile and lavender scented bath, I puzzled out what Loki was alluding to with his mentioning Thor and I during meals. Now that my hair was loose and my scalp was no longer being tortured by the tight braids - and my body was no longer constricted by my gown - I felt more capable of the challenge.

Meals were gregarious when Thor was present - loud and a near feast, even when there was no real reason for celebration - that was just how he was, boisterous. He knew everyone’s name and used those names when he spoke to people. When I first arrived, he zeroed in on my quietness and sought to bring me out of it - usually during meals since that was the only time we were in the same place. Like a sibling, of which I had none, he taunted and teased. At most he hugged me, or put his arm around my shoulders -

“Lady Sigyn,” he’d roar, in his bearish way, “come have a drink with us and tell us how the witchery goes!” I’d roll my eyes, shrug off his arm and beg off from the drink, smiling and laughing at his attempts.

Being cruel to Thor would be like kicking a wolfhound. It wasn’t his fault he was huge and playful - he just WAS. “Thank you for the offer,” I’d murmur, a blush on my face because his voice would carry and draw attention to us. “I think your mother is calling for me,” and I’d go off to Frigga’s side, happy to sit quietly and have my meal before retiring to my rooms - before stealing away to the gardens.

I’d simply seen his invitations as those of a thoughtful brother by proxy. He wanted to include me, he didn’t yank me onto his lap like I’d heard stories told of the wenches and the Warriors Three. Instead he just wanted to make certain I felt welcome, in his own way.

Apparently Loki saw it through a slightly different view. I tried to understand it, but I couldn’t. Jealousy would be my first thought, but that would be ridiculous. Why would Loki be jealous?

 After my bath I put on the green nightshift, I considered my choices - reading in the window seat or a walk with my new guard through the gardens. My book lay where he’d set it after he snapped it shut, and I was curious if he’d simply picked up where I’d left off - after all he hadn’t turned the pages while I’d watched him - or if he started fresh? As if he’d spelled it, I had to see - and as I grew closer I was enveloped in the scent of him - apples, jasmine, leather, sandalwood, and that subtle hint of galbanum. Swallowing past the dryness in my mouth, my fingers closed around the leatherbound volume I’d left and he’d picked up - it was warm, as if he’d just left - I let it fall open in my hands, where my ribbon still held my spot and it was if it also bookmarked HIM. I held it up to my face and if the cushion and my reading nook held his scent heavy - the book was a portable version.

I took the book to my bed, my choice made for me. Crawling in and propping myself up against the headboard with my pillows, I started where I left off - letting the fragrance surround me much like my hiding spot in the gardens would. I read until my eyes grew heavy, marking my spot and putting the book carefully beside me on the bed, and sleep came easily - far easier than it had since I’d arrived at ten years old.

 I felt far better when morning dawned. A good night’s sleep will do that for a person - at least until they sit up and find that they aren’t alone.

I sighed, there he lounged in my window seat, but at least he brought his own book this time. “Good morning, Loki,” I thought if I greeted him, perhaps he’d take the not so subtle tone of aggravation in my voice and leave - so I could get out of bed without him seeing me in the nightshift he’d chosen.

“I think I prefer it when you address me as your prince,” his eyes stayed on his book, but he sounded amused. “You look far more rested today, Lady Sigyn.”

I propped my pillows up and sat against my headboard, settling in for a visit. “I feel more rested,” I agreed. “Your mother will be expecting me.” I reminded him.

“No,” he shook his head, turning the page of his book. “You and I are spending the day together.” My eyebrow rose at the change in my routine without notice. “I told you, we should get to know one another AND you are ill prepared for another realm without -”

“Yes, you wish to teach me SOMETHING,” interrupting him caused his head to raise from his tome. “You never quite got around to what precisely it is that I’ll be learning from your capable tutelage.” I may have come off sharper than he thought appropriate, since his eyes were narrowing again. “Are you going to illuminate me, MY PRINCE?”

Lips fighting to choose whether he wanted to smirk, smile, or - “You play with fire, Lady Sigyn.”

“Do I?” Studying him, I wondered if he was all that hot? “You seem rather cool, MY PRINCE.”

Letting out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, his flashing gaze met mine. “You wore the green, I see.”

“I was told it brought out the color of my eyes.” I countered. “I never learned what the blue did - not completely anyway.”

His gaze flickered to my hair, loose around my shoulders. “As if it were kissed by fire,” he murmured, and my breath caught. “Your hair -” his eyes locked on mine again. “When we’re in Midgard, you should wear it up.” I nodded. “It could be a cumbrance, get caught on things, or be used to hold onto you - you haven’t my aptitude for -”

“Quite,” I knew what he meant. I couldn’t just vanish at will. “So I’ll wear my hair up and out of the way.” And so we began our day with Loki telling me how to dress and appear for my first voyage out of Asgard.

 “You have to leave,” Loki had discussed everything from my hair to my shoes - I was hungry and I wanted to change for the day. He was still lounging in the window, and raised an eyebrow at my tone. “Loki, I would like to break our fast, and I’d like to change my clothes - at least one of those would require you to leave my rooms.”

He sat and studied me. “You do understand that while we’re in Midgard I will not let you out of my sight.” I stared at him. “Not for a single moment.”

My mouth had dropped open - not a moment alone? “Not even when I’m -” there are certain moments that EVERYONE needs to do on their own. “My prince, surely you know that you cannot follow me EVERYWHERE.”

“Mother insists, Lady Sigyn.” The smile that formed on his lips was pleasant, yet also challenging. Daring me to force the issue, to press back, to argue - to throw another tantrum.

A challenge was it? A dare? Fine. Chin up, shoulders back, I slid out of my bed. Bare feet touching the floor and my moss green shift sliding down my length, I let my loose hair settle down my back. “Fine,” I maintained eye contact. “If Frigga INSISTS, then I suppose you SHOULD learn what I go through to get ready every morning.”

While he acted as my captive audience - I once again chose a gown - this time one of my day and public ones, far more restrictive and constrictive. I also had to choose my undergarments, my shoes, and I had to work literal magic on my hair. Which I did - SLOWLY.

“You said when on Midgard my hair should go up?” I asked, still standing in my nightshift. He nodded. Taking a deep breath, I contemplated all the ways that my hair could go up without it looking ridiculous. And as he watched, up it went. “How’s this?” I turned around and looked over my shoulder at him. “Does this pass your standards, my prince?”

A curt nod and I moved on. He’d dared me - challenged me with the idea that Frigga expected us to never be apart for a moment during our time on Midgard - and so, with my back still turned I let my nightshift drop from my shoulders and pool around my feet. Without looking at him I dressed, skin out, down to my shoes.

“There,” when I finished I faced him. “Does that meet your approval, Loki?”

“I think that’ll do, Lady Sigyn.” His gaze was on mine, and I felt that I might have surprised him for once. “Let’s have something to eat and then -”

“Yes?” I wanted to know what my day would look like, since my routine was broken.

His smile returned. “Then, my lady, your new studies begin.”

 “Which are?” But he didn’t answer, instead standing and offering me his arm. His scent - apples, jasmine, leather, sandalwood, and of course, galbanum wrapped around me like a cloak - and I was surprised when he matched his pace to my far shorter stride.

“You’ll see,” was all the answer I received, that and a smirk.

#loki x sigyn #loki #loki series #sigyn #alternate universe #slow burn #eventual smut #bear with me

[phantoms-lair]

MSA Secret Santa

@accidental-child

Arthur sighed, leaning against the steering wheel of the van. The bus was a little late, but that wasn’t unexpected. Not out here at any rate.

There was a small selfish part of himself that wished he hadn’t picked up the phone that day. It was selfish - and ridiculous. The call had been at the garage, he needed to answer those calls!

It had been some great Aunt, or far removed cousin. He wasn’t quite sure how they were related. Apparently her son was originally going to spend summer break with one of his friends, but their trip had been cut short. The problem was said parents and their daughter had already made other arrangements and wanted to know if the aforementioned son could stay with Lance.

The problem was, Lance wasn’t there and wouldn’t be for a while. He was off on a road trip with some of his old buddies from his days when he absolutely positively was not a wrestler. It was a well overdue vacation and Arthur wasn’t going to call him back from it.

But something stopped him from just turning her down. It wasn’t her, but… it was the idea that their current plans ‘couldn’t be altered’. Lance had planned his trip to originally be last year, but he’d dropped everything after Arthur had turned up in a hospital without an arm. Also that they were reaching out to family that wasn’t that close at all made Arthur wonder if the closer relatives had also had plans that couldn’t be altered. It stank too much of no one wanting this kid, and damned if he was going to add to that

So here he was, waiting for a cousin he’d never met who’d be spending a month with him. He didn’t think it would matter so much if he wasn’t the age he was - 18. Younger would have been easier to slip into a child-guardian relationship and older meant this wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place. But 18 was an age of feeling you were coming into your own authority, and much more likely to take onus with someone a mere five years older than you being in charge.

The bus pulled up and Arthur braced himself. Two figures got off the bus, his cousin and...a dog? A rather large dog at that. Something else Aunt Wendy had forgot to mention. Hopefully it was good with other dogs and hamsters.

Pushing his misgivings aside, Arthur left the van with a big welcoming smile. No need to borrow trouble till it was here. “Hi, you must be Norville, right?”

The teen winced. “Like, call me Shaggy please. I hate Norville.” 

“Done and done.” Arthur agreed readily. “The name Norville is thus dead and shall never be spoken from mine lips again.”

“Ri’m Scooby Doo.”

Another talking dog, huh. “Just to make certain, you’re not actually an ancient kitsune with an evil Japanese tree after you?”

“Like, not that we know of?” Shaggy looked confused. So did Scooby so Arthur let it slide. 

“Okay, let’s get some food, and we can figure out stuff out.” Apparently he said the right word, because his cousin and dog perked up a lot. “Let me help you with your bags.” “Is your arm metal?” Shaggy asked, surprised.

“Sure is, made it myself.” Arthur wiggled his fingers at him, inwardly bracing himself. “That’s cool.” Shaggy said earnestly, picking up his other suitcase.

No ‘How did that happen?’ or ‘That must be so terrible’? Okay, thus far Arthur was counting this as a win.

~

“So,” Arthur started as they slid into a booth at Pepper Paradiso, “Let’s go over your options.”

“Options?” Shaggy asked, surprised.

“Yeah, you have two main options, and we can tweak them as need be. The first is what I told your Mom. You come to stay with me and my boyfriend and girlfriend. We’ve set up a spare room for you, and Scooby I guess, sorry no one told us he was coming.” “If you’d prefer not to deal with three people being kinda mushy, or just want more privacy  I’d give you a key to Lance’s place. You could stay in my old room and basically have the house to yourself. I’d still be checking in everyday and making sure you had food and stuff, but other than that, you’d be on your own.” 

Shaggy seemed to think a moment. “You have a boyfriend and a girlfriend? You can do that?” “Yes.” Arthur answered simply.

“Okay, like if it’s all the same, man, I’d rather stay with you. I don’t think me or Scoob want to be alone.”

Arthur tried not to take it as a warning sign. True, most teens would jump at the first chance to be on their own, but that was hardly universal. There was a small feeling that something was wrong, not just parental negligence. What, he didn’t know. And truthfully it could be nothing. Arthur had a tendency to jump to worst case scenarios (catastrophizing, his therapist had called it), so for now he’d wait and see.

“So is this the mysterious cousin?” Mrs Chef Pepper came over, winking .

“Yeah, this is Shaggy. Shaggy, this is one half of the best cooking team in Tempo, and honestly Texas.”

“Flatterer. My name’s Carmella Pepper. My husband’s running the kitchen, so I have the front end today. I assume the usual, Arthur?” “With no Cayenne additions, please.”

“She’s banned from the kitchen after the last hot sauce-strawberry shake.” Carmella assured him. “What about you, Shaggy?”

Shaggy looked at the menu. “Like, could Scoob and I each get a ‘Vivi Special’ “ he pointed to the menu.

She raised an eyebrow. With the exception of its namesake, the Vivi Special was usually ordered to be shared by a family. She’d never seen an order of two of them. “Do you want the plate of spicy chorizo or pancake poppers?” Scooby and Shaggy looked at each other. “One of each please. And, like separate checks? Mom set up an account for me for food and stuff.” Arthur tried to hide his relief. One extra mouth he could feed. Two more Vivi appetites would have strained his budget beyond feasibility.

~ “Lewis, Vivi— we’re home!” Arthur called, letting himself and his two guests in.

“Welcome home, Arty.” Lewis greeted, pulling his boyfriend in for a kiss. “So this must be Nor-”

“The name is not to be spoken. It has been cast into the abyss and replaced with Shaggy.” Arthur said with a completely straight face. “It has become one with the void.” Lewis rolled his eyes. “Sorry for the melodramatic one, I’m Lewis. Lewis Pepper.”

Shaggy shook his hand while Arthur sputtered over Lewis calling him melodramatic. “Pepper, like the people who run the restaurant?” “My parents.” Lewis explained.

“Wow, like they’re great cooks, man. It’s the first place me and Scooby found that we could be full off one thing on the menu.” “If you can call the ‘Vivi Special’ one thing.” Arthur quipped.

“Someone call me?” Vivi slid into the front room, literally, her socks holding no traction on the hardwood floor, causing her to crash into Lewis. “Arthur’s cousin Shaggy is a fan of your addition to my parents menu.” Lewis said.

“Ooooo Did you get the version with the spicy chorizo or pancake poppers?”

“Like, Scoob and I got one of each. I really liked Aztec Chocolate sauce on the sweet chili!”

“I know! And the smoked gouda filled jalapeño poppers!” 

“Arthur, I think our girlfriend just adopted your cousin.” Lewis commented.

~

Vivi stretched as she got home from her morning shift at the Tome Tomb. Arthur was having a full day at Kingsmen’s, so she figured she’d check in on Shaggy and Scooby before getting in some serious cuddle time with Lewis.

She found them in the living room, Shaggy was looking at a book. Not reading it, but staring at the cover, while Scooby leaned against him comfortingly. “Everything okay boys?” She asked softly.

Shaggy took a moment to answer. “Do you believe in this stuff? Magic and monsters?” “As a matter of fact I do.” She tried to keep the humor out of her voice. Shaggy had no idea he was spending the remainder of his summer with a ghost and a kitsune. “Do you?”

Shaggy didn’t answer. “Doesn’t it scare you?” he asked.

“The supernatural? Not really. Or at least, not more than anything else.” She sat down next to him. “There’s good and bad magic, just like there’s good and bad technology. Some beings are friendly, some just want to be left alone, and some are truly evil, just like people. You always, always, have to be careful. But I’d rather know, you know?” Shaggy shook his head. “Like, I think I’d rather not.” He looked at the book again. “Like, have you ever heard of something called the Chest of Demons?”

“Not off the top of my head, why?”

Shaggy shook his head. “Nothing, like what’s for lunch?” Vivi accepted the topic change, but didn’t forget what she’d heard. This merited some digging into.

~

Arthur felt dead on his feet (though not quite as much as Lewis, ha!) as he got home that evening.  Working in the garage was one thing, but running it was quite another. He couldn’t wait for Lance to get back.

It was Vivi who greeted him at the door, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing him. Arthur melted into the embrace, the warmth he felt in his heart giving him back the strength spent on budget balancing and unruly customers.

But as he felt himself relax, he realized she wasn’t easing up. Something was wrong. “What is it, Vi?”

“Your cousin.” She answered, her head still buried in the crook of Arthur’s neck. “He was looking at my books and mentioned something called the Chest of Demons. I hadn’t heard of it, so I sent out some feelers.”

“Bad?” Arthur guessed, as if the name didn’t give that away.

“Not just the chest itself. I still don’t know what it is, because one of the few things I did manage to learn is it’s protected by near total secrecy. It’s not something he could have just randomly heard of.”

Arthur’s mouth set into a grim frown. He could think of a few reasons, but none of them were good.

“And this isn’t some random client messing with something he shouldn’t, he’s your cousin and I like him, but this is serious.”

“I’ll talk to him.” Arthur promised. 

“No!” Vivi squeezed him tighter. “I don’t want to think he’s up to anything bad, but-” Honestly with how Shaggy had reacted to ‘Magic and Monsters’ she doubted it, but she couldn’t be sure and she wasn’t willing to put any of her boys in the path of danger.

Arthur laid a gentle kiss on her forehead. “You can have one of the Beats watching over us if it makes you feel better, but we can’t leave this alone and he’s nervous enough I don’t want him to feel like we’re ganging up on him.”

“That still puts you at risk,” Vivi argued.

“There’s always a risk, love. And you can’t take all of them for me. And I think this is a small one. Have you talked to Lewis yet?”

“Talked to be about what?” Lewis popped his head in. “You guys were taking a while. Is everything okay?”

“Shaggy may or may not have gotten mixed up in something supernatural and I want to talk to him about it. I want to do it alone so I don’t overwhelm him, but Vivi doesn’t want me to go talk about an evil artifact with the person who brought it up by myself. I volunteered to take a Beat with me.” “Take Mystery too.” Lewis suggested. “Shaggy likes him, so he wouldn’t feel ganged up on.”

Vivi let out a sigh of relief. “I love your Deadbeats, Lew, but I feel a lot better about that plan.”

~

“Hey Shaggy,” Arthur sat down. Mystery curled up by his feet, looking innocuous, but keeping a careful eye on Shaggy and Scooby.

“Hey,” Shaggy didn’t look up from the video game he was playing. “Like, how was work?”

“Not too bad. Can we talk about something?”

“Sure, man.” Shaggy paused the game. “What’s up?”

So many questions ran through Arthur’s head. Why do you know about the Chest of Demon? How did you find out about it? How much do you know? But there was one question he felt the need to ask above all the others.

“Are you in any danger?”

Shaggy blinked, caught completely off guard. “Huh?”

“You brought up something called the Chest of Demons to Vivi today. She did some digging. It was bad.” Arthur kept it vague to hide how much he didn’t know. “It’s also not a name you’d just stumble on. So, are you in any danger?” Shaggy deflated. “Like, not right now. Probably later. Thirteen seems to be keeping a low profile, but given the other twelve? At least Boggle and Weird are sealed up.”

Okay, Arthur didn’t understand any of that after ‘Probably later’. “Can you start at the beginning?”

“Okay, so like originally the five us were supposed to spend the summer on a global road trip, but Fred and Velma ended up going to camp, so like it was just me, Scooby, and Daphne. And we kinda sorta got lost. We ended up in the place where the chest was hidden. There were these two ghosts, Boggle and Weird. They wanted the thirteen evil spirits in the chest free, but it can only be opened by the living. So they tricked me and Scoob into opening it.and setting their masters free.”

Shaggy then rolled his eyes. “And of course only the ones who open the chest can return them, so like, suddenly we’re chasing down the nastiest ghoulies this side of the River Styx. We got the first twelve and got Boggle and Weird sucked in for good measure but with no sign of number thirteen Vincent cut us loose till he finds him.”

“Vincent?” Arthur inquired.

“A mystic who knows a lot about the Chest of Demon and it’s prisoners. He’s been helping us.” Shaggy shrugged. “Daphne suggested continuing our vacation while we’re on break, but I just kinda wanted to go home.” “Did you tell your family any of this?” Arthur wondered.

His cousin snorted. “Besides you? Like no one would believe me! And Daphne….” Shaggy trailed off.

“And Daphne?” Arthur prompted.

“It sounds weird to say, but this seemed to be, like, good for her? Before she kinda followed whatever Fred said. This summer though, she was taking charge and becoming more confident in herself. And like, I’m happy for her, but it means-” Shaggy seemed to struggle for his words, Scooby putting a reassuring head on his knee. “I’m a coward. I’d rather run from scary things than fight them. And I know I have to get them back in the box, cause it’s my fault they’re out-”

“Rour fault,” Scooby corrected.

“-but I’m scared all the time and I don’t want to be and no one but Scoob seems to get that.”

“Of course you’re scared,” Arthur scoffed. “You’ve had thirteen evil spirits after you. That’s objectively terrifying. You’d be crazy not to be scared.”

Boy and dog seemed taken aback.

While he couldn’t say he had been expecting those details, at least this lined up with what Arthur suspected, that Shaggy had stumbled into trouble, not sought it out.

“Okay, so first things first, what do you know about Spirit #13? What kind of spirit is it?” Arthur’s voice was all business.

“Not yet, Vincent usually tells us about them as he finds them.” Shaggy explained.

“If you can contact him, see if you can find out what we’re dealing with. It’ll be more effective if we can narrow that down.”

“What will be?” Shaggy asked, confused.

“Protective wards. That reminds me. Lewis, Vivi, Shaggy has a potential evil spirit after him. Brainstorming time.” “Huh?”

Lewis and Vivi showed up a bit too quickly to not have been listening in, but Arthur hoped Shaggy wouldn’t notice.

“There’s already some basic wards against hostile entities on the house, Pepper Paradiso, Lance’s, Kingsmen’s, and the Tome Tomb.” Vivi listed.

“I’ve got a few things around town warning me of anything of any level of power entering.” Mystery put forth. “It’s only weak spot is the lake.”

“Which has a protector of its own.” Arthur had a wry grin. “Nothing coming in from that side.”

Shaggy and Scooby shared a confused look. “You guys had this already set up?”

“You get surprised by a Jubokko once, you take precautions.” Vivi said dryly. “But this is all general stuff. The more specifics we know, the better defenses we can make. We can also figure out what places near your home we need to ward, or come up with something portable.”

Shaggy just looked between the four of them, confused. “Why?”

Lewis took a deep breath ( or at least mimed doing so). “Shaggy, you’re Arthur’s cousin, do you know what that means?”

Shaggy shook his head.

“It means you’re family,  you’re our family. And we protect family however we can.” Lewis stated. “And we know monsters exist. We’ll be ready.”

Shaggy seemed at a loss for words. His mouth opened and closed a few times. “Thank you,” he finally whispered, his voice raw with emotion.

Arthur pulled him into a hug. “That’s what family does.”

#Accidental-Child #MSA #Scooby Doo #MSAHolidaySpirits2019

[perahn]

Codex Entry #6

… the darkness roils, lightning forking within it and splitting it into pieces. They ring around me, amorphous save for the reaching tendrils. Lightning flashes through them again, slow-arcing light congealing into masks and ribbons. One shape holds out a rose to the Silent. My tongue is silver and heavy in my mouth; I cannot warn him. He takes it, and the darkness surges forward and swallows him. The darkness spirals closer. A shape holds out a pebble to the Erratic. My hands are golden and heavy at the ends of my wrists; I cannot stop her. She takes it, and the darkness wraps itself around her. She’s gone. One shape holds out a potion to the Thirsty. My eyes are stone and heavy in their sockets; I cannot see whether she takes it. I hear laughter in the thunder, the darkness curling icy around me. The book is taken from my hands –

I recognise the tome, the pebble and the potion, of course, and the silver masks. The conjunction of rose, darkness, and the Silent is familiar, but I can’t remember the details, which suggests a long-ago and infrequent dream. All in all, this dream was far clearer than most I’ve had recently, which is a pleasant change… but I hardly needed divination to tell me we’re deeply embroiled in drow affairs and that I feel powerless.

I hadn’t expected to make use of the spells I learned during my last visit to the Arcane Library so soon, or to quite so dramatic an end. I have always doubted that Jarnath would render any further payment for the death of his target, given that, in smaller matters, he has twice promised what he could not deliver. I do consider myself somewhat in his debt for guiding us to Philock, but such qualms could be easily ignored. In any case, Sending to him requesting assurance that he could pay gained only the answer ‘not now’. I attempted to scry him (classically the signature spell of the experienced diviner; casting it gave me a satisfying sensation of legitimacy), using the blood from the ship as a focus. Not Jarnath’s blood, as it proved; Dwynnej’s text described the effect of casting with a mismatch between target and focus very accurately. Fortunately both subjects were in close proximity. It appeared that our erstwhile guide was being hunted by the drow whose blood had been shed. I’ve rarely seen fear carved so plainly into a face.

I believe the entire race is insane. Even their half-breed children inherit the madness.

I am getting ahead of myself.

It was decided that we would return to Skullport as quickly as possible – which meant from the Arcane Library, via their teleportation services, to the Enclave circle. I expected to be delayed there, and indeed we were; the new mistress of the Enclave, one Eshmira Abbar, summoned us to her office. (Aside: possibly a conjuration specialist, given her affinity for teleportation and the efreet that initially greeted us.)

My mind has been fossilising ever since I left home; a few more months out here and there will be nothing left rattling between my ears but a small coprolite. When I explained the circumstances of Metoth Zurn’s death, Eshmira Abbar asked if I were completely certain of what I’d seen. I missed the screamingly obvious cue – she was much less interested in the involvement of the drow than in my discretion regarding the exact circumstances of her promotion. I was able to reassure her on that point, once I understood her concern. A reputation for inconvenient hallucinations is much easier to work with than what the Academy thought of me after Khaizri…

And she promoted me to nishkir (Both a Red Wizard rank and a job description. The exact duties of the nishkir are difficult to define, although both ‘monster-hunters’ and ‘elite field operatives’ have been suggested. It can be said with certainty that it is a position of some authority, and considerable danger. Nishkiri usually work outside Thay and with little support, with the curious corollary that they are perhaps the least likely of all Red Wizards to die at the hands of their fellows. If one encounters a Red Wizard in an abandoned ruin, or halfway up a mountain, or deep underwater, or in any such hostile environment, one can probably greet them as nishkir without great risk of error). I understand her move, of course. I am not yet so stupid. It is both a bribe and a leash. If I should behave, if I should survive, she has gained a useful asset. If she believes my knowledge of Zurn’s demise renders me a liability, it would be the simplest matter in the world to assign me elsewhere, or to a task I have no chance of completing – even simpler than disposing of me herself. Nobody would be surprised at the death of an ill-trained and unready nishkir.

And that is exactly what I am. I was released from my apprenticeship barely a week before I left Thay, and only because Mistress Kharzura was as intrigued as I by my dreams of Skullport. Under other conditions, I would have remained by her side for several years more, gathering knowledge and strength, until we were both ready. I am – I was – a somewhat slow-witted and quiet alakir (A novice, more or less: a Red Wizard who has completed her training but not yet achieved any particular rank). Nothing less like the intensive and comprehensive training of a proper nishkir could be imagined.

And I am a diviner, to boot! Field work really is better left to the evokers and the conjurers – I did not even contribute greatly to the death of my predecessor! I was drained by rendering us all nondetectable, and everyone else proved more useful in that battle. It was Harper’s arrow which split the nishkir’s skull (how many times have I dreamt that arrow? I can almost feel it now). Me, a nishkir? It’s one of the poorest jests I’ve ever heard.

But it’s been made, and the only thing to do is prepare to survive the punchline.

After leaving the Enclave, we ran into Aunrae, a half-drow friend of Harper’s – at least, that is what he said she was. I admit I have no idea of his network or contacts, but I’ve never seen her before, and much of the encounter that followed remains inexplicable – or, at any rate, unexplained. She was demanding entrance to the house of the illithid Grotana (who still apparently believes that Katy is a pirate sorceress queen and the rest of us are her slaves, despite the many details obviously wrong with this).

Using Katy’s invitation as a pretext, then, we got Aunrae into the illithid’s home, whereupon she started demanding the location of a third party. The illithid was almost grovelling in fear – not quite the fearsome devourer of brains most texts depict – when the drow who had warned us away from Jarnath appeared.

A most confusing scene ensued. Harper was there to assist Aunrae. The drow, Valas Daevin, is her father, which was why she intended to kill him. I’ve rarely heard such purpose or such hatred in a mind. The half-drow slave of the illithid’s – also sired by Valas – interposed himself. Harper argued Aunrae out of killing Valas, further demonstrating exactly how dangerous he becomes the moment he opens his mouth.

He was there ostensibly to help her achieve her goals, as he says he is for me. However, in the crucial instant, he prevented her from killing her quarry - no. That’s inaccurate. He prevented her from attempting it. I am not certain of the relative power levels involved – I’ve seen the Gladiator in action, but both Valas and Aunrae are complete unknowns – but it is quite possible that, even if Harper, Shay, Katy and I had assisted Aunrae, she would still have failed and we would be dead. It is also possible that Valas would have been slain. Perhaps Harper had relevant information. If so, he did not share it.

The way he persuaded her also requires thought. There appeared to be something about the situation that resonated with him – “you’re not the only one with an asshole father”, and the implication that family was a limited commodity. Linked, perhaps, with whatever the full version of his ‘family business’ might be. Well. I hope that one day, I find the right questions or magic to learn more of that matter.

Valas Daevin gave us a location where he believed we might find Jarnath. As it turned out, he was entirely correct. It also appears that when I had Scried Jarnath, we witnessed not a lethal hunt, but drow foreplay.

Lovely.

We briefly made the acquaintance of the paramour in question – one Rylfein by name – before another drow came crashing through the window to demand the location of some money. Both appeared to match the description of the drow who burned down the Pick and Lantern, which demonstrates exactly how well-spent all our effort on the subject was. The latter also had a small companion clinging to his back – quite one of the oddest creatures I’ve ever seen. We mostly left the matter there, and were ambushed on our way back to the house by hirelings of the Mandible.

Despite their spell-caster summoning a Fomorian (an unusual feat, and certainly not a conventional choice; giants are not easily bound, as I understand it, and neither as biddable or as predictable as undead or fiends), our assailants were quickly subdued. The spell-caster is down in the cellar at present. Harper’s bindings appear secure – even disturbingly so. He would not have made the same errors Khaseth did.  

-

An old dream returned again last night – the Erratic and the Silent. The thing which accompanies the Erratic was once again shaped like a toad of stone, with burning eyes. Her chest was a wet, scarlet ruin. The Silent seized the thing and tried to tear it free, but he didn’t see how it had wrapped its claws around her heart. She screamed for mercy, but the Silent was inexorable, and slowly he got the thing away from her. It laughed wildly as he threw it away, kissing her heart and lavishing endearments upon it, while the Silent knelt beside the dying Erratic, blood dripping from the hole in his chest to the hole in hers.

I would gladly sacrifice clear warnings for cryptic guidance. It is maddening, to be so lost, to dream nothing that I do not already know with a waking mind… to feel the storm coming and have no idea how to weather it.

Enough.

Harper and I interrogated the spell-caster separately. I am uncertain exactly what methods Harper might have used, but she apparently told Harper that her ambush had been the Mandible’s audition process. False, according to my detect thoughts; she had been hired by the Mandible to kill us. She was quite indignant about the whole process, which was not without its amusement value. She was also poorly educated; she had a description of me, and still failed recognise a Red Wizard of Thay.

…I am rambling, committing all kinds of useless minutiae to this journal, which was originally intended to record only what was important – another symptom of how sloppy and stupid I am becoming. It may very well be that I eventually fall into so many poor habits that I would not survive returning home… but that seems a distant concern at present. Survive the scorpion in your mouth before worrying about the serpent at your boot, as Master Xobek used to say in Combat Applications…

Szass Tam’s balls, I hope Mistress Kharzura has killed him by the time I return…

Rambling. Again. What is wrong with me?

In the marketplace, we encountered the individuals who crashed through Jarnath’s window. The drow male – one Adinaun by name – has a proposition to discuss with us. The female – Twinkle – is patently not human, judging by her slitted pupils and tail. She may be fiendish in heritage, given how she could apparently see ‘Bob’ when Katy had not summoned him into visibility.

 We met with Tansia Neverember – given her name, a member of the same House as the current Open Lord of Waterdeep, or at least posing as one – of the Mandible. She shrugged off the attack upon us as a trifling matter. As Harper had expressed an interest in working with or for the Mandible, she also gave us a missive to deliver to one Malakuth Tabuirr at the temple of Vhaeraun.

I checked it for magic, at Harper’s request, and found none, but I did not have clairvoyance prepared to actually ascertain its contents. I will tomorrow.

We found Adinaun and Twinkle at the High Tide. On closer observation, their manner is very much that of master and slave – a very possessive master, for he’d performed something like a fatal peotomy on an overly familiar halfling. I don’t have enough for a full threat assessment of either of them as yet, but in brief: he appears to be extremely dangerous, armed with a ridiculous amount of weapons and with sufficient scars to denote an experienced survivalist. She appears to have unusual modes of perception, an ingenuous manner, and is enough of a spell-caster to purify their food and drink. Given her demonstrated proficiency with the lyre, I shall tentatively class her as a bard.

Adinaun claims to have worked with Jarnath on a heist. Unsurprisingly, Jarnath orchestrated events that placed him in possession of the entire amount of gold and saw him leave Adinaun for dead. Obviously, Adinaun is now seeking both revenge and the treasure. If we discover its hiding place, he offers fifty percent of the remaining gold. It’s a prospect not without its attraction, not least because Jarnath is an irritant, and – at least here, I will confess it – because Adinaun seems relatively straightforward and pleasant to deal with. Nonetheless, I believe we will need to discuss this matter further.

Shay and Harper released our captive spell-caster that evening, while Katy and I sat down for our first lesson. Eventually. I must have misspoken to some degree when I first explained the exercise, for we were at cross-purposes for some time. Even once I made myself clear and we sat down, it took some time before we got anywhere at all. She remains easily distracted and lacking in discipline, and the fact that Harper joined in did not help (aside: why did he? Simply to guard his wastet-le and be certain of what I was teaching? Or did he expect to make some use of it himself? Simply because it amused him?). Still, we made some progress.

If we continue at this rate, she may be able to safely cast a cantrip about the time my eyebrows turn entirely white.

Later, Katy came up to my room to ask some questions. I think it’s safe to assume her intention was as transparent as it seemed – she wished to ascertain the ties that bind Shay to her order and how they could be broken. As I told her, I have already offered to turn my attention to this matter should Shay wish it, but she has never stated her desire to leave. She is my wastet-le, not my slave; these choices are for her to make.  Katy made the point – a surprisingly insightful one – that Shay has been trained to accept and obey, not to question or to hold preferences. It may no longer be possible for her to want to leave.

I will have to think more on this, although I maintain that a) I will not force Shay to any such action against her will, and b) I will not aid Katy to storm the Long Death Monastery. It is patently suicidal, and I will not be the Red Wizard who breaks our treaty with the monks.

Katy’s motivation in this matter is less clear. It’s long been clear that she is emotionally driven (as is Harper, although it manifests differently), that she attaches primary importance to how she feels about people. It’s entirely reasonable that she should be attached to Shay – I am, and I am not controlled by emotions – and should wish to remove her from a situation that is both painful and not of her choosing. Nevertheless, she was quite insistent on the point. There is a significant difference between ‘Why don’t you just leave the Red Wizards, Khem?’ and ‘How can we get Shay free?’, which may or not be entirely attributable to Shay’s more personable demeanour… but I am speculating without sufficient evidence.

… I dreamed the Thirsty, carved from clouded blue ice. She bent her head to mine, frost to skin, and her thoughts flowed with the bitter cold that radiated from her. I saw her in the arena, small and fragile, a spider-webbing of cracks over her surface. She screamed defiance, both within her thoughts and in the voice of wind from the mountains. Deep under her ice, she began to fill with black smoke, boiling out from the cracks between her fingers, pouring from her eyes and her mouth. The ice could not hold it, and she burst apart. I bled from a thousand cuts, and she was gone – leaving only black smoke and ice, flesh and blood.

This, again. As if I didn’t already know.

Yesterday was an… interesting day. Productive, I hope, but it is so difficult to tell.

Shay was practising her alchemy. I gave her the recipe for hair and iris dye I found in the Arcane Library, and briefly apprised her of the questions Katy had asked. She seemed mildly surprised that Katy had brought it to me instead of her – which is fair, it’s never pleasant to be the subject of furtive discussion (which is, of course, why I informed her) – but she confirmed that Katy has brought this up with her as well. It is another reason I need to watch my student very carefully.

I cast clairvoyance for Harper to ascertain the contents of the letter we were to deliver to Malakuth Tabuirr. It read only ‘I know’. Not as informative as I could have hoped, but suggestive. On one hand, we have Tansia, who intimated her role as leader of the Mandible was to prevent severe upsets of the balance of power in Skullport. On the other, we have a known associate – probably worshipper, certainly patron – of the temple of Vhaeraun, as well as a quantity of Vhaeraunite drow crawling out of the mushrooms, who could support whatever ploy he might have in mind. Certainly at least one drow is plotting a move that will have repercussions for the powerscape of Waterdeep, to which Skullport is linked. At the moment, there is nothing to suggest that Jarnath has support among the other followers of his god, but it’s not impossible.

There are so many unknown quantities as to make me long for home, where I knew all my peers and how they thought, and the resources at their command, and their potential allies and enemies. Still, my initial training must be some help here, and it is… reassuring to have a better idea of our positioning. We are deeply entangled with others’ schemes, of course, but these players have always been on the field, their plans and the currents of their powers already in motion. Now that we are aware of them, we have a much better chance of negotiating them successfully.

We delivered the letter as instructed. I saw the drow who killed Metoth Zurn speaking with the priest there – after sufficient bribery, the priest stated his name was Ahmryr Yhauntyr (I am uncertain of the correct Common spelling), a courier and caravanner. Not particularly informative, but I wasn’t expecting to see him again at all. Nor did I wish to appear too curious; I have no desire to be destroyed as Zurn was. More of this shortly.

The priest to whom we gave the letter did not share his name – I consider it quite likely that he was Tabuirr himself, but I have no real evidence – and was pleased to share information about his deity to potential converts. So, despite being primarily a drow god, it seems Vhaeraun has no particular dislike for the worship of other races (but is that about preference, or only about power?). He would appear to have some agenda beyond the acquisition of wealth and patronage of thieves (freedom? From Lloth? They would appear to exist in opposition, if Jarnath’s hatred of spiders is indicative). He has been silent in the past, but has recently begun to speak to his priests again. I wonder about the time involved - whether Jarnath is a recent convert or lasted through the interregnum... if he deserted while the god was silent, and Valas did not, it might possibly explain the latter’s description of the former’s faith as ‘impure’...

Adinaun and Twinkle were also at the temple. That makes three Vhaearaunite drow in our immediate acquaintance – and one of whatever she might be.

When it appeared we would not gain anything further, we left the temple. Shay and Katy returned to the house, while Harper and I continued on to the Mandible. Tansia appeared reasonably content with the letter’s delivery, if somewhat less so with Harper’s insinuation that the death of the Tyrran high priestess might be a boon to the Mandible’s interests as well, and therefore Tansia should pay him for the assassination. Not so different to my desire to speak with Eshmira Abbar or Anishta Daraam about the matter, save that I am already a Red Wizard, and he is (as far as I know) still proving himself to the Mandible. In any case, she agreed – provided the matter was discreetly handled, and that she was given the priestess’s holy symbol as proof of death.

I suspect Harper has taken this approach because he believes, as I do, that trying to collect payment from Jarnath is unlikely to go smoothly. It’s a shrewd play, assuming Katy’s scruples on the proposed activity can be overcome. If they cannot, I doubt Harper will proceed at all. Where that might leave me – and Shay, for that matter – is another question entirely.

Well. I cast tongues on Harper, so he could understand the conversation at the Enclave – for the first time in his three visits there – and I made Mistress Eshmira aware that I had seen the drow who slew her predecessor at the temple of Vhaeraun, and of the meagre details I had gained. It’s hers to pursue, if she is interested in the involvement of the drow in Red Wizard affairs. If, on the other hand, she hired him herself… well, I might have been less than tactful, but I believe I made my position clear enough. I don’t intend to investigate this further myself, and I hardly care if she did have outside help; I don’t aspire to the Skullport Enclave.

She declined to discuss any Waterdhavian matters; it seems I must seek out Anishta Daraam.

After leaving the Enclave, Harper and I had the usual wrangle. He doesn’t understand why I would remain with my order ‘to be shat upon’; I didn’t understand why he would use that term to describe what had been a perfectly courteous conversation. I admit that the Red Wizard’s path is demanding, and my superiors rarely have my best interests at heart – but that’s as it has to be. The disagreement expanded onto other, only semi-related topics: why he insists on offering me his arm, and why I dislike touching others and resist being touched… which culminated in him insisting on walking three steps behind me the entire way back to the house.

I hated it, of course. There are few things more uncomfortable than someone at your back, where you can’t see them or what they’re doing – and every time I try to stress his position, or to pay him due respect as ahk-veleth, he does something like this… I was sorely tempted to polymorph myself into some winged creature and leave him behind entirely. But Skullport isn’t really safe, and if these unpleasant little games truly amuse him so much, I can let him mock me.

I have had considerable practice in the matter, after all, and he isn’t as vicious as most.

Shay had made a Thayan dessert when we returned. It’s almost disconcerting, how something so little can summon up all that I miss most of home. It’s a weakness, I suppose, to be longing so deeply for a place and time, instead of focusing on what I must do here, but the memories keep returning. The library, warm and cosy on a winter’s day, with the grey rain falling into the lake. The aromatic soups in the refectories, the chatter of my peers, the fierce pleasure of competition… Certainty. Sense. Knowing where I belonged, and seeing a clear path before me.

We discussed our options and choices for a time without reaching a conclusion, partially because we were distracted by the matter of Bob. I believe Katy sees, now, some of the ways in which it seeks to manipulate her, and that it has not always been honest with her. She was quite alarmed when she understood that it was always with her, listening, whether or not she has summoned or can see it, and she retired to bed so that we could discuss more freely. I appreciate the sentiment, although I doubt the creature’s so closely tethered to her that it cannot eavesdrop on a conversation happening downstairs. On the other hand, I’m not sure just how interested it is in anything beyond Katy. If I could identify it properly, perhaps I could get a better idea. Next time I’m in Waterdeep, perhaps…

After she left, I made Harper aware of the possibility that Katy had made a warlock pact with Bob, or whatever entity Bob answers to, and what that might entail. He seemed concerned, if somewhat overloaded with information. He also threatened me: he will not tolerate any attempt on my part to harm Katy, whatever might be asked of her by her putative patron. I was rather taken off-guard. She is not only one of the recurring, but my wastet-le, my student, and I take those responsibilities seriously. Even if I did not, I have clearly stated I do not wish to make an enemy of him: anyone with eyes can see how he values her, and I have never meddled with another’s wastet-le in any case.

It was not an auspicious start to the evening, and it got worse. Between that threat and the accusation of discourtesy, and the earlier irritants – including that Harper had received my letter, but didn’t know what to do about it, and apparently he didn’t comprehend that I was willing to answer his question but did not want to, which is not that fine a distinction! – my patience and defences were worn a great deal thinner than I had realised. When he made some remark about me loving him – quite mild fare, really – I lost control. I let him see exactly how much I disliked his innuendo, and I fled. Thankfully, I retained enough self-discipline to attempt to give the impression of an offended retreat, rather than a defeated rout, but I doubt he was fooled.

My peers would have laughed themselves sick at such a display, and then attempted to goad me further, into rash, self-destructive action. Harper… apologised, and promised to attempt to restrain himself (at which he was not entirely successful, but as I told him, I am reasonably convinced he doesn’t mean anything by it, and I have heard worse). I am certain he does not have the full tale – anyone from my Academy would be delighted to share it, of course, but I doubt he can reach so far as Thay, and we haven’t met anyone out here from home – which is some small comfort. What he will do with the information he does have, however, remains to be seen.

Well. After Harper had done with that subject, he poured me a drink, and he asked for the answer my letter had promised him. Mindful both of the way alcohol affects me, and of the fact he has indicated he finds me more agreeable when I’m drinking, I made judicious use of it while I explained to him exactly what an oneiric diviner is, how my dreams guide and alter my life, exactly who the recurring are – in short, exactly why he matters to me. There were several aspects of his reaction that I note here, in no particular order, for further thought/investigation.

- He never expressed doubt or mockery. The concept was unfamiliar to him – as most aspects of magical theory seem to be – but he has queried other things that I have told him I could do, and this is a more unusual and rarer manifestation of magic.

- He recognised the dream I related to him. I was not carefully monitoring his reaction while I was describing it – an oversight – but I did retain the impression it shook him profoundly. By that I can conclude, I think, that it relates to some aspect of the past he guards so well. I wonder if the other figures represented forces, abstractions, or people, and whether I dare ask him about it. The Silent has so often appeared with a hole or wound, and he has spoken of unpleasant memories…

- “It seems like a cruel thing to do to yourself.” Cruel? That’s not a usual reaction at all. Counter-productive, useless or insane, according to the non-oneiric diviners; impossible or insane, according to the ill-educated. But cruel? I assume he’s judging by his own measure – that is, such dreams are something he would not want for himself. Why would he not want additional warnings, knowledge, insight and guidance? I admit I have dreamed death or torment frequently – but it’s not real (unless and until it is) and it’s a small price to pay. Surely he wouldn’t be scared of that? Possibly linked: does he struggle with common nightmares? Is that why he sleeps so poorly? (If so, is it possible that some of the exercises Mistress Kharzura first set me would help him? I believe this may be worth pursuing.)

- He seemed to understand just how momentous – and staggering – it was to find the recurring in reality. I don’t know what to make of this, except that he has shown flashes of insight on other occasions. I just hadn’t anticipated just how disconcerting it would be to have him understand me that easily, particularly when we seem so often to be completely alien to each other.

- “How much did you see?” That, at least, was unmistakeable and completely understandable. He reacted almost exactly as I would have, if someone had told me they had witnessed some of my more difficult or painful moments. I tried to offer him some reassurance without speaking falsely – most of my dreams are highly allegorical, and difficult to comprehend without more context than I usually possess. I have seen a great deal… but I don’t necessarily know what it means, or where it fits. However, given that he recognised that dream, it seems logical that it referred to something in the past, and, probably, so do most of the other dreams in which the Silent was the masked ash-rabbit, or where the crowned vulture or the ocean-eyed serpent appeared.

- He disliked the idea of dreams in which he’d harmed me, saying that he felt at fault. He also asked how much control I had over my dreams, whether I could just stop them, or some of them, and expressed his wish that I did not dream of him that night. Perhaps I failed to make clear the precise ways that the dreams and reality interact – that it isn’t an exact correlation. There are warnings, there are allegories, there are possibilities. The number of dreams that directly portended something that later occurred is relatively small… In any case, why should he feel responsible for what the Silent does in my dreams? One could make an argument that he would prefer I was not experiencing oneiric fore-echoes of the moment when he does strike against me, but that doesn’t ring true. Mistress Kharzura would fault that conclusion – I have no strong evident or reasoning to support it – but I do not have to defend my reasoning at present, and as long as I don’t allow it to pull me off-guard, I may entertain it if I wish. 

- He asked if we could begin again, and held out his hand for me to take. The angle was exactly the same as when I dreamed it, but if that was truly the moment it presaged, everything else was different. I was terrified. Almost anything else would have been easier than giving him my hand - after all my training and so many dreams... but I conquered my fear, and no ill came out of it.

There is more I should write, I believe, but even the small amount of alcohol I consumed has rendered some aspects of the conversation unclear in my recollection. I will record that Harper began to offer me his assistance in reaching my bed – as far as I can tell – but stopped himself before he reached the end of the sentence, and offered to wake Shay instead. Perhaps he will genuinely try to avoid the innuendo. What a relief it would be, to let those memories rest…

Alcohol disordered my dreams, again, blurring ordinary memory and nightmare with divinatory dreaming, so that the Silent was Khaseth, and I was myself and that elven spell-caster. He did as Khaseth did and as he would have, and I did not escape him.

My hand is cramping, and I have been forced to resort to simpler ciphers in order to complete this entry more quickly. I can hear Katy’s voice from downstairs, enthusing over breakfast as usual; it is more than time I descended.

I am… somewhat anxious at the prospect of facing Harper again, having shared so much. I suspect, from elements of last night, that he may be equally ill-at-ease. It’s not a particularly comforting thought – but why should I expect or desire comfort?

#writing #khemuret xul #d&d #beware #it's a long one #khem has a lot of thoughts #feelings is a dirty word #but possibly she has those too

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Collectible Wizard Slash Is Less Fun Than It Sounds

by Shim

Tuesday, 04 January 2011Shim exposes the tangled innards of Wizardology: the board game to the cold light of day

Uh-oh! This is in the Axis of Awful...~

Merlin, the apple of your eye, has retreated to his magical hideaway to study ancient tomes. How can you hope to win his love? You must make a dangerous journey across the land to find him. But only the most gorgeously-attired wizard can hope to catch his eye and win his heart. Along your way, you must seek out the perfect accessories for your outfit - and fend off all the unworthy suitors who are trying to steal Merlin from you.

This is not the tagline for the board game "Wizardology". But it should be.

I came across Wizardology in a local games shop, and was fascinated. I didn't realise at the time that it is based on a series of books. What I noticed was that it was a board game about accessorizing wizards, complete with little toy wizards to accessorize! It was also relatively cheap, so I grabbed it, and prevailed upon Kyra and Dan to help me test it out.

The first thing that strikes you about this game, when you open the box, is the array of little wizard figures. More specifically, the array of little ethnic stereotypes of distinctly dubious nature. You get:

* One "Western" pointy-hatted gown-wearer with pet owl

* One beturbaned, wedge-bearded "Arabian" wizard with pet monkey

* One "Lapp shaman" with pet wolf

* One "Oriental wizard" with conical hat, Fu Manchu facial hair and pet tortoise

* One "Indian fakir" standing in Tree yoga position (i.e. on one leg) wearing a shred of robe, with pet cobra

* One "African" wizard with hockey mask, feathered headdress, feather fan and pet ocelot.

It's a bit cringeworthy (in fairness, I'm not sure how I'd have depicted an array of wizards from different traditions), but we pressed on. The box has all kinds of goodies, including collectible staves, hats, medallions and the aforementioned familiars. For some reason the medallions are full-sized, rather than made for the figures, which means you can't accessorize the wizards with them. I have no idea why they decided on that. There is also an array of cards in various decks, a couple of magnetic rings, and a wand. The board consists entirely of spaces that do things: you either draw cards or roll dice for something on every space, and you always have a choice of which direction to move, including bouncing off walls to go back on yourself. All this should add up to an interesting game.

Somehow, it doesn't. Kyra barely survived the experience; I had slightly more fun, but that was more due to the banter and critiqueing than the actual game. So where did it go wrong?

Complexity /= Interestingness

I think the first problem might actually be the complexity of the board. In theory, a mazelike board where every square does something should be interesting. Actually, it often just served to slow down play and vaguely irritate us. For example, there are several "lose a turn" squares. However, the game mechanics mean you can choose which direction to move, which means you never have to land on one, so they become entirely redundant. The "magic items" you pick up are basically keys to enter four rooms, where you can perform a test to try and acquire an accessory. This got a bit irritating, because you not only have to physically navigate the maze to the room you want, but also pick up the right key. Each time you fail - which is moderately likely - you need a new key to try the test again. As a result, you basically end up grinding for keys so as not to waste the effort of getting to the room if you then fail the challenge. Once finished, you have a stack of useless keys, which increases as you complete more and more challenges.

A separate "Phoenix Feather" space lets you randomly pick up one of three types of fast travel item, which should make moving round the maze much easier. However, one of them is very limited and the other has a 50% chance to fail, which puts you off deliberately landing on those squares. We only used them a handful of times, mostly just to see what they did. It didn't really seem worth using them.

There are also "Prophecy" spaces, which let you draw a prophecy card. This seems like a fun idea - you can get both good and bad results, and some can be saved to use later (although there's very little prophetic about them - they're basically Event cards). Unfortunately, because of the implementation, even the "good" cards are usually irritating. The best are those which let you steal a random card from another player (usually pointless), protect you from such stealing, or allow you to rotate the board. The last seems like a fun mechanism, and could have done with expansion. One type sends you back to the start, which is a board game standard, though there seem to be quite a lot of them. Another type is supposed to be a bonus: it allows you to travel directly to a secret room, though you can't enter without the appropriate key. Unfortunately, the room is indicated on the card, which means most of the time this is no different from going back to the start - you end up somewhere you didn't want to be, quite possibly on the wrong side of the board entirely.

Finally, there are "Spells and potions" spaces. These are far less cool than they sound. Basically, you roll two special dice, and a random spell results. A full 50% of the time, it goes wrong and you are trapped until you can reverse the spell by rolling the same result. The rest of the time, the spell works, in which case you either get a slight benefit or completely screwed. One of the spells is "swap places with another wizard", which means you take over their piece and all its cards and accessories. It's entirely possible for someone about to win to land here and have to swap, which just makes no sense from a thematic point of view and is a pain as a game mechanism. We found ourselves just avoiding these spaces altogether, because a bad result was just far more likely than anything remotely useful.

Randomness /= Challenge

The problem here, as with the rest of the game, is randomness. You have a lot of choice over your movement, allowing you to land on particular spaces or take different paths through the maze, and sod all over anything else. A few random elements in a game can be fun; card pickups are an interesting diversion in Monopoly, but don't control the main flow of the game. On the other extreme, completely random games are usually less frustrating because there isn't the illusion of control. Here, there are a lot of complex elements, but your relationship with them is basically random, and in almost all cases the result is not beneficial. There is virtually no interactivity between the elements of the game, or the players, except completely random ones.

Okay, there is an exception to that. Wizard Duels. If you land on certain spaces, or in the same space as another wizard, you can engage them in combat for a specified number of cards (drawn randomly from their deck). What fun! we think, and then we read the rules. There are two special decks of three cards for this, allowing you to use Potion, Spell or Chant in the duel. Wait, this sounds familiar. In fact, it's a big old game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, except without the psychological and tactical aspects of that game, because you draw one card at random to play. In other words, the Wizard Duel gives you a 33% chance to nick some cards and a 33% chance to lose some, and the outcome is totally random. It looks interactive, but it's no more so than the card draws that let you steal from other players.

Similarly, even the main object of the game - acquiring your accessories - boils down to a set of challenges with random outcomes. You pick a staff from a pile and see if it's yours; you roll a dice to try and match your allocated familiar; you literally flip a coin to acquire your hat. Even the most interesting challenge, making the magic disks levitate with your wand, comes down to a 50% shot at putting a magnet the right way round.

Activity /= Fun

Basically, the designers seem to have worked on the assumption that having a lot to do is the same as having a lot of fun. Anyone who has ever had a job or homework can disprove this assumption. I think there are simply too many competing elements in the game, which are not linked into each other, and very few of them give any agency to the players. Coupled with the very repetitive nature of some elements, it just makes the game unnecessarily slow and a bit tiresome.

Shoddy Merchandise

Finally, there was the question of quality. The board and the cards are rather nice and well-produced. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the key selling-point, i.e. the wizards and their accoutrements. The painting was a bit slapdash, and the models slightly distorted, which meant the accessories don't quite fit or stay in place. There is also the aforementioned issue of them all being glaring stereotypes.

Gay Wizard Accessory Quest

On a different note entirely, one of the few things Wizardology does have going for it is its progressive stance on sexuality. The background story to the game, in which you must rescue Merlin from a magical prison, is a clear parallel to the "Rescue the Princess" quests so common in fantasy, even if they've been mealy-mouthed about articulating it. Not convinced? One of the spells you can cast in the game is a love spell, which makes two other wizards fall in love until they can break the spell. Since all the wizards are blatantly male, this makes the game's stance admirably clear.

Counterfactual Criticism

As I've mentioned, there are elements here that could be fun, and the problem is partly in the combination. For example, moving random distances around the board grinding for random keys in order to get a random chance to win an accessory is just too much randomness. Imagine, instead of the key pickup spaces, that as parallels to the four secret rooms there were four magic workshops where you could create the keys. Now you have a tactical element - working out optimal routes around the board, and deciding how many turns to spend making keys before you head to the secret room. Underestimate and you have to go back; overestimate and you wasted time. The spaces that were for picking up keys could just be blank. Alternatively, make the secret room challenges into actual challenges, rather than random results. The same applies to some extent to the prophecies, especially those that allow you to open locked maze doors and to rotate the board. There was simply too little of that to make it an interesting aspect of the game.

The cards could be more fun if there was some element of choice involved. Simply changing the duelling rules to let you pick a duelling card, instead of drawing at random, might make it feel less pointless. Making the prophecies interact with each other more could create interesting tactical elements.

The spells, especially, really need some work. This is clearly supposed to be a risky decision - take a 50% shot at getting an advantage or losing (potentially) several turns! However, because you can't choose the spell you want, the risk-reward ratio is simply too high. Allowing you to choose the spell might make these squares worthwhile. This might also help with the "swap places" rule, which seems like a cheap shot at the moment. If swapping places and items was a more significant part of the game, it could be a lot of fun. I know it's a minor consideration, but it would also make more sense in the context, which is wizards scheming against each other and carefully planning their actions.

I'm not saying that changing all of those things would necessarily make a better game; it would make a completely different one. However, changing some of them, so that the game focused more on particular elements, would perhaps be an improvement. At the moment, I can't see how it would hurt.

Overall

On the whole, this was a disappointing game. It had a vaguely interesting premise and a variety of mechanisms that looked like they could be fun. However, it turned out to feel very mechanical and soulless, with too many random elements to be tactically interesting, but too much complexity to make a fast-paced, fun random game. Despite the many cards that let you take cards off other players, you can basically ignore the other players, because there's little or no interaction between you; these cards are just another random element among many.

It's quite possible that children would find it more fun, as they tend to have more tolerance for repetitive games. On the other hand, there are so many penalty elements to the game, and so few bonus elements, that I could see myself getting upset and frustrated by it when I was younger.

Final gripes

Two last things.

First, pedantry. The back of the board, and every magical item card, bears the words "As I will, so mote it be" with the implication that this is something Merlin says. Kyra informs me that this is something Wiccans say. My knowledge of Wicca is pretty much nil. On the other hand, I can reliably state that Merlin would never have said "As I will, so mote it be", because for one thing Merlin was not a Wiccan, and for another he was freakin'

Welsh

. Oh, and he almost certainly didn't exist, but I'm willing to let that one slide.

Addendum to pedantry: "wizardological accessories"? I hate you, Sababa Toys Inc. I hate you so much.

There's also a slight undertone of cultural superiority to the game. The game starts well, with a diverse cast of wizardly traditions (despite the dodgy models). However, all of the magic in the game, with the exception of the genie, is very much in the Western European tradition, as are the items and the magical symbols used on the game pieces. Moreover, the premise of the game is that wizards from all over the world are striving to be worthy of Merlin, the white Western wizard, which could be taken as implying that their own magical traditions are inferior. I'm not saying that's what the game was trying to say, any more than I think they were genuinely trying to make a gay wizard romance game, but it's there to find.

I am Merlin, the mighty wizard of the Pendragons. My spirit has been trapped in an oak tree by an evil sorceress. If you are to release me and become my successor, you must first complete the various challenges laid down in this game, thus proving yourself to be a Master Wizard. Move through the maze, collect the magical items, cast spells, and perform tasks to acquire wizardological accessories. But be careful - your opponents will be prepared to use cunning strategy and magic in their attempts to defeat you and win the game. Are you ready to face the challenges of wizardology? If so, your journey begins here. As I will, so mote it be. Merlin

Themes:

Batteries Not Required

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

~

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~Comments (

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Wardog

at 11:14 on 2011-01-04I am astonished you had faculities to analyse quite why this game was such a miserable experience.

All I could think was "no ... fun ... must ... have ... fun ..." between drooling onto the board and banging my head on the table.

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Dan H

at 15:38 on 2011-01-04I feel a bit bad about hating Wizardology so much because it's clearly supposed to be a game targeted at a younger audience, but I always think that the reason so many children think board games are awful and boring is that there are so many awful boring board games out there targeted at them.

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Rami

at 23:35 on 2011-01-04

Moreover, the premise of the game is that wizards from all over the world are striving to be worthy of Merlin, the white Western wizard, which could be taken as implying that their own magical traditions are inferior.

Ooh, yes, I ran across that sort of thing in

some books I read

, and I don't suppose it's any less annoying in a gay wizard romance game :-(

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Wardog

at 09:22 on 2011-01-05I think we should MAKE a gay wizard romance game.

I think it would be awesome.

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Arthur B

at 09:34 on 2011-01-05You could base it off

Mage: the Awakening

. Only this time the awakening isn't a mystical one.

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Shim

at 10:50 on 2011-01-21I found my photos of this game. Does anyone actually want to see them or shall I not bother?

Though I don't actually know how to add photos.

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Arthur B

at 14:15 on 2011-01-21

Though I don't actually know how to add photos.

You use the image library function, which isn't actually linked from the admin page but is linked from the article-editing page.

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#Ferretbrain #Shim #Axis of Awful #Wizardology: the board game #Wizardology