#but also HEY ROSE LOOKIT HIM GO

[lunalaapunk]

@hisuianhellion

The Hisuian Zorua in its natural habitat

(from Twitter, 22 Oct 2021)

[shyneanon]

There is only one bed with red

I bet you thought I was never gonna respond to this one, huh, anon? Nope! I just had to rewrite it like five million times before I felt like it was actually not terrible. lol

Hope you enjoy this even though it’s been foreeeeeever.

---

“Well. Lookit that.”

You stared at the single available bed in the single available room, pretty immaculately kept.

“There’s only one bed,” said Red, leaning against the wall. “How unfortunate.”

You stared at it for a while, then looked back at him. He was flashing his gold tooth at you in a smug grin.

Nope.

“It’s fine,” you said. “I can sleep on the floor.”

His smile vanished.

“Hey,” he said, “hold on, sweetheart. I c’n sleep on the floor.”

Actually kind of nice of him to offer, but as much as he annoyed you… no. “It’s cool, I can do it.”

“Nah, it’s gonna make me feel like trash if I letcha sleep on the floor.”

“Well, ditto.”

He grinned. “Ooh, I gotta solution. How ‘bout we both sleep on the floor?”

You held in a laugh, trying your best to give him a deadpan look. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh….

He waggled his brows at you.

And you let out a snort.

You started to set your things down and move onto the floor but Red shoved you towards the bed. “No,” he said, “I don’ wanna feel like an asshole.”

“You are an asshole,” you said.

“Sure but I don’ wanna feel like one…!”

“OK,” you said, “fine.” Whatever, his loss. You climbed into the bed and got under the covers, and you turned a bit as Red lay down on the floor.

… Dammit.

You sighed. I’m going to regret this.

“Red,” you said.

He turned with an oddly soft smile. “Yeah, beautiful?”

Your face turned warm. His nicknames are more effective than they should be. “Just get in the stupid bed.”

“Oh?” A brow rose, and the soft smile was gone. “Feeling bonely?”

“Don’t,” you said, moving over. “You just look so pathetic on the floor, I can’t do it.”

“Sure, sure.” He moved the covers aside and slid under them with you. “You tell yerself that.”

“I will shove you back onto the floor, Red.”

He shut his mouth (figuratively speaking), and you shut your eyes. He was surprisingly warm for a skeleton, perhaps due to wearing a jacket all day. Since he didn’t have the jacket on, though, you were far more aware of the fact that he was literally just… bone. You could feel his actual spine… It was kind of weird, but not weird enough to keep you up. You were just glad he wasn’t getting handsy. Though the truth was that him getting touchy hadn’t been your main concern. In reality, you tried to avoid having to share a bed with anyone. There was a, um, bad habit of yours that people had informed you of.

But hopefully you wouldn’t do anything crazy tonight.

---

Red was awoken by the feeling of something lying across his whole body.

What the hell?

He was on his side, and he attempted to push it off, but it didn’t budge. Groggy and annoyed, he awkwardly twisted and wriggled until he was on his back and could see what the fuck it was….

It was you.

He squinted, thinking he might be insane, but yeah. It was you. You were lying on top of him. A bit awkwardly, one of your legs was pointing in the direction of your side of the bed, but your head was where the crook of his neck would be, and you were breathing softly.

Red’s face lit on fire instantly.

“Sweetheart?” he mumbled, even though he was pretty sure you couldn’t hear him. When had this happened? Had it happened in your sleep? Had you done this on purpose?

You sighed in your sleep.

Oh… oh my God.

What if she likes me?

Had you instinctively cuddled up to him in your sleep because you… liked him? Or… maybe you liked his smell, or the way lying on him felt… Red was a bit embarrassed to find that he felt giddy, but the giddiness overrode the embarrassment.

“Sweetheart,” he repeated softly, gently wrapping his arms around you. You snuggled closer and he felt his soul start to hum.

We’re… so close….

She’s so cute when she’s asleep….

“You are the most adorable thing,” he said. He knew you couldn’t hear. That was the nice part; he could say whatever he wanted. He started to readjust your stray leg with his own, and his face warmed up even more when you curled your leg around his. He let out a small sound of surprise.

“Baby, you’re uncooperative…. Hah….”

Not that he, uh, minded… having your legs like this….

“Aren’t you just the sweetest,” he purred, pulling you closer. His soul was picking up. While you were asleep he felt no need to maintain his tough guy persona, so he cooed. “Yer cute as hell.”

He nuzzled you, holding you close.

He never wanted to let go….

“Don’t worry,” he said softly, lifting one finger and stroking your cheek. “I’ll keep you safe.” He closed his eyes, relishing the feeling washing over his soul while the two of you were so near each other. “Jus’ stay right here… with me, yeah?”

One hand tangled in your hair and he sighed. It was so soft…. You moved closer to him, making a soft hum, and Red’s grin widened, his soul melting into a puddle.

This was the best night of his life.

—

When your mind started to barely lift out of its unconscious state, the first thing you noticed was that it did not feel like you were lying on the mattress.

The second thing you noticed was that a pair of arms were around you. What the… Red? Why was he…

Oh. Oh no.

I climbed on him in my sleep, didn’t I?

It was a weird habit you’d never would’ve known about were it not for the unlucky victims who had told you about it. You had never woken up on top of someone before— you always woke up next to the person in the morning, in the same spot where you’d fallen asleep, and then they would tell you about how they’d woken up in the dead of night to find your entire body lying on top of them. It also apparently took a lot of effort to push you off, especially since attempts would usually result in you immediately trying to climb back onto them.

Red, uh, didn’t seem to be making any attempts to push you off, though.

“Hah, sweetie… You look so stupid when yer asleep….”

Did he know you were awake? Judging from his low volume, you were pretty sure that no, he didn’t.

His finger wiped the side of your mouth and then immediately withdrew, and you heard him laughing as quietly as possible. Yep, he was trying not to wake you up.

“Gross!” he whispered, and you heard the sound of his hand brushing against the fabric of, presumably, his clothes. “You drool in your sleep!”

More quiet laughter. If you blushed visibly you’d give yourself away, so you just buried your face in his collarbone. Embarrassing.

“... Ah… doll….”

A hand was gently placed on your back.

“I wish we could do this all the time,” he said softly. If he thought you were asleep he wasn’t saying this to flirt with you.

He meant it, then?

“Why’ve you gotta be so damn adorable, huh? M… My soul’s going crazy over here….”

A hand ran through your hair. He was being unusually gentle….

“Then again, that happens a lot when I’m with you.”

Your face got hotter; thank goodness he couldn’t see it from this angle.

His teeth pressed against your forehead. A kiss?

“I wish… I had the guts tah tell ya how I feel.”

Huh? Not… not like… romantically, right?

“You make me feel amazing. Like… really amazing, I… I dunno how t’put it in words cuz I’m real bad with words. S’why I can’ bring myself to tell you, I wanna tell you but every time I open my goddamn mouth all I say is somethin’ suggestive.”

Some silence. Should you tell him that you were awake? You were basically eavesdropping right now.

But at the same time…

“‘N, admittedly… I wish I was good fer you. Which I’m not, I’m… I’m fuckin’ me.”

Why did your heart suddenly ache?

“I’m lazy, I’m sleazy, I dress stupid, I act stupid, I can’t communicate like an adult to save my damn life…. An’ I… I’ve done a lotta bad things. Y… ya should get with some sweet guy who’s responsible ‘n shit.” He muttered: “Lookit me, fuckin’ swearing while I’m tryna talk about my feeli— Fantastic, I did it twice.”

It took all the effort you had to not giggle.

“I wish I was good for you. Ah, sweetie, I’d… I’d take such good care of you, I really would. Or, I’d try. Tryin’ is… really all I could do, t’be honest.”

Trying is all anyone can do.

“... Too bad I suck, yeah?”

Your heart ached again. Red didn’t suck, he was a good guy…. It was probably best to tell him that you were awake before he spilled any more personal information.

“You don’t suck,” you mumbled, turning your head.

“‘M sorry, dollface, did I wake you up with my rambling? I’ll be quiet.”

“No, I’ve been awake for a while.”

His whole body froze up.

“... Ya have?”

“Yeah.”

“H… How much of what I was just saying did you—“

“All of it.”

There was a long, awkward silence.

“I’m sorry,” you said, “I should’ve said something—“

“Fuck,” he said, and you lifted your head. His eye sockets were squeezed shut.

“No, Red, it’s OK—“

“No it’s not, I’ve been makin’ a sappy ass outta myself an’ now I prob’ly made you feel guilty—“

“You didn’t make me feel guilty—“

“Jus’ please don’t say that we should go on a date cuz I know you’re only doing it to make me feel better ‘bout myself—“

“Shut up, Red.”

His eye sockets opened and he looked down at you. You could see the two red lights standing out in the darkness. “... Huh?”

“Stop wallowing in self-hatred and listen to me.”

He said nothing. You would take that as cooperation.

OK, he was listening. So, uh… what should you say?

You actually didn’t know.

So you just kissed him.

Initially he just froze up, but after a moment his arms wrapped around you and he pulled you close, kissing back. W… Wow, this feels really good…. You moved into a better position and felt your hair spill down onto him.

“Sorry,” you said as the kiss parted.

“Sorry?” Red cupped the back of your head and gave you a second fervent kiss. “What the hell for? Ya just kissed me.”

“My hair is kinda touching you.”

“Oh no,” he said in monotone, “how awful. Kiss ruined.”

You snickered and leaned down to press your forehead against his. He looked up at you with fuzzy eyelights.

“I don’ deserve your love,” he said quietly. You smiled back.

“Nobody deserves love, Sans. That’s why it’s so special when someone loves us anyway.”

“You deserve love,” he said, “from somebody better than me.”

“That’s awfully vague.” You kissed his cheek. “And besides, I don’t want love from this person you call ‘somebody better than me.’”

He smiled.

“I want love from you.”

“Hah,” he said, and you saw his eyelights change… They were like hearts now. “Sweetheart, trust me, you already have all my love.”

Your face heated up. “That’s really romantic,” you told him.

“... It is?”

A giggle escaped you. “Yes, Sans.”

You kissed his nasal ridge.

“So?” you said with a smile. “You gonna ask me out or not?”

His eyelights got fuzzy again. “Ya think maybe we could go out sometime, beautiful?”

After kissing his cheek, you said, “I’d love that.”

“So, uh…” He looked at the way you two were positioned. “You think… we could do this more?”

“Absolutely.”

You lay your head down on his ribcage.

“We should fall back asleep,” you told him.

“Sure thing, angel.”

Drifting off took no time at all.

[blarrghe]

COFFEESHOP.odt!!!!

hahaha oh man, this was such an old idea of mine that I never figured out where to go with, I wanted to write a oneshot or some kind of short thing but every plot I could think of just seemed to spiral into nothing . Anyway, it was a very jokey premise of the Inquisition party being dropped out of a rift and into a modern cofeeshop setting that they need to figure out how to get back from. Some kind of mystic forces have them trapped in just the coffeeshop and there's no magic/fantasy stuff. I just re-read it and I still think it's hilarious and I wish I had any idea what to do with it because it was going to include gems like

- janitor blackwall

- cassandra disapproving of skirts

- an incredibly cheesy thedas-themed coffeeshop

- Vivienne disapproving of incredibly cheesy thedas-themed coffee shop decor

- Cole breaking the fourth wall while drinking lattes

- the advisors are all modern au doppelgangers shenanigans

- tasteful culrian? Maybe? Just for funsies?

I wrote like one whole chapter of this lol:

“This is a coffee shop AU.” Said Cole, plainly. He was wearing an oversized and slightly tattered grey sweater, blue jeans, and mismatched socks. He did not have an apron, nor shoes for that matter, but he did have a name-tag pin, like that on all the others' aprons. “Cole” it said, and in smaller letters underneath: “In Training”.

“A whaty-what-what?” Sera rose from the floor. Cole stared out over the counter at the rest of the shop, blankly.

“I believe what Cole is trying to say,” started Solas, also examining the environment, and also sporting the green apron over a new outfit consisting of loose cotton pants and a hemp tunic, “is that we've somehow been transported – perhaps we are in the fade, or perhaps this is another magic like that which took the Inquisitor and Dorian forward in time at Redcliffe – to an alternate sort of reality, in which we are the employees in a...café.”

“Huh?” Said Sera.

“You're shitting me.” Said Bull.  

“How do we get back?” Demanded Cassandra.

 “Presumably the same way we came.” Solas replied.

“About that...” Dorian interrupted, a troubled look on his face. He reached a hand out in front of him and flicked his wrist. Nothing happened. “I don't seem able to use magic here, wherever this is.” Solas tried as well, also to no avail.

 “It seems you are correct. Something is blocking my abilities.”

 “I don't feel so much blocked as... non-magical.” Replied Dorian with a slight shudder. He and Solas both donned very serious, almost-traumatized expressions at this.

“What? So you're both all normal?” Sera asked, “is that bad?” She paused, looking at Solas, then burst out laughing. “Hey elfy! Your ears have shrunk!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Lookit your ears! They've gone all flatlike!”

Solas clasped a hand to his right ear. They were still pointed, slightly, but they were indeed flat to his head and almost the same in size and shape as human ears.

“Nevermind his ears, I've got no horns!” Shouted Bull. Sera clasped her hands to her ears as well.

"Andraste's tits! No more elves!”

Dorian looked thoughtful. “So does this mean that... wherever we are, elves and Qunari don't exist? Only humans?”

“And Dwarves!” Varric piped up. Indeed, he looked much the same.

“Cole, can you still hear our thoughts and feelings?” Dorian asked, still musing.

“I'm not sure. I want a latte.” Cole made himself a latte.

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 11: Cirque Macabre

On the road from Mornheim to Bad Herzfeld, we can’t even have a day off in peace.

Good Morning Baaaaaaaltimornheim~

We wake up in Mornheim along with the Fairgolds, having crammed all six of us into one room at the overcrowded inn. We see behind the scenes into Flynn’s hair care routine. What, you think he looks this dashing naturally? He has product for his beard and moustache. 

Flynn is sicker than he was after Valeria gave him the Pat Pat of health yesterday, but better than he was when he came in. He had advantage to his roll today, for Reasons the DM won’t disclose. He’s putting up a brave front, and is definitely putting some extra effort into looking dashing and healthy. Somebody get him his fancy hat!

Meanwhile, having spent the whole night in close quarters with Valeria, Clem, and Fiona, Shoshana wonders: why is every woman she meets improbably jacked? What even is her life.

The plan, just to recap: We’re heading to a place called Bad Herzfeld, because we’ve heard it’s overflowing with the rare herbs and plants we need as spell components for the ritual we found in the manor house, which should purify the water supply of Mornheim. (Somebody’s been sticking their Taint in the water. HURR HURR)

We take a moment to question why, if it was a mage working in the von Mornheim manor, are the ingredients of the spell so druidic, and the spell written in archaic Old Valdian like a druid might speak? Druids live in the woods making friends with badgers; this was a bona fide wizardy laboratory. Shoshana rolls to see if she can figure it out and nat 1′s. What do you mean this isn’t what all wizard shit looks like? 

Valeria also rolls to figure it out and rolls...not much better. Maybe there was a druid squatting in an old wizard lab? Who knows. Magics is magics.

We have a thin, unfulfilling soup for breakfast, and then split up to prepare for travel.

Valeria immediately heads off over by the city gates. She tells the DM that her activity will need ten minutes, and that “you know what I’m doing.” The rest of us  have to wait in suspense.

Shoshana stops in to double-check on the doctor; she’s realized that it’s pretty likely that any corpses will get up just like Sokolov did, and she’s pretty sure the locals have figured that out but needs to double check. Turns out that yes, the Doctor has been burning the bodies. Cremation isn’t common in Valdia; if you live in a forest, funeral pyres tend to set the trees on fire. But you do what you gotta in a zombie apocalypse.

Clem organizes her kit and sharpens her sword, then takes a little while to read through the Sturmhearst journals she picked up from the book merchant. There’s an article about research into “replacing lost limbs with synthetic troll blood made of fungus.” Given what we’ve just found out about fungus people... thaaaaat could be bad.

Gral interrupts her reading to awkwardly ask Clem about when he used his magic lutestrings to wooble her. “How did it feel? I’d like to make sure I don’t kill someone by accident.

Clem thinks about the experience, which did come with a chunk of psychic damage. “It wasn’t painful, or necessarily unpleasant?” she says, thoughtfully. “But it was unpleasant in its unexpected nature. Like when the surface of a pond starts rippling – but you’re made of air instead of water – I dunno if I’m describing it right? But it was like that.”

Gral sits down next to her. “After acquiring the strings, my best test subject was self. You get used to it quickly. Maybe it’s not good to get used to it?”

Clem nods. “Yeah, it’s probably bad to get used to it.” She shows the journals to Gral to get his opinion, since the orcs have had skirmishes with fungal zombies before. The paper details the formula derived from a strange new fungus, but doesn’t really give any details about the fungus itself, so Gral doesn’t have much to go on.

As they flip through the journals, they also find a paper about fungal infection and potential treatments, by a Professor Alma Ulmus. Useful for Flynn, perhaps?

Clem med checks well and grasps the concepts pretty well. The paper details several techniques for dealing with fungal infection. There are some theories about ways to selectively target the infection with necrotic damage and certain medicines/poisons. Unfortunately, the techniques tend to come with hefty risks to the wellness of the patient, since you’re basically injecting a toxin that is mildly more deadly to the fungus than to the patient. It’s chemo, basically.

(We go down a conversational rabbit hole re: magic cancer and magical chemotherapy techniques, and have to get wrangled back on track.)

None of the treatments are outlined in enough detail for us to use. Mostly it’s an update about ongoing research initiatives, in case anyone wants to give the good Professor some grant funding.

(”The results aren’t peer reviewed yet - Who am I kidding, Sturmhearst doesn’t peer review.” “They used to, back in the good old days!” says our ghost scalpel.)

Valeria has, meanwhile, found a decent spot to perform her holy ritual, and lets the other players know that “we” are coming to meet up with the group. The first player to realize what’s going on squeals a little.

Valeria, in fact, has cast Seek Steed. (Yes, the PHB calls it Find Steed, but alliteration is important!) 

Something is walking alongside Valeria, pressing its large reptilian head to her chest affectionately. It’s similar to the creatures we’ve seen pulling Lucinius’ cart but it’s thinner, taller, more fine-boned. It is a faintly glowing lilac color, with silver reaching up to almost its knee on one foreleg and its ankle on the opposite hind leg, with a silvery crescent on forehead. 

“Oh my god, it’s a crocodile,” Shoshana’s player gasps.

“It’s an ALLIGATOR,” Valeria’s player returns indignantly.

Valeria pets the cool dinosaur behind its skull and tells it its name is Aethis. (It’s named for the aether from which it arose, being a celestial mount.) Rack, in his divine kindness, also had Aethis show up with a very fancy saddle. It has a rose embossed on it, and as Valeria names the creature, “Aethis” appears embossed on the saddle in Draco-Aquilian. The reptilian mount is faintly glowing purple. 

Its pronouns are they/them, because it is a celestial being of divine energy that has taken mortal form for Valeria’s convenience; what even is a gender.

The rest of us stare. “...Where did you get that.” 

“Rack gave them to me!” 

“Just, like, now? While I was in the bathroom?” 

“There’s a ritual. It’s a paladin thing.”

Shoshana awkwardly waves at the lizard. Gral obligingly holds out his hand for sniffs. Aethis sniffs him. Heartened, Shoshana cautiously moves forward for awkward pats on the head, which Aethis accepts.Shosha awkwardly pats. Aethis accepts the pats. Gral(‘s player) is like I PLAY WITH THE PUPPY even though it’s an Alligator Horse.

(The locals are like, what the fuck is that thing??? Like it’s obviously a paladin’s celestial steed, but……it’s THAT THING. Former-Kyr Crabber is not around to miss his long-gone mount.)

We don’t see Aubrey around – she was on watch last night, so she’s probably sleeping. Skulbjor the troll is watching the gate. 

“Hi, folks. Oh, lookit dat. You didn’t come in with that,” he says, appreciating Aethis. And hey! More folks came in last night - the one that doesn’t talk and the one that talks too much. So where ya headed? Back into the necropolis for another mission?”

We tell him all about our mission for spell components and fungus problems.

“Alright, well, don’t got time to process all that right now,” he says slowly as his troll-brain tries to catch up. “Let’s say good luck and I’ll tell Lady Aubrey you went to get some medicines. All right, best of luck to ya. Stay away from that grove what’s north of the road, the watchman heard some things movin’ around in there. I like your new chomper.”

Skulborg proceeds to scritch our new chomper with one big troll finger. “Aww, ’s a good chomper.” Aethis accepts the scritches.

We leave the dreary town of Mornheim. And as we leave its twisted trees and grim orchards and rows of graves, we feel the sun on your face, and it feels a little like we’ve been holding our breath in all this time. The sun feels warmer and we all feel a bit more alive, having left that place.

According to our best map, some of the roads go through Dead Towns, which people generally go around. Traveling in the Cursewood is a lot of back roads these days. You take the main road where you can, but some places are just impassable now – disrepair, or spooky monsters, or sometimes a town just vanishes and people wisely decide not to go where it used to be.

The result of this is that all of us have maps, and none of them match. Being a cartographer is a very stressful job right now, okay? Luckily, a good Survival check keeps us on the trail. We’re going for a town called Three Oaks Junction, which is more of a permanent camp than a proper town. We can get a better map there. It’s basically a three-way crossroads of some major roads; a travel stop that has a large enough occupancy of tents and carts that it can function as a safe stopover and makeshift town. We’re about two days out from there.

How long do we have until the troll moot? Fiona starts signing, and Flynn translates. Trolls don’t exactly subscribe to the mail, so they’re very slow to get the word out and get together. It’s less of meeting and more like a short-term living situation for times of crisis. They rarely last very long – trolls are solitary because they eat a lot of food. A large population of trolls in one place needs a LOT of food, and a big gathering is only done in extreme situations where there’s access to large food stockpile. There hasn’t been one in at least 200 years; mostly they’re just talked about in old songs. So we have plenty of time, but we want to shut it down long before any momentum starts up. If we can stop trolls from hearing about the moot in the first place, that might be the best for everyone.

(As we travel, we have our usual silly arguments, this time about Aethis: Celestial war mounts do not need to eat, although war gators are obligate carnivores. So Aethis can eat meat if they want to, right? In that case, what happens to that food?

“HOW IT POOP, DM? WRITE THE LORE!”

“It’s not a real gator, it doesn’t poop!”

“It waits until it’s unsummoned, and then it poops ALL AT ONCE in the celestial plane.”

“Dude? Dude? Curse you.”

“Was that a....lore dump?”

“CUUUUUURSES.”

I am told to please excise this from the record. I absolutely do not follow instructions.)

We’re boppin along and making decent time. As we travel, Valeria rolls good insight and sees through Flynn’s stiff upper lip, and insists on pushing another Lay On Hands of curing disease into him. Again, it clears his symptoms but doesn’t end the disease.

It’s late afternoon when we see a decently sized cottage by the side of road. It looks pleasant! There’s flower boxes in the windows, blooming picturesquely. There’s a cart next to it, loaded up with furniture and stuff, and a sign nailed to a tree nearby that says “MOVING SALE! CURIOS, ODDS AND ENDS. COOKIES PROVIDED WITH PURCHASE.”

Valeria is intrigued by cookies. Clem always likes a curio.

There’s a young girl running about and an old lady in a rocking chair, out in front of the house. The young girl is carrying things from the house to the cart. There’s a little table next to the old woman’s chair with a tray of cookies, as well as a surprisingly sturdy looking box. The old lady waves. “Oh, hello!”

We come say hi. “Yes, I’m moving in with my daughter and my granddaughter here! Say hi, honey.” The little girl waves hello and continues to help pack the cart. “My daughter and her family say it’s not safe out here alone for old woman. I resisted as long as I could. I can handle myself, but just last week as Rosie here was coming to visit, a werewolf almost attacked me! So I figured it was finally time to pack up and go.”

(Yes, we picked up on the Little Red Riding Hood joke.)

Clem immediately insight checks the little old lady, and nat 20′s. She is being perfectly trustworthy. Actually, she’s playing up the helpless little old lady act a little too hard. Clem thinks that she might have killed that werewolf herself. She’s got no intent to harm us, except maybe rip us off a little.

Clem shrugs. We ARE a group of 6 well armed strangers and a war gator. She’s got every right to be a bit on guard and play up the friendliness. She’s legit.

“Most of the things I’m not bringing with me are inside. Go take a look around! I traveled quite a lot in my youth, and I still have a few souvenirs!”

Valeria ties Aethis outside – in sight but not right up on the old lady, who is not spooked by Aethis at all. (Valeria is slightly offended that everyone is a little spooked by them. They’re just a gator! Gators are everywhere, it’s not like they’re a big deal!)

We enter the charming cottage and, well...that’s not what we expected. It’s absolutely stuffed, and it’s stuffed with COOL-ASS STUFF. There’s paintings and trophies lining the walls. That’s definitely a giant’s axe hanging there, carved with ancient runes. There’s a sultry oil painting taking up most of one wall, a picture of a young woman halfway out a window, turning to face the camera, smiling wickedly and clutching a gem as she prepares to rappel out the window. There’s big ol’ treasure-chest-lookin’ chests and boxes everywhere. There’s an old Aquilian war banner, hanging as a decorative tapestry. Gral spots some Orcish artifacts.

Who IS this woman?! Maybe she’s the protagonist of our spinoff prequel.

The first thing Valeria does, of course, is cast Detect Magic to see what glows. A beat, and then she just starts pointin’ everywhere. EVERY-DANG-THING is magic.

Gral ponders sagely. “I’m starting to think she may have overplayed the helpless old lady thing.”

Let’s investigate for stuff we wanna buy! Gral would like a projectile weapon, or perhaps some armor? Or a nice brooch. He finds a pack of 5 crossbow bolts inscribed with some sort of rune.

The old lady sticks her head in to see how we’re doing.  “Ah yes, can I help you find anything? I know it’s a bit of a mess, I’m in the middle of moving.” She spots Gral holding the bolts. “Oh, those are Bolts of Heart Seeking! They’re quite nice, I think. They’ll run you at least a hundred. I was asked to get rid of most of the deadlier souvenirs…” Gral buys them. 5 bolts, each granting advantage on the attack and an expanded crit range.

Shoshana looks for something protective, given her terrible caster AC. 

“I’m sorry, dearie, I sold my old armor set a while back,” the old lady tells her, but she rustles in a drawer and pulls out a little bag. “This was big help back in the old days whenever I got cornered by some-” 

“Grandma-” interjects the granddaughter, warningly.

“Well! Anyway, this will make anything that breathes sneeze and cough! 100 gold, and don’t say where you got it if you use it for anything illegal.” It’s 3 doses of Dust of Sneezing and Choking. Shoshana considers, but passes.

Clem doesn’t have much money after splurging on her new armor. She’s gonna save it.

Valeria looks for - well, she wants books, also anything that matches the Order of the Rose aesthetic, since she just found Kyr Marius’ old dagger. She doesn’t find anything recent - maybe some stuff decorated with floral designs, but nothing that would have been lost in the Crusade at the Summer Palace. She does find a shrine to the trickster god Guile in one corner of the room, and more importantly, a collection of rare books! None are magical, sadly. 

Valeria picks up a book about an expedition to an ancient Aquilian flying city. “Ah yes, that one was a comp copy! It all happened maybe 40 years ago?” the elderly lady chirps.

“Oh, did you write this?” Valeria inquires politely.

“Oh, goodness, no, I didn’t write it – I’m in it!” Sure enough, the cover has a lovely picture of a dashing lady-adventurer who looks suspiciously similar to the one in the painting.

We ask her name. “Jolene. Or Josephine. Johanna, sometimes. I think I’m Jolene in the book. Yes, those were good old days…”

She holds out a rod with a grappling hook on both ends. “This old girl’s seen a lot of the world with me. I picked it up from that nice artificer in Galway. It produces ropes! You push this button to launch the grapple, see-” she says, demonstrating, “-and this one to wind it in.”

“It’s a clever bit of machinery,” Valeria admits. 

“Oh, he mostly cheated with magic.” We pass on the Rod of Ropes, but it’s caught Flynn’s eye. After a short bickering session of increasingly rapid hand-signs, he buys it.

Gral asks about all orc stuff. “That was all a gift from orc leader some years back.”

“Oh? Who was it?”

“Ven’shek was the last name. His people mostly called him One-Ear?”

Gral’s jaw drops, like an indie band kid who found out their grandma knew Les Paul personally. “YOU KNEW ONE-EAR?!”

Gral’s history roll gives him some context: One-Ear was a bard, and he was a pretty big deal. He had two ears; he was just deaf in one after rocking out too hard at one point. He’d fought an evil necromancer who was trying to animate mummies of the honored dead, leading a group of bards to put a stop to that nonsense. He unleashed a sonic blast so powerful it buried the necromancer in an avalanche, but also blew out his left eardrum.

The old lady seems unfazed. “Yeah. He had two ears! He kept wanting us to ask why, but I wasn’t gonna fall for that.” Hanging on the wall is a bona-fide autographed copy of One-Ear’s bard mask, similar to the one Gral wears. 

Gral is still Absolutely Gobsmacked. “He was before my time but I’ve always really admired his work!”

“Yes, good times. He wanted my help with retrieving a thing from a-” Her voice drops to a mumble, “-dragon’s hoard.”

We check out a few more items. There’s a perpetually bloodstained sword sitting in the corner, with teeth carved in the hilt, quietly whispering, “feeeeeeeeed” to itself, which we leave well alone. There’s Gloves of Thievery and a Handy Haversack for sale, as well as a small silver raven ornament that Ms. Jolene claims will deliver messages. “Oh, I got that little thing in the flying city! It’s an Aquilian device originally meant to carry messages between their cities. It’ll deliver a spoken message or a letter. If it can’t get there in 24 hours, it’ll come right back to you. I was sort of hoping to use it to correspond with old friends...”

Awww. We won’t take it away from her, then. We WILL pool some cash for that Haversack, though. “We had good times together. I’m a bit sad to see it go,” the old lady admits, patting it fondly. Sure enough, the small black-and-grey bag is there in her painting, on the hip of the sexy thief.

That’s about all the cash we want to spend, but the sun’s starting to go down and this seems about as safe a place to camp as any. Old Woman Jolene doesn’t mind.

Flynn takes the opportunity to play with his new Rod of Ropes. “Fiona, hold my hat! I’m gonna try it out!”

Fiona signs to Shoshana, which with a bit of insight she figures out means, “Can you cast Feather Fall?”

“Nope.”

Fiona signs something to Flynn.

“Thank you, Shoshana! I’ll be sure to shout if I need your help!”

He does some acrobatics off the roof of the house, but he hasn’t had the practice with this thing yet. “Shoshana, now would be a good time to-” He falls flat on his face.

Fiona does her weird cough-laugh at him as he dusts off with an overdramatic scowl.

That’s our adventure at Jolene’s Lifetime-of-Adventuring Surplus. Jolene’s Stolen Goods Boutique: She takes them just because she caaaaaaan.

Given what we know about Ms. Jolene, we all keep an eye on our purses that night. Luckily, it seems like she’s trying to downsize.

In the morning, Flynn is not doin’ great, coughing hard and looking pale. Valeria Lays on Hands again, negating his symptoms. But we’re gonna need a permanent solution eventually.

Shoshana rolls a mediocre medicine check. The illness is from the inhaled spores from the farmer’s son, and it’s mostly respiratory. Maybe Shosha could brew a tea that could help with some of the symptoms, but she doesn’t have a supply of the right herbs, and Valeria’s got the symptoms covered for now. Ah well, it was worth a try.

We get on the road and roll into Three Oaks Junction later that day. There are indeed oaks there, significantly more than thee. Like we expected, it’s more of a big camp than a normal town – there are a few permanent structures, like a sheriff’s depot, but most folks here are living out of tents. There’s a big marketplace where many traveling merchants and local farmers come to trade, sort of a perpetual bazaar.

Valeria & Clem work together to write up a letter to Ambassador Khoshev with the warning about the Red Hand’s assassination plans. They give Clem’s name and rank for veracity and slap Valeria’s noble seal on it to give it priority. Asking around, they’re told there’s actually a courier service with a permanent shop over by the founder’s statue. Bonus, not only can they get a message to the Ambassador, they can also get a message over to Holzog, where Clem knows there are messengers who could get a message back to her “caravan,” which she hasn’t mentioned to the other three before.

Clem and Val head over to Red Raven Couriers to send their letter. Clem also sends parcel of gems to her caravan, the ones that we found in the Mornheim manor, about 100g total. The halfling clerk asks if the packages have any valuables we’d like to insure. Clem insights him, he seems like a trustworthy professional instead of someone who’ll go through her mail for loot. “The package for Holzog is valuable, I’d rather delay it if it will get extra security. The message is the opposite - it’s urgent, and there is no material value.”

The package of gems will go on the next well-guarded stagecoach, and the message will go immediately on a relay of fast horses. Valeria makes sure to tip extra well. Red Raven Couriers: Leave at sunup, there by nightfall.™ (Disclaimer: this is not a guarantee of one night service. We do not travel by night. What, do you think we’re crazy?)

Their job done, they take a look at the statue of Three Oaks Junction’s founder. It’s a drow! There’s two captions, a rather short one in Valdian and a much longer one in the Drow language.

Valeria reads off the Valdian: THREE OAKS // TOWN FOUNDER.

Clem can see the Drow caption has the elf’s full name: “Born to Clan Shenkel on a Rainy Night Under the Shelter of Three Oak Trees.” Ah, that’s where the town name comes from!

Clem’s pretty chuffed! “I’m very pleased to see people who aren’t averse to drow in this area! There’s even a statue, and not a burning heap where the statue used to be!”

The folks at the courier are happy to share the founding story. Three Oaks was a skilled wagon repair-person, and set up a wagon repair station at a good high-traffic spot. It became a local fixture, she eventually settled down and built a real shop, and that was the start of the town!

Clem knows: If drow know anything, it’s how to fix wagons. And care for horses. Good for this Three Oaks for making an opportunity of it!

Towering over the town, a distance from the main thoroughfares, is a large black and white striped tent. There’s a circus, scheduled for tonight! Valeria gets excited about the possibility of Night Circus.  

Clem has never seen a circus. Gral has never seen a Valdian circus. Valeria has seen many traveling shows. Shoshana’s seen a couple significantly less fancy traveling shows. Flynn and Fiona are excited to go to the circus. Everybody’s like, yeah, let’s have a night off, let’s have fun!

We worry that Gral, as a performer, might be That Guy: “Their technique was horrible, frankly, I’ve seen better-”

We’re hype! Let’s get CIRCUS SNACKS. There’s spiced nuts and funnel cakes. Clem gets a funnel cake. Shoshana is deeply disappointed to learn that cotton candy has not been invented yet.

Valeria goes over to get some spiced nuts. The nuts stand is run by a red dragonborn, obviously named Bophades. (He tells us he has brothers, Joe and Ligma.)

Valeria doesn’t know how much to pay the guy, and we meme about it. How Much Could Nuts Cost, Clementine? One Gold? Ah, nobles.

A few performers are starting to walk around to work the crowd. Everything in the circus is black and white, like a fun theme. All the performers have pristine white facepaint.

We realize we should probably not bring Large Greatswords into a theater, so we stash Clem’s sword, Valeria’s tridents, and the Eyegis with Aethis. Hey, Aethis has the Eyegis, Valeria basically has a large lizard camera drone to look through! Cool. Valeria buys Aethis a live chicken as a snack, even though celestial steeds don’t need to eat. “We’ll come back soon, I love you~!”

Shoshana’s anxiety cloak is freaking out, but, like, it freaked out around the cool old lady too. Does this thing have a snooze button?

We all find our seats, passing around snacks and jostling with the crowd. Outside the sky is darkening, and Dancing Lights come up all around the tent, swirling and casting shadows. A ringmaster in a black-and-white jester’s motley comes out. The lights all focus around him, 

“Hello, everyone,” he calls to the crows, in the practiced cadence of a seasoned performer. “We live in troubled times. This wood is not a very fine place. So tonight, in this tent, open your minds and your hearts and join me as I take you to a kingdom far away - yet as close as you allow it to be! First, walk with me as we approach the land of my king. We must approach the borders, guarded as they are!”

Braziers burst into flame all around the perimeter of the tent with a big oooh from the crowd! Jugglers begin tossing batons between them, forming a high arch, which the ringmaster walks under. “Cross the border with me!” he calls. “These woods are dangerous place, but my lord’s marksmen are expert.” Each baton is shot out of the air at the apex of their arch by an arrow! The jugglers catch them expertly, and demonstrate that each arrow has struck the dead center of a target painted on each baton!

Gral murmurs an aside: “I have the memories of every orc performer who ever lived, I’ve seen better, there was this one guy-”

Shoshana dope slaps him. Shut up and enjoy the show, doofus.

After a pause for the audience to applaud the archers, the jester continues. “And now, our master, my king, is building a bridge! A vast river lies before us!” Performers come out, shaking a long blue cloth between them. “But fear not, we will cross it!” A pair of strongmen start heaving around big ol’ beams of wood, while acrobats start making their way across the tops of the whirling beams in an impressive display of balance and coordination. The beams are moved into place, and one strongman lifts ringmaster with one hand up to them. The ringmaster mounts the ‘bridge’ and walks across. “Ladies and gentlemen, the bridge builders!” 

There’s another round of applause. Clem and Valeria are enthusiastic. Even Gral is starting to get into it.

“But before we can approach the castle and visit my master’s court –” the jester warns us. We her galloping hooves (or possibly coconut shell) noises. “Ah, yes! Do you hear who’s come to greet us! The knights of the Black and White!” Everyone claps, the ringmaster throws something in the braziers, and the arena fills with smoke. As horses carrying stunt riders circle the big top, we must all make wisdom saves. Valeria is informed she may do so with proficiency. We’re  all lucky enough to save, except Flynn.

As the smoke hits Valeria, she realizes – there’s something wrong here. Once tent has filled with smoke from the smoke bombs – it was to set up dramatic entrance, but…the ringmaster’s describing this glorious kingdom where nobody has to fear any death or dismemberment,  where the power of his king is absolute. There’s something weird about the smoke. Something weird about the performers and their flickering shadows. She can’t quite place it...

The show has moved along. There’s a knife thrower, a fire breather, and a sword swallower performing now as the “village blacksmith” as the procession “approaches the court”. It’s a whole routine.

Something Is Wrong.

The ringmaster’s patter about this king has become increasingly creepy. Fiona is giving us the side eye. Meanwhile, Flynn and most of audience are slack jawed and enraptured. I mean, it’s a pretty impressive show, but the imagery is getting macabre.

The crowd is no longer applauding after each performance. Everyone is just sitting there, completely entranced. Clem murmurs, “Does this...usually happen at circuses?”

Valeria glances through the Eyegis. The camp outside is perfectly normal, no fires or thieves or anything this might be a distraction from. She cuts back to the here and now.

Right now there’s two guys with halberds, with acrobats dancing on tips, performing as the “castle guards.” Shoshana pokes Flynn, who doesn’t react at all as he stares unblinking at the black-and-white figures. Fiona scoffs - just a poke? Please - and slugs her brother in the stomach. He snaps out of his trance as he gasps for breath, sputtering “WHAT WHY WOULD Y-mmph!” as she slaps a hand over his mouth and shushes him.

Gral hisses, “If we make a scene, they’ll know. Pretend like you’re watching the performance!”

We all perception check. Gral figures it out: the entire time, those dancing lights and braziers have been casting wild, flickering shadows of the rapidly moving acrobats and the people in costume armor But he gets clear look under the acrobats for just one second, and realizes: they’re casting the shadows of skeletons. 

These are undead. The king the ringmaster wants us to visit is none other than the Pale King himself.

Clem is very glad she kept her warhammer on her.

There’s maybe 80-100 people in audience. If we act, the civilians might be collateral damage.

The bad guys wouldn’t know us by look. Maybe we pretend to be enraptured like the rest of audience and wait for them to reveal their big plan. That, or we could just rush the guy leading circus.

The ringmaster is narrating entering the castle gates. The smoke started the process, but clearly the performance has something to do with keeping it going. Shoshana’s all for casting Shatter into the center of the ring - maybe a loud enough noise will wake up the audience. Valeria’s not sure.

Gral and Valeria want to wait and see; Clem and Shoshana want to disrupt the performance before they finish enthralling the audience. Valeria’s player flips us a coin. Our answer? Disrupt.

We refocus in on the plot of the show. The audience has been invited into the great hall, and a feast has been laid out for us – there’s a huge table, with acrobats and jugglers doing a routine where they’re tossing around plates and chairs. We have to roll deception, and we do good enough that they don’t notice we’re snapped out of it, but the ringmaster is definitely scanning the crowd for anyone who’s not under yet. 

At this point, the macabre stuff has become overt. The “castle servants” are setting plates with skulls and crawling hand bones. It’s Obvious Curse at this point. We agree that this is a really cool, goth circus theme, but we would prefer it to maybe...not end with the whole crowd becoming zombies?

Gral decides to Dispel Magic the smoke. To hell with subtlety, we’re going for disruption. He stands up and strikes an echoing POWER CHORD!!! Rolling well, he dispels the effect of the smoke, shouting, “The show is over!” 

As he strikes his lute, a tangible soundwave goes out through the audience. A ripple goes through the smoke, and it starts to fade. The Dancing Lights flicker and come back up. With the spell gone, we can see clearly: the performers are still dressed up, but the acrobats, strongmen, etc. are all visibly rotting or skeletal.

The crowd, suddenly jerked out of the mass charm effect, predictably panics.

The ringmaster turns and looks directly at Gral. In his ringing showman’s voice, he bellows, “GET THEM. THE KING COMMANDS IT.”

Shoshana centers a Shatter on the table full of dancing acrobats, trying to get as many low level undead as she can. Bone shards fly everywhere as all but one of the skeletons explode into bits, with a deafening BOOM that drowns out the circus music. A shame, since this is a dope-ass circus.

(The DM comments: If we’d let it get to end, it would have definitely gotten a bit King in Yellow. We drew a red card at the end of last session, so we get to meet an Avatar of the Curse. This here is the Ringmaster, also known as The Fool.)

Clem, Valeria, and the Fairgolds dash toward the Ringmaster. Valeria has her adamantine wrench. Clem has her warhammer. Fiona has hers, too. Just three super buff ladies with hammers…and Flynn. 

“I’ve got an aesthetic, it’s called Swashbuckler? We don’t use hammers!”

“If he used a hammer, he’d be a Squashbuckler.”

“Or a Smashbuckler?”

“That’s alright,” he quips, summoning his pistol, “I’ve got another kind of hammer I can use…”

(”Is it his penis?” asks everyone who has ever seen Dr. Horrible.

“It’s the HAMMER OF THE GUN, it’s not his penis!” sighs the DM.)

Shoshana aims another Shatter on the remaining zombie strongmen and their table, but they have better CON than a bunch of bones, so it doesn’t have quite the dramatic effect. Flynn shoots the Ringmaster with his pistol. As the shot hits home, he drops the pistol and snaps his fingers, a second pistol materializing in his hand. This time the shot goes wild.

The Fool howls, “GET THEM!” and the two strongmen rush at our tanks, picking up chunks of table to wallop our melee fighters with, mumbling “In the name of the king!” in their garbled zombie voices. The Fool begins to rise into the air, which is never a good sign. He points at Shoshana and in an echoing voice demands she KNEEL. She flips him off. She ain’t kneeling for no floaty-ass pale-faced clown!

Gral Banes the strongmen and the acrobat. The zombies are zom-baned. Clem sees them waiting to clobber her with chunks of table and is like “I can take ‘em,” and rushes in, carving a chunk out of the nearest one. The zombies don’t seem to be trying to defend themselves - they’re just balls of rotting meat in between us and the real threat.  I mean, they’re swinging broken table legs at us, but they’re whiffing hard. Valeria casts Shield of Faith on herself and Cone of Colds them. One save, one fail. Thanks, Bane! (”I love Bane!” “I love you too, citizens of Gotham!”) The one who failed its save and got Clemmed is bloodied. Fiona, raging, does 35 damage in a single turn and bloodies the other strongman. Her mouth is open like a battle-frenzy scream, but it’s just coming out as a hiss.

Shoshana takes a thrown knife from the last skeleton acrobat, and brushes it off. Then she realizes that unlike the others who charged in, she and Gral are still in the middle of the crowd. A crowd that is freaking the fuck out.

Shoshana promptly takes more damage from getting Crowd Trampled than she has from the actual enemies. (Gral gets buffeted around, too, but at least he stayed standing.)

Hey, did you know that The Fool gets lair actions? Arrows, like the ones that shot down the jugglers’ batons, fly in, targeting Gral, Clem, and Fiona. They even seem to change direction in midair to target him. These are ghost arrows! (Which does make the whole baton trick less impressive in hindsight. Cheaters.) 

Shoshana staggers to her feet and throws a Chromatic Orb of acid at the Fool. Flynn’s sword burns with green flames as he brings it down on a strongman zombie. The flame spreads between them and burns at their rotted flesh. One of ‘em nearly smacks Clem, but Gral’s Bane comes to the rescue, and Valeria gets to Sentinel him! She brings the adamantium wrench down on him with two hands. CRONCH. 

Strong Boi #2 punches Flynn in the face – or tries. “Ha! My sister punches better than that!”

The zombie is like, “We’re fighting your sister! That’s a compliment!” Or it would, if this was The Road to El Dorado. Mostly it just grunts.

The Fool gestures grandly, and we all must make Charisma saves. Shoshana and Fiona fail and are Baned. (Hey, no fair using our own tactics on us!) Also, he’s calling reinforcements. We hear the hoofbeats of the stunt horsemen as they charge back into the arena. Without the obscuring magic of the smoke, we can clearly see these are skeletal steeds, ridden by terrible, ethereal spectres waving big ol’ cavalry sabers. They are not headless horsemen; they have heads. We vow to change that.

(These are Sword Wraiths, for anyone who’s keeping track. Also, shout out to Skeleton Horse from our last campaign, forever in our hearts.)

Gral Phantasmal Forces one of the strongmen. The zombie hears a terrible crunchin’ noise. In his mind, the nearly destroyed table has come to life! The shards of wood invert inward, and now there’s a big mouth chompin’ at him! He turns around and starts fighting a table. The Ringmaster facepalms.

Clem channels the scalpel ghost and makes an excellent medicine check. Professor Wendell hmms, and points out a weak spot on the one Gral has just targeted. Clem pops the darn thing’s skull like a weird melon. He died, knowing he was getting eaten by a table. RIP.

Valeria tries to charge past the other strongman, but takes a solid hit of opportunity and gets knocked to the ground. She gets back up and returns the favor. The acrobat skeleton - oh, we forgot about that guy - throws more knives! Have a Knife Day, Valeria. (It doinks off her armor harmlessly.) Fiona smacks at the last big fella.

The spectral riders form a second barrier between the tanks and the Fool as the strongmen fall. They throw some spears at Clem and Flynn. 

The crowd knocks Shoshana over again. This is how she ends: stepped on by frightened civilians in a puddle of popcorn. You’re all gosh darn lucky she hasn’t gone evil yet.

The DM makes a Secret Roll. It’s a success! Valeria’s the first to hear the result, a thudding of claws on hard-packed dirt, and then we see the crowd parting as Aethis the war gator charges toward us, bringing our weapons. They wanted to help! They did a good job!!! We’d give them scritches but we’re, like, in a fight.

We get hit by more ghost arrows, and then Shoshana drags herself to her feet and twins another Chromatic Orb, shooting lightning at both of the spectral riders, who up close look like elven nobles. She then hides behind a chair, in the vague hope that no one else will stomp on her. Flynn stabs one of the riders with his green-flamed rapier, and the flame flickers between both of them.

The remaining strongboi hits Valeria for a big slam, but no one’s looking at them anymore. The Ringmaster, hovering above, begins to distort his body horribly. He distends his limbs, extending his body to spidery and unnatural proportions, and leers at us all with a manic, wild grin. The melee fighters all make WIS saves. Valeria and Flynn are now Frightened of him. As his lips stretch into an even wider rictus, his head rotates on its neck in a deeply unnatural way and his fingerbones stretch out into slender, vicious claws.

Gral inspires Clem, and Dissonant Whispers the strongman. It instantly drops dead. (”You scared a zombie to death. Metal AF.”) The spectral riders close ranks with their shields, forming a barrier between the melee fighters and the Fool, but Clem and Dr. Wendel are READY TO OPERATE! Clem misses one, but maneuvers on attack 2 to try to trip a skeleton horse. Action Surge! She crits the ghost to death, exploding it into mist, its horse falling apart into an inert pile of bones. Her final attack goes to the other horseman with a Distracting Strike. I mean, she did just pulverize his buddy, that’s pretty distracting.

Valeria is afeared of the Creepy Jester (which is taxonomically distinct from a creepy clown, we are told to note.) She takes the opportunity to Lay On Hands herself. The DM is kinda surprised that paladins don’t have resistance to fear in 5e. OH HI AETHIS!!!! They’ve run up to Valeria with her sword and shield. What a good gator!!!! Valeria grabs the Eyegis, and her AC goes back up.

The lone skeleton acrobat is like why r u guise ignoring me??? and throws a knife at Clem. We continue to ignore it. Fiona charges the ringmaster, Clem continues to duel the remaining rider, and the unforgiving crowd continues to trample Gral and Shoshana.

Clem, Fiona, and Flynn all take hits from the ghost arrows. Fiona shrugs it off, but Flynn’s not looking too hot. Shoshana chugs a healing potion (because of freakin’ CROWD DAMAGE!) and dives behind a tent pillar.

The Fool cackles eerily, and everybody under 10 health must make CON save. He was trying to give us all taint, but everybody affected manages to save. He swipes at Fiona with his Horrible Claws, but she blocks with her hammer.

Gral Dissonant Whispers the remaining rider, who nat-1s. It’s scared bad, and Clem does the honors, catching it with her hammer as it passes by. “AH-AH, YOU ARE NOT DISCHARGED!” cries Dr. Wendell. As it flees, the ghost dissipates, and horse tumbles into a mess of bones, carried forward by its own momentum.

Now it’s Clem’s proper turn, and she’s gonna hit the Fool!!!! But first, Second Wind. Miss one, hit one, MANEUVER! Trip Attack! She knocks him prone!

Valeria rides Aethis to the Fool, then dismounts, and Aethis dashes to get to the acrobat. Valeria brings her wrench down on the Fool. She Smites him good. (He is undead, so smite does a Lot.) He makes a goofy OOF! Sound and begins to wriggle up from the ground, and then she just SLAMS him back down. Flattened. After a hit like that, I almost PITY the Fool.

Look, SOMEONE was gonna make that joke.

The acrobat throws knives at Valeria! It crits, but like, it’s a knife. Valeria doesn’t care. Fiona drops one warhammer and just pins the Fool on the ground, grappling him. Raging, she gets advantage. Pinning him down with one arm, she swings her hammer down with the other. He contorts oddly, moving out of the way of one blow, but gets hit by her second slam.

The ghost arrows are back! They all target Fiona. As the arrows slam into her back, she just grits her teeth and takes it. Barbarians, man. Shoshana’s shot goes wide on the Fool as she snipes from afar. Flynn saves against his Frightened condition and starts escorting the last few crowd members out of the tent.

The Fool tries to contort out of Fiona’s grapple, but she keeps an iron grip on his wriggling limbs. Gral decides to join the melee party and stab with his Psychic Blades, finishing off the avatar of the Pale King. The circle of phantom orc warriors again rushes in as one. As he slices into the Fool with his sickle, the jester’s costume tears like a cloth bag, and a bunch of choking black mist bubbles out and away. Inside, there are only the barest, faintest hints of a skeletal form. His weird painted skull rolls away, a head in a jester’s cap locked in a rictus grin jingling absurdly across the big top.

Aethis swats the skeleton acrobat with its tail. It’s dead now.

The circus is silent. The last vestiges of the strange mist are blowing away. The tent is eerie, dark and cold.

Valeria makes a knowledge!Religion check. With the context that this was a weird Pale King thing, she realizes what was bothering her at the start of performance: she’s never been to a circus or play that didn’t open with an invocation to Guile, the god of trickery, illusion, and the arts.

Shoshana lies on the ground grumpily. Aethis comes over and offers a friendly shoulder to help her up. Shosha is like O__O because she’s looking into a massive faceful of teeth, but gingerly accepts the help up after being nudged and sniffed a bit.

Those ghost arrows were flying in from backstage. Let’s check out backstage! We find some quivers sitting there, but the arrows seem to be inert now that the Fool is dead. There are a few musical instruments in the hands of some deactivated skellies and zoms, collapsed awkwardly to the floor. There’s lots of props, costumes, makeup - all the regular circus stuff, including a tour map of places they’ve been. One more for Valeria’s collection!

We find some high-quality stage makeup, which seems a little magic. It might channel illusion magic particularly well? Gral takes a crack at understanding it. It’s not itself a magic item, but it’s designed as a good conduit for illusion spells. Gral takes it. It has 5 charges of enhancing illusion spells. Valeria takes one of the charges. We find some finely ground crystal, which seems to be what was thrown into the braziers. Valeria takes it.

We also have the creepy elongated skull of the Fool. Clem only wants it because her player used to be our party warlock. Fiona wants to smash it. We COULD bring it to the Cursebreakers, like responsible adults, but we’re all like SMASH IT SMASH IT WOOOOOO

We also find a throne on a litter, under a sheet. Is there something on the throne?

Valeria Detects Magic. There’s a lingering magic clinging to it, but fading rapidly. (The makeup and throne have a lot of Illusion and Enchantment; there’s a lot of necromancy generally everywhere.) Shoshana lifts the sheet with her stick. There’s a skeleton sitting in the throne. Not even an animated one. It’s wearing a very nice costume robe and has a crown on its head. Clearly, it’s meant to represent the Pale King, and the culmination of the circus act’s plot, but whatever power it once held was probably coming from the Fool. It’s inert now. We smack it with sticks. It engages in normal skeleton behavior. We want it to be on the floor in pieces, which it finds perfectly doable.

We snag some posters labeled “Feste’s Circus Presents: Journey to the Great Court” and start to head out.

We roll against Taint, but we’re fine. The initial Wis save against the smoke was the big taint risk - getting drawn into story could have been a disaster.

Gral theorizes on what exactly the Fool’s gambit was. There was spell worked into the performance. Its effects weren’t physical, like the disease in Mornheim. This was more like an elaborate, highly modified Mass Suggestion, bringing the people into a susceptible state and then implanting the idea of the glory and power of the Pale King. This wasn’t an attempt to make more undead; this was an attempt to indoctrinate more cultists.

As we exit the tent we remember - oh, right, there’s a big crowd panicking.

Luckily, we have a charismatic and noticeable person with us. A Large Shiny Paladin Riding a Fancy Magic-gator shouting “There is no more threat here, everything has been taken care of, let us talk to the sheriff,” definitely helps - people don’t necessarily believe her, but they’ll obey and let themselves get corralled. Flynn, very experienced in the public relations aspect of monster-fightin’, helps wrangle and pacify the crowd.

The sheriff of Three Oaks Junction has been summoned, and pushes through the nervous crowd to Valeria. “Kyr, thank you, I hear you’ve save us all – what do we do about this???”

Valeria puts on her best commanding voice. “The villainous troop itself has been dealt with; we have no idea if there is any other magical danger in the tent. Is it safe to burn it down?”

The Sheriff nods. “Oh, ya, local fire ordinances meant we had enough clearance around it; nothing else’ll catch.” 

We get the townsfolk well clear of the area, and then Shoshana, whose player is appeased that she won’t start a godawful circus tent fire like in that documentary she saw once, Fireballs it. The tent burns merrily.

Flynn nods to his sister; it’s time for him to do what he does best. He rolls a decent performance check and steps into his role as Radiant Knight, dramatically recounting the battle for the shaken crowd. He focuses on making all of us look good, which is really nice! He lights up his sword with Green-Flame Blade as he gestures around with it, which is an excellent visual effect. He’s framed in front of the burning fire of the tent, and Gral performs an exciting score of back-up musical accompaniment. 

“And then Kyr Argent strode forward, her sword flashing...”

(whispers) “I wasn’t using my sword”

“Ssshhh, it fits better, he’s embellishing.”

As camera pans up, following the smoke into the starry skies over the Cursewood, we end session.

[myrtenraphster]

RWBY Volume 6 Episode 1

LOOK AT THAT BACKGROUND HOLY SHIT

MANTICORE GRIMM

Ah yes the classic “start in the middle, then explain how they got here” thing

“Thank me later!” I MISSED THEM BEING LIL SHITS AT EACH OTHER

SKATING WEISS

“Good to see you’re not rusty” Yang pls

“Why is it always something!?” It’s called protag power

DID WEISS JUST GET HER BUTT BURNED??

“Thank me later!” I MISSED THIS

The colgate move wasn’t a battle move at all

Also confirmed Ruby can fly

Hey look Adam being an edgelord

Dat goat scream

Hey it’s the teaser

“Lost his life while trying to defend the school” U SERIOUS? HE WAS TO BLAME

The sisters being sisters, I love them

And Nora being well... Nora

Ren wanting to go to the beach is a mood

Weiss bby don’t u worry

IT’S DINGUS AND WINGUS

That lil smirk on Weiss as qrow tears these guys appart tho

Is Oscar becoming wiser a side effect of the ozpin brain tumor?

“AS USUAL” WEISS PLS

ILIA IN HER NEW OUTFIT SHE CUTEEEEE

HER LIL BOOTIES

oh dis gay

OH DIS GAY

Awww

Monkey boi is baaack

BLUE BOI IS BACK

Neptune... Neptune no

“WRONG TREE” IM GONNA

Monkey boi excited to go back home

Aaaaand he made things sad

That song tho

Sun is a good friend, I wanna be that kinda friend.

That’s the kiss everyone was making such noise about? That’s... Y’all extra dramatic af, and need to chill. Das a goodbye kiss.

NEPTUNE STOP SAYING STUFF LIKE THAT, THIS IS WHY THE FANDOM HATES YOU

LISTEN TO SUNNY BOI, IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THAT

IT’S THE SONG FROM VOL3

Neptune isn’t impressed by sun’s bravado after he ditched them

CYBERPUNK KATARA

BUNKBEEEEDS

DUDE THEY TOOK THE SAME SPOTS AS THEIR ROOM IN BEACON

THAT’S... SAD

Blake being broody... as usual

Blake no

Blake nO 

THAT’S THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO TO SOMEONE WHO HAS A PROTHESIS

yEAH WHAT YANG SAID

Lookit Ruby and Weiss being anime and cute

Qrow being a cool uncle

Aaaaand there it is

It’s Dingus and Wingus againnnn

SPHINX GRTIMM WHAT

Dude that mace is cool

DED

YEUP DED

Team JNPR joins the battle

dUDE THE TRAIN HAS ARMOR?? THAT’S COOL

Oh no the thing noticed the turrets

Woah, check out the moves on compost boi, he’s really learning.

Dingus is being... a dingus

gOD THE SOUND OF THE BONE BREAKING.... a+ on the sound but it was gross

TEAR HIM APPART QROW

Ruby using the Talk No Jutsu

JAUNEY BOI KNOWS HOW TO USE HIS SEMBLANCE NOW? NOICE

LET REN SAVE THE PEOPLE YES

OZPIN WHY DO I FEEL LIKE IT’S BAD NEWS WHY YOU WANT TO TAKE OVER OSCAR

I KNEW IT

OZ THAT’S LIKE... THE FIRST THING YOU SHOULD’VE SAID ABOUT THE THING

TEAR HIM APPART GIRLS

Ruby still using Talk No Jutsu

Oh no... OH NO THEY’RE GETTING SEPARATED ALREADY??

CYBERPUNK KATARA HAS DEM SHADY EYES

fUCK IT’S ADAM

Oh...Blake bby you need help

.Ooooh that song

HEY THEY HAVE THE OLD PICTURES ON THEIR SCROLLS

Compost boi knows how to fight grimm already?

dUDE THE ANIMATION

THE FIGHTING STYLES

THEY WENT BACK TO VOLS 1-3

WEISS SKATING IS LOVE

TEAM ATTACKSSSSSS

SHE GONNA SUMMON?

SHE CAN DO THAT????

Dude you can see EXACTLY how Ruby’s style is influenced by Qrow’s

This reminds me of the train fight from Vol2

CYBERPUNK KATARA I KNEW U WERE BEING SHADY

The OPENING

Crescent Rose Mechanism close up? Love it

A very Weiss centered first scene of the OP? LOVING IT MORE

Something tells me this is going to be a very Weiss centered volume aw yeah

THE MOON BEFORE BREAKING?

Oh

Jaune being a goof

THE WRs BEING CUTE. LOOK AT WEISS’ SMILE

Uh oh, that tension between the bees

THAT CLOSE UP ON GRANNY KATARA’S “EYE” AND THEN RUBY’S EYE. I FUCKING CALLED IT SHE’S GONNA BE A SILVER EYED WARRIOR

Oh no... I hope this doesn’t mean Qrow dies... pls... I love trashy drunkle

Hooded figure~

WAS THAT TORCHWICK’S HAT WHAT.... NEO IS THAT U???

Adam and the villains being meh

Salem being rawr

wAIT IS THAT.... GLYNDA??

OZPIN’S PAST LIVES MAYBE??

Ozpin looks noice in the new style tho

wOAH THER JAUNE

I think Ozpin’s shady business is catching up to him and Oscar has to pay for it... that’s... sad

HOODED FIGURE HAS A SWORD?? AND ROBO ARM?? IF IT IS NEO THEN... Damn she must’ve had a rough time landing in a grimm infested vale

THE TRANSITION BETWEEN EACH MEMBER OF TEAM RWBY, LOVE IT

A very WR centric OP... I love it but my lil monochrome heart cries

Monty... you’d be proud of this one man, they’re getting closer to reaching your own Montyness

THERE’S A CO-DIRECTOR NOW?

GRANNY KATARA’S NAME IS MARIA CALAVERA

FIRST MEXICAN THEMED RWBY CHARACTER Y’ALL

My final thoughts on the episode? God I haven’t been so excited about a volume in a while.

The animation is so much better, they went back to the kind of animation they had during volume 2 and 3 but it looks... a bit more fluid. I love it

They managed to make Jaune goofy again, and not hog screentime, which I really dig. The overall pacing is better. 

Also they managed to show growth on certain characters. Like Weiss realizing she shouldn’t depend on her summons and going back to her usual fight style, and also compost boi being able to fight off grimm without ozpin taking over.

Speaking of fighting styles THEY’RE USING THE STYLES FROM VOLUMES 1-3, Ruby cutting off everything and then double tapping the grimm, Weiss with her speedy movements and constant atacking mixed in with her glyphs, I hope we get to see the Haste glyph again. Blake with the hit and run she’s known for and Yang with her brute strenght being able to casually GRAB AND THROW A GIANT GRIMM LIKE TORCHWICK’S MECHSUIT?? I love

Also in the train scene seeing Qrow and Ruby fighting side by side you can see Ruby’s style based off his, he did teach her and I love that you can see it.

The return of the anime tropes Monty would use like Nora snapping from one place to another or Ruby and Weiss sliding from the side.

ALSO THAT NEO HINT IN THE OP, IM EXCITED TO SEE IF IT REALLY IS NEO.

I can say that im excited for this volume and I think I can expect it to be as good as it deserves to be... You’d be proud of this one Monty.

[funkymeihem-fiction]

Fantasy Meihem

A silly story with Frost Mage Mei and Demon Junkrat on a quest to find a missing friend, investigate a cabal, and get on each other's nerves nonstop.

Mei had arrived at the spot where the demon was last seen some hours ago. Like most demons, it preferred a hot, dusty environment, just like this awful canyon she’d been tromping around in, where a river might have flowed a millennium ago before drying up and never seeing water ever again. The rocky red walls rose up high on either side of her, but the sun was directly overhead and they provided her no shadow and no shelter. And worse was that she couldn’t risk removing her full frost mage regalia, no matter how stifling it all was. Her fluffy robes and pointed hat were much more suited to withstand howling winds and blowing snow, rather than this awful heat that made the very ground steam beneath her boots. Why did her robes have to have so many layers? And why had she tailored it with so many pom-poms and silly bows? Everything felt so heavy and hot. It was going to make her tired if she stayed here too long, and she would need all her strength if she was going to find and defeat it, this evil entity birthed of fire and flame… The village nearby had been desperate for help, and she had answered. Sheep and goats had vanished from the peasants’ herds, plants had turned to charred ash wherever its hoofprints were found, and there were reports of high, cackling laughter in the night. They hadn’t been able to pay her much at all, but their plight had moved her and she’d volunteered to come and put this villain on ice. There was a soft crunching noise by her foot and she looked down, seeing the charred skeleton of some animal- a lizard, maybe- with the marks of sharp teeth all over its bones. She wrinkled her nose in disgust, kicking the remains away before removing her hat and wiping at the sweat rolling down her forehead. Sitting down on a nearby boulder, she reached for her canteen, tapping her staff against it twice as ice crystallized against the metal, cooling the liquid inside as she tilted her head back and drank. “Oi.”

A voice came from behind her, and she inhaled sharply- a poor thing to do whilst drinking. A moment later, cold liquid was expelled from both her mouth and nose and she coughed wildly, gracelessly wiping at her face and trying not to choke as she turned to face it. “Is that sweet candy tea? Is it cold?” it asked. The demon just stood there in the middle of the canyon like he didn’t have good sense, staring her down with glowing yellow eyes. He wasn’t the largest one she’d ever seen, but he still towered over someone like her, even with his lanky form hunched over. The skin of his torso was vividly blood red, with a gaunt build and hungry, bony ribs, and his arms laced with lean muscle. Like most demons of his kind, he had angular features, with pointed ears, a pointed chin, and even a long, pointed nose below his curled pointed black horns. The tips of his dirty blond hair glowed red, trailing faint gray smoke. He was also missing two of his limbs, replaced with glowing red-black metal. He looked dangerous. He sniffled noisily, his nostril flaring up on one side, before asking again. “Sweet tea? Can ya share?” Mei launched upright, her staff at the ready as the shimmering azure crystal at its tip glowed violent blue, motes of ice shimmering around it. “You! Stay back!” He lifted both pointed claws in a placating motion, taking a step back with his limping gait. “Whoa! L-let’s not be hasty here, darl. I mean, you’ve already spit half it out on the ground there, how much you even got left?” His glowing eyes moved to the rapidly drying puddle of tea beneath her as he smacked its toothy maw unhappily, and she set her jaws and narrowed her gaze behind her glasses. She was onto his wily tricks, trying to distract her with the tea, no doubt so he could move in and try to attack her unawares. “I’m going to give you one warning, demon! You can return peacefully to your realm and be sealed within, or I’ll be forced to- I’ll have to destroy you! You’ve been a scourge on that poor village for too long!” He blinked owlishly, before a rather terrifying grin spread across his face, revealing a mouth brimming with razor-sharp white teeth. “Really? I’m a scourge? Is that the word they used, scourge? Heh! Blimey, that’ll impress the boys back home, that will. World-famous scourge! And they said I’d never amount to anything! Are the villagers real scared of me, then? Do they tell stories?” “Well, you’ve been eating their goats! That’s horrible!” She jabbed her staff forward a little more. “Wait, is this about the goats? Of course I’m going to eat a perfectly good free goat that wanders on in here, you see much else to eat around here?” He beckoned around at the desolate rocky outcroppings around them. “Really? That’s what they’re worried about, is the goats?” “You can’t just eat someone’s goats, that’s illegal,” she insisted, aware that the conversation with the demon was starting to seem a bit silly. Why was she even trying to argue with it, anyway? “Now…you have those two choices, demon! Banishment or being destroyed, that’s it!” He still didn’t seem particularly afraid of her, more disappointed than anything. His bony shoulders drooped a little as he glanced up and down her, glowing eyes alighting on her staff. “So, they’re just mad about the goat thing. And you’re here to try and fight me, then?” “Of course! They hired me to get rid of you.” He drooped a little bit more. “Oh. I kinda thought…you know. I mean, I’ve been such a scourge to them, and then they send this adorable lady wandering in here by herself, with a sweet tea. Like, I was putting two and two together, there…I thought you were…ya know?” “What?” Now he seemed a little uncomfortable, flexing his talons and looking away, and she could have sworn the flesh on his cheeks turned a little darker. He brought his false metal hand up to its mouth, and gave a sharp little cough. “…Virginsacrifice?” Her mouth dropped open in utter disbelief. For a moment she wasn’t sure how to respond, her own cheeks burning and her voice full of clear offense. “What!? Of course not! Why would you- How would- How dare you! Where would you even get such a ludicrous notion!” The demon took another step back, swallowing down the lump in his throat, waving both hands. “N-now no need to be offended! I was flattered! Thought you were super cute and all, and being a virgin sacrifice has a long, proud history of- AAAUUUUGH!” There was a whirl of red and black, flames trailing his form as he threw himself behind the nearest boulder, tumbling flat onto the ground as a whirling ball of blue slammed into the rock where he’d just been, crystallizing into long, jagged columns of sharp blue ice. The little woman in the elaborate get-up stood huffing and puffing in clear indignation, feet planted wide apart and her staff still lifted. A pair of curled black horns and lit blond hair slowly lifted up from behind the boulder until his yellow eyes were just barely peeking above it, gaping with wary fright. “Okay…I think we got off on the wrong foot here, why don’t we try again?” he offered in a small voice. “Look, there’s nothing wrong if you’re not a virgin and all. Hey, who am I to judge? Let’s just talk this out. We could make a deal?” “My virginity is none of your concern! And I would never make a deal with a demon,” she snapped, still clearly irked about the whole situation. “Look, darl, this whole thing is just a misunderstanding. I’m just an innocent bloke what happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You don’t think I like being stuck in this here canyon, do you? There’s nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to eat but an occasional goat, and they took my friend! You want me out of here, I want me out of here, maybe we can work out some sort of thing?” He waved a gaunt hand above the rock as if motioning with an imaginary white flag. “I don’t want to have to fight a cutie like you. I just want out of here to find my pal.” Mei only halfway lowered her staff, still wary. “What do you mean, your friend? Do you honestly expect me to believe a story like that?” “S’truth, love! You haven’t seen him by chance, have you? Big boar-lookin’ type, about twice my height and five times as wide?” He crept a little closer from behind the outcropping, hands raised. “He got summoned somewhere nearby and I tried to follow, but the gate closed and now I’m stuck in this literal pit and can’t leave!” “A…boar demon? Someone summoned two of you?” she echoed. Her staff lowered just a little more, the tension in her shoulders relaxing very slightly. “Oh yeah, they’ve been summoning lots of us lately!” The lanky demon answered cheerfully. “Gotta be some high-quality stuff going on, if they can bind a big nasty fucker like my pal. Trust me, you don’t wanna try low-level spells on someone like him. Was afraid they were going to do the same to me, but they took one look at me and left me behind. Can you even believe it, love? Summoning us for a demon army and I didn’t make the cut? That one stung a little.” “That can’t be right. Nobody practices that anymore, it’s been illegal for ages. Really, a demon army? Is this some sort of silly story to distract me?” The mage woman scowled a bit but seemed a little more unsure, adjusting her bow-clad pointed hat. He gave her an amused look, uttering a shrill little giggle. “You really think something being illegal will stop folks, don’t you? Lookit, I don’t know what mortal politics you’re all bickering over this time, but I just want my pal back and for us to get back home. You seem like a fine, upstanding sort. Maybe a little too much, really, but…Come on, how about you help get me away from the gate, I’ll find my friend, and we’ll be out of your hair in no time. Eh?” “You just told me that someone is summoning an army of demonkind, and you don’t seem like you’re…” She frowned again. “Um…You don’t really seem smart enough to lie, like I thought.” He bared his teeth a little, looking put out. “I beg your pardon!” “Sorry!” she said quickly, then shook her head. Why would she apologize to someone like him? She relaxed her grip on her staff, resting its butt on the ground once she was sure the creature wasn’t going to attack her, and eyed him up and down. “Okay. You’re going to take me to where this summoning took place, first. I want to see if there’s any truth to your story. We can decide what happens to you after that. And you’d better not try anything…funny.” “Cross my cold, black heart,” the demon proclaimed loudly, running its pointer claw across its scrawny chest. A trail of smoking black was left across its skin with the motion, fading away slowly. “I mean, I’m a funny sort. Real winning personality, not bad in the looks department either, but you can rest assured I won’t try anything uh…ya know, untoward and all. After the whole virgin sacrifice thing. But I mean, if you ask, I won’t say no or anything. So if you get in the mood, just say the word and I-” Her staff started glowing blue again and her eyes narrowed. “All right, shutting my gob. You got it.” he said quickly. “That wasn’t what I was talking about at all. Ugh, would you just turn around and start walking, and show me where this happened? We’ll decide what to do after I can take a look around. This needs to be investigated right away. And then afterward we can look into unbinding you from here and seeing about your friend, all right?” The demon stared her down for a moment, head tilting in an almost dog-like way as he regarded her, but after a moment he merely nodded and turned about on his good leg, falling back into his limping gait as he started further down the canyon. She waited until he was a safe distance ahead before wiping more sweat from her brow with her fuzzy sleeve, starting after him. She expected a tense walk, what with the demon himself basically being held hostage before her. But to her chagrin, he waited for her to catch up a little, then tried to linger back until he was almost walking alongside her, arms folded behind him entirely too casually. “Sooooo! Tell me about yourself?” he suggested eagerly. “You got a name? Something I can call you, at least? Where you from? What’s your sign? Come here often? You uh…you like demons, then?” Mei sighed.

[thelittleredheadedmusician]

Top-Secret Mission to the Library

A very Merry (early) Christmas to @priincessleiia!!! I hope you enjoy some out of costumes shenanigans for the one true Brotp, Moonbounce! I was inspired by my job (as Steph and I have the same one) and just kinda ran with it. Words: 1,704 Rating: G Gen, Brotp Steph & Damian AO3

Steph wasn’t exactly glad to be working at the college library over winter break, but the pay and hours were better than during the school year and she didn’t have to deal with holiday shoppers so she was thankful. Working nine to five also meant that she didn’t have to cut down on her hours as Batgirl which Steph was glad about.

She’d finally managed to put the last of the books back on their proper shelves and was just sitting down at her station at the circulation desk when the door opened. Steph looked up, mildly surprised as over the past week there was maybe ten people in the library in total. And most of those had been professors dropping things off and loading up on dvds for the time off. Steph’s surprise and eyebrows both rose as she recognized the scowling face that walked up to the desk.

“Brown,” Damian growled. Steph had to bite her lip to keep from laughing, with the high circulation desk she was able to only see Damian’s head over the top.

“Hey Dami! How can I help you?” She put on her best customer service voice and brightest smile, causing Damian to glower further.

“You can start by not calling me that,” he harrumphed. “I require a book that is only available here and as my time is valuable I’d rather not waste it searching for it so if you can fetch it for me I will remain here.”

Stephanie had to raise a hand to cover her mouth, it was getting increasingly harder not to smile at him. “Um, yeah, that’s not how this works?” she told him once she managed to regain some of her composure.

Damian blinked, his brow furrowing in mild confusion. “And how does it work?”

“Well you give me the title, or author, or whatever and I look it up in our system to get the call number and then if you want I can help you find it.”

“Well the title is classified. It’s for a case I’m working on and you don’t need to be informed of it.”

“Uh huh,” Steph raised a single brow before turning from Damian and pulling her chair back over from where it rolled when she stood up. She settled herself into it and picked up the book Babs had leant her about a year ago and she finally had the time to read. Flipping to where she left off Steph settled her feet on the book drop under the desk and began to read.

Over the top of her book she could see Damian’s head raise as he tried to peer further over the counter, meaning he must have been standing on his tiptoes. There was an expression of ever increasing shock and frustration as Damian took in her nonchalance. Steph had to raise the book higher in front of her face in order to avoid making eye contact with him.

“Brown,” Damian hissed, placing his elbows on the counter and drawing himself up with them.

Steph lowered her book incrementally and peered at him over the top of it. “Yes?” she drawled, internally proud of her newfound poker face.

“It is your job to help me.” Steph leaned forward, struck suddenly by how much Damian sounded like Draco Malfoy in that instant. She merely blinked at him before tilting her head slightly, face a mask of confusion. “Do not force me to go to your superior,” Damian raised his chin imperiously.

Steph slouched back in her chair with a sigh. “Lookit bud, you can tattle on me to my boss all you want but they’re not gonna help you cause you haven’t told me what you need help with. Until that happens I can’t do anything.”

Damian stood back and crossed his arms. He frowned, obviously weighing the pros and cons.

Finally, he stepped back up to the desk. “Since we have worked together before I will allow you to know what it is I am looking for,” he nodded and looked at her expectantly. Steph put her book down and her feet back on the floor. She pulled herself closer to the keyboard, finding the online catalogue with ease. Steph looked back at Damian expectantly and waited for him to relay the title to her. He leaned across the counter and looked at her imploringly. Steph widened her eyes and shrugged at him; she could read Cass’s expressions, not Damian’s. He sighed and rolled his eyes before motioning Steph to come closer. She got up and leaned across the counter too so that Damian could whisper in her ear. “I need 1,001 Knitting Patterns for Beginners and Beyond.”

Steph drew back and looked Damian in the eye. He just blinked at her impassively. Part of Steph wanted to laugh at the absurdity of Damian’s request. A larger part of her knew that would hurt the kid’s already fragile ego, but a still larger part told her this was a prank. Steph narrowed her eyes, expecting Damian to start laughing at her or for one of his siblings – most likely Jason or Dick – to jump out with a camera to record her reaction. Damian simply stared back at her, a single eyebrow creeping slowly skyward.

With a shake of her head she turned back to the computer and typed the title into the search bar. Slapping the enter key with a little more force than was strictly necessary Steph suddenly had a greater appreciation for all the research Babs did for everyone. Simply doing her job for Damian was making her antsy. The page quickly pulled up the book and its call number; Steph scribbled it down a piece of scrap paper.

“Here you go,” she passed the paper to Damian, her bright costumer service smile plastered across the face.

Taking it from her Damian wrinkled his nose. “What’s with the face?”

Steph toned down the cheer, her smile falling into a grimace. “It’s my costumer smile.” Damian just stared back at her incredulously, a single eyebrow inching towards his hairline. Steph shook her head, “Y’know what, never mind. You want me to help you find that?”

“You said that part of your job was assisting me in locating the book.” When Steph didn’t reply Damian blinked at her. He gave a long-suffering sigh as he rolled his eyes skyward. “Yes, I would like your help, Brown.”

Steph couldn’t keep her grin contained, it wasn’t everyday that she got him to admit to needing help. Putting up the Back in a Few! sign Steph ducked around to the front and motioned for Damian to follow her. He had to jog a few steps to catch up and shoved the slip of paper back towards her. Steph glanced at it and dove into the shelves, Damian on her heels.

“So what’s the case?” Steph asked as she scanned the shelves.

“What?” Damian asked. He seemed distracted and when Steph stopped he ran into her. He stepped back and glared up at her, Damian snapped at her. “Watch where you’re going.”

“Are you ok?” Steph was growing concerned.

“I am fine. Now the task at hand?”

Steph eyed him suspiciously. “Yeah… no… What’s up kid?”

“I’m not a kid.” The petulant way he said it seemed to argue otherwise. “And what I am working on is none of your business.”

“Damian, I’m your friend, you can tell me what the book is for,” Steph said with a sigh. She pulled one of the step stools from the end of the aisle over, perching herself on it as she waited for Damian’s reaction.

His expression was a warzone as he debated whether or not to tell her. His brow and nose crinkling and smoothing, lips pursing and then pressing into a tight line. Damian’s head tilted to one side before going back to the other. Finally, he nodded and looked at her seriously.

“I am making a present for Grayson. Pennyworth has been teaching me how to knit and I know that he could use a new hat. One of the ones with the pom-poms on top,” Damian trailed off, mumbling to his shoes by the end.

Steph grabbed the sleeve of Damian’s coat and pulled him toward her, engulfing him in a hug. “That’s adorable. He’ll love it.”

Damian hugged her back briefly before grumbling and pushing Steph away. She grinned as she rose to her feet; grabbing the stool to put it back where it came from. Steph inclined her head towards one of the shelves further down and began walking. She began to examine the spines of the books more closely, looking for the call number that mirrored the one on the paper in her hand. Smiling, Steph pulled it off the shelf and handed it to Damian.

“Would I be able to scan the pages I need?” Damian asked as he began to flip through the book.

“Mmhmm, we have a scanner that you can use to send a pdf to your email,” Steph replied easily, slipping back into costumer service mode. “You need anything else kiddo?”

Damian shot her a look, but it softened into a slight smile. “Thank you, Brown, you have been of great assistance to me.”

Steph nodded and set off back towards her desk. She had settled in with her book when a few minutes later Damian returned. Slipping the book into the return slot he gave her a wave before leaving. Steph grinned as she did a count use and set it on the cart to be reshelved later.

The next week Steph came back to the desk from putting more books away in the stacks. She had to pause, on her chair was a simple brown paper bag. Steph put the cart away and walked over cautiously. She would never admit it but hanging around the Waynes and company was increasing her sense of paranoia. Opening the bag Steph pulled out a bright purple infinity scarf. The yarn was soft, and the scarf was warm as she wrapped it around her neck. A note fluttered to the ground; she knelt down and picked it up.

“Brown, Your assistance was greatly appreciated. - Damian”

[rach-hell]

a-z my question: am i ur fave

A - If I’m in love.     i genuinely don’t know. and if i am idk if it’s just one person. either way i’m definitely over it so… fuck me, right? :/ my emotions are a mess and i just have so much affection to give this sucks

B - Who the last person I talked to on the phone was.my roomieeeee he thought i was drunk cause i was ranting a million tangents at once lmao

C - How long it’s been since I’ve kissed.february 18th :/

D - If I have a preference for boys or girls.definitely girls. it’s probably about 90/10 women/men.

E - How many piercings I have.zilch, idk if i want any or not i haven’t really thought about it. if i transition i’ll def get my ears done but as is?? eeeeeehhh

F - Give me any options, like ‘hot or cold?’ sunflowers or roses?R O S E S

G - The last person I said ‘I love you’ to.    in a casual way? u :’D romantically? my ex :/

H - The last person I hugged.     roomieeee he gives rly good hugs when i need them honestly i’m so grateful to him ;w;

I - The last time I felt jealous, and why.    literally today, i feel like i haven’t done anything fun ever tbh, i feel like i missed out and it sucks like i’m bitter but not at anyone just at the fact that i’m not really living my life and others are and that hurts

J - Are you insecure. What about?    god… everything… my face my voice my body in general my complete inability to do anything my lack of any actual skills or talents my lack of passion or drive for anything, my lack of life experience the feeling that i’ll never experience or achieve anything… tbh i’m completely and fundamentally unhappy with every aspect of my life and who i am as a person lol

K - What my full name is.    eeehhhh not on the internet sorry, hmu girlie, but it’ll be a trade

L - If I have siblings.    nooooope

M - If I forgive betrayal.    not on your fucking life. tbh i don’t forgive easily in general

N - Favourite animal?    PUMAAAAA I LOV THEM LOOKIT THEY PAWS THEY’RE SO BEFFY

O - Where would I like to travel    i reeeaaally wanna see more of the americas, the wilderness there is beyond gorgeous, i also absolutely adore italy and iceland those two are my bucketlist tbh. and i have heeeaaps of family in germany and some in france so i wanna go there for sure. and spain. and i’d really love to take a trip to japan and do lots of photography the urban environment there is so different from ours it’s gorgeous dang.

P - What kind of music I like.    like… everything. lately i’ve been listening to absolute trash my current faves are halsey, dua lipa, hey violet, missio, saint PHNX, dreamers, 21p, but i also adore shit like globus (who are criminally underrated fr go listen to black parade and come back to me without goosebumps and tears in your eyes), missy higgins, arctic monkeys, grinspoon, chilli peppers, pearl jam, mcr, i have too many faves to list i’m giving up, when i was younger i was reeeaaaally into like, maiden and rob zombie and judas priest and shit… i know, i know.

Q - Favourite flower?    arum lillies

R - Is cheating ever okay?    fuck off. if anyone asks this seriously take their teeth out and ditch their disgusting asses.

S - 2 habits.    

ugh i bite my nails SO bad it’s awful :/

uh… fuck idk i’m struggling here… not really a habit (and nsfw avert ur eyes kiddies) but if i don’t cum daily i get super grumpy and also kinda needy and whiny it’s not pretty i’m a mess

T - 3 things I love unconditionally.    

my friends

good music

good food

i know these are all kinda cheap answers but i don’t have much else :/

U - Favourite time of year, and why    autumn, i love the colours and the smells and the overcast skies and the raaaaiiin and it’s perfect photography lighting and the temperature’s just right

V - Big dreams?    i used to have them, i’ve kinda just settled down to “survive” now…

W - If I’ve done something I regret very much.a lot of things, none of which i feel comfortable discussing in the open other than my last breakup that was… poorly handled on my part. like… it’s done now and i’m (trying to) deal, but i think i fucked up a mostly good thing because i was going through a rough time and i’m pretty sure i made the wrong choice. if you’re interested in the rest hmu when i’m drunk hun, they’re super personal and don’t shed me in a particularly great light

X - 3 turn ons    goddd how can i list just 3 hhhhh

for sake of ease ima just say power exchange, p much any dynamic that falls under that umbrella is A+++

idk what we’re going for here?? like things that get me goin’ for sex or sex things i like?? maybe i just go for the former?? fuck this is Hard um… if u drop your voice real low and breathy and husky and get in close and piurtehorijkwgesfsds WRECK ME

lots of super gentle touching like touch my thighs or my tum or run your fingers along my spine or in my hair i’ll be messy tbh

FUCK IT THAT’S 3-ISH

Y - 3 turns offs    

SUPER PUSHY/”““HINTING”““/AGGRESSIVE PEOPLE WHEN I’M CLEARLY NOT RECIPROCATING IT JUST CREEPS ME TF OUT STOP

ok this sounds ridiculous but like… lack of interest, if you don’t put any effort into whatever shenanigans we’re into and you’re just kinda flat it just gives me the impression you’d literally not care if we were doing anything else and idk like… don’t be a fucking board during sex like that ruins errything for me. like i know it’s not always 100% like… “dragging moans from ur throat whether u want to or not” but like… damn put some effort in homeslice, show me you’re actually enjoying yourself like sometimes ya just make a bit of noise or get a lil theatrical for ur partner’s sake and that’s fine, doesn’t mean you’re faking it. this got long soz.

again this is gonna sound weird but like… idk in my sex life i have a history of being w/ people who like… didn’t wanna touch me? like if ur not suuuuper into dicks fine but also idk don’t make me feel like you think my body’s gross honestly longterm that’s really fucked w/ my self esteem not just a turn off lol

Z - Ask any question you want. am i ur fave?homegirl i’m at least 23% in love with u duh what kind of dumbass fucking question smh you really are a stupid girl

[krakenator]

Chapter 17 aka “Dune”

SPOILERS are sprinkled around extremely liberally for The Property of Hate

Masterpost here

RGB: oh fuck

That’s… that’s actually really neat. We get confirmation soon that everything in this world has color as blood, not just RGB. So, you can actually see it in this tree stump- idk if that’s how sap actually works but it’s a cool as hell visual

That’s a neat way to highlight how FUCKING UNNERVED AND AFRAID RGB IS SEEING THIS BULLSHIT

Oh fuck. Oh that is really not good. Oh no. oh god it’s a domino effect. No trees means nothing is holding up the sea which means the darkness can’t do anything on its own. This is gonna ripple back to the market isn’t it. Oh god

With the sea collapsing like this, Click may get released from his watery grave quicker than imagined…

YIKES

Ok, at least it stopped and stabilized. For now. buuuut that particular exit is completely unusable now

HEY WAIT A MINUTE *rewinds a few pages* YEAH REMEMBER THAT HUGE SCHISM CRACK FROM REALIZING RGB’S MURDERED MANY HEROES AND BEING TOLD TO SHOOT HIM? Yeah that shits GONE now

How the fuck? That hasn’t happened before. Hero’s had to sleep to heal her schism in the past.

AND ITS COMING BACK? One page after they’re out of the darkness and that schism is starting to think about making a reappearance. WHY THO

CONSIDER THIS: darkness ALSO has healing properties? Whereas total Light will burn, scorch, and white you out from existence, total Dark will hide, conceal, and heal you.

Then again, Hero’s schism didn’t heal on her first journey through darkness to get to the Market

So... more likely it was something to do with their bonding in the last chapter, or- or even though the Nightmare gave her a bad scare, it is still technically a DREAM, and dreams whether they are nice or scary will still heal you up a bit? Interesting if true. Alternatively, the sheer proximity to that literal blockade of dreams was just so, many and potent that Hero didnt even need to be asleep for them to work a little magic on her

I still think I’m onto something about Darkness also having healing effects, however! Consider the evidence:

RGB was fucking WRECKED right before Negative come out to play way back in chapter 6. Just utterly destroyed. He was COVERED IN BURNS from being PUNCHED ACROSS A FIELD and then his circuits got ELECTROCUTED. But Negative doesn’t have any of those injuries, and neither does RGB once Negative has finished his job. Negative, confirmed to be Made of Darkness, heals RGB from whatever dumb-fuck nonsense he’s gotten into to make Negative have to step in

EVIDENCE #2: that black residue Hero leaves from being impaled on the sick tree. Just because RGB believes nothing they did contributed to the tree’s revival doesn’t mean that’s entirely true. If Hero somehow left behind a lil bit o’ Darkness in the tree, then maybe it might have thawed a little/slower on its own even without the Butterfly also melting away the [—–]

One last, slightly off-topic thing before we get back to continuing the actual chapter, people produce soft lights and flowers when they sleep, right? and those flowers fade away once they wake up. RGB’s never done that, but Negative spawns blue roses that break apart when he’s done his business. My point being... RGB doesn’t dream. If he only ever actually asleep when Negative is awake?

RGB’s overabundance of color comes into play once again

“this sand is stained by the blood of dead trees” wow I did not remember this section of comic being as metal as it is

Wait the fuck a minute. Hold on. Hold- hold on

RGB IS A FUCKING COLOR BLEED PUN

RGB’s explanation is great for why this place is littered with husks of vehicles, but let’s think about what else probably ends up here, all those objects of sentimental affection and names- laptops, favorite pens. stuffed animals! The Sands are like a junk yard. and things occasionally get washed into the Sea, or the Sea washes them up here... just a cool cycle overall

SPECTACULAR TEAMWORK LOVELIES KEEP IT UP

back on the schism- its definitely much better than when they left the Market, but worse for having exited the Darkness. its more of an impression of a dip that a gaping wound right now

OH. So, yeah the sun piece will probably run into its brother whilst in the ocean, but RGB’s right- it probably went there in order to be hidden over other reasons

BUSTED

RGB: you did WHAT? You SOLD your FINGERS? Without TELLING ME? What made you think you could go and do that, I would’ve handled it!!

Hero, remembering that time she saw RGB rip his whole hand off and give it to an owl he met 2 seconds ago: I mean…

Yo can we… talk about RGB’s entire train of thought (LMAO) here? That he’s upset about Hero trading away parts of herself but doesn’t really give a fig about doing the same to himself? He’ll sell off buttons or an entire hand, but Hero gives away two fingers for a friend and he’s upset that she didn’t let him know, because he’d have handled it? On one hand it’s very “adults being horrified at children having to take on responsibilities and experiences they shouldn’t have to” which I am always about, yet on the other hand I’m getting a “RGB really doesn’t value himself much at all does he” vibe and yikes my heart

Like, between the self-worth issues touched on here and “maintain illusion of control and confidence by saying big words smartly”- same fucking hat. RGB needs to stop being relatable

“saying HUGE words, just INCOMPREHENSIBLE LETTERS when angry” is also. Yup. That’s uh. That’s me. goddammit

...... for me, this is what i would personally call the Nightmare Scenario

YOWCH that looks like it hurt. At least the good news is RGB will be able to recolor himself over a bit of time. Not sure if he’s also able to regenerate indelible lineart, so… better just not have to find out

also; that’s literally a train of thought. Why’s it colored like Negative, though? Is this a train made of Darkness?

YUP it’s a Darkness-cloaked train- how fucking weird must this look on Hate’s side?

Fdhafjk I forgot, they have NO IDEA what happened to Click. Amazing

what.... in the fresh hell is going on in this panel

BUT, super interesting implication that Hate can’t LEAVE this place, and that without Dial to get audio, or him/the Butterfly to go out and interact with things, Hate is very hands-off

but honestly wtf is the slanted speechbox? “this side of the script”??? i love it but what does this mean

RGB points out that charging through the sands like this should be destroying it, yet it remains perfectly intact throughout all of this, even when BURROWING INTO THE LITERAL ERASING SANDS. Interesting implication that Darkness can’t be erased. Interesting implication that Negative would be entirely unaffected by sand as well

IS DIAL EATING POPCORN? HOW

Who wants to bet this is gonna be an inkwell

AND DIAL IS LET OUT OF HIS CAGE!

Who the fuck would be the third party that’s sent this hell-train out to scoop up and deliver our heroes to them? 

The idea that the kidnapper has at least once before been a kidnapee is just so funny to me. HOW DOES IT FEEL RGB??

(war flashbacks to THIS MORNING when RGB: broke into song, rocketed himself across the market via explosion and a slingshot, and wouldn’t stop making puns the entire time) my man is a ball of stress but damn if he isn’t able to react in the moment

The good news is RGB’s color regen process is pretty slick- his back’s already back to normal

Your humansona’s a real Jackie Chan madman isn’t he RGB. a real Tom Cruise motherfucker. Some Buster Keaton level shit.

I SHOULD SINCERELY HOPE SO, you’re wearing like TWO lucky objects on your person currently. If that can’t give you even a smidgen of stat-boosting...

now CHECK THIS OUT: it seems like RGB starts running into weirdness BEFORE he charges directly into the dream-infested car. A film-reel overlay effect, and lookit his hat-  negative stripes of shadow

Chiaroscuro: “the effect of contrasted light and shadow” created by light shining in weird ways and directions. interesting chapter title to use, uncle mod, on a chapter which has got the pure whites of the erased desert/Hate’s realm directly contrasted with tree stumps and this weird, darkness train

Don’t you hate it when you run directly into a gas cloud of dreams

So we got a jewel (a box?), white and black hands, the iron again, a teardrop shape, what might be RGB’s Mystery Button, all with film reels

And speaking of that iron, we also get the fiery sharp shapes again… which morph into S’s. it’s a sound. a SSSSSSSSSSS

I just had to go look up what an iron actually sounds like and… yeah. It makes an SSSS sound

Human RGB is… unfairly handsome. Of course he is. AND I SEE THAT TV IN ON THE LEFT MOD

Hey wait a minute

That’s not my bastard man

NOBODY in this comic has spoken in ANYTHING other than black or white colored text. and now here is this ancient MEMORY MAN speaking in ORANGE?

well actually the ‘co-worker’ is speaking in like really dark maroon? BUT STILL

“we split” has returned, 15 chapters later

The duality of these two title pages is really something- past and present getting whacked awake, the similar position present RGB has fallen to mirror past-human-guy, going from the Light of the memory to the Darkness of the train

ACTUALLY, RGB didn’t even LAND like that. he fall on the floor like THIS. he’s SHIFTED to reflect the decayed, old, deteriotated and fragile memory currently playing out in his head

AND CHECK OUT THOSE NEGATIVE-STRIPE GLITCHES! WOWIE! Lots and lots of foreshadowing to the upcoming Neggy appearance coming very soon to a screen near you!

[cksmart-world]

The Completely Unnecessary News Analysis

by Christopher Smart

April 16, 2019

SAN JUAN COUNTY BANS TOFU & GAME OF THRONES REDUX

OK, who does environmental activist Rose Chilcoat think she is suing San Juan County just because she and her husband, Mark Franklin, were charged with felonies for attempting to kill cattle while hiking in Bears Ears National Monument. Here's the deal: White people in San Juan County — descendants of Mormon settlers — don't like outsiders, especially communist environmentalists who want to protect lands for everybody. In reality, they're just a bunch of cattle haters who eat tofu burgers. Lookit, San Juan County was first inhabited by Mormon settlers — if you don't count the preceding millennium and Native Americans. And everyone else can just keep the hell out or risk  indictment for their Obama bumper stickers. Local hero Phil Lyman has seen first-hand what tourists, the government and Indians can do. First they threw him in jail for leading a rebellious motorized parade on sensitive lands. Then they stole the county commission and filled it with Navajos. There is only one way to deal with all this bullpucky — cut the county in half and give the bad part to Indians, tourists and those people in Washington who want to make everything a national monument. Otherwise the place will turn into another Moab with Californians who pierce their nostrils, drink Frappuccino and vote for Democrats.

Game of Thrones Redux

OK, it's the 8th season of Game of Thrones and as you will recall, Samwell Tarly is now in Winterfell. But before we go any further, put on your Game of Thrones costume so you can really get into it, kinda like Rocky Horror without the fruit throwing. OK, so Tarly meets up with Bran, the Three-Eyed Raven Stark, and they time-travel to the Citadel. Here, it gets better than Entertainment Tonight, because it turns out that Snow's real parents are Rhaegar Targaryen — who happens to be Daenery's brother — and Lyanna Stark, who is Ned's sister. We know Wilson, it gets awfully confusing, like trying to keep track of interbreeding between lobbyists and Utah legislators. But one thing is for sure in Winterfell: Hot Pie is still making hot pies. It's always good to have constants, like Republicans and tax cuts for the rich. Meanwhile, the Stark sisters outsmart Littlefinger, while Gendry, the blacksmith, makes dragonglass weapons to fight the White Walkers. It's a lot like Wikileaks and the Russians conspiring to turn Bernie voters against Hillary. Fun if you're a Stark sister or a Hillary-hater. Not so much, if you're Euron Greyjoy and find out Cersei lied about her pregnancy or if you're a muslim congresswoman blamed for 9-11.

Farewell To Privacy

Did you know that Alexa listens to all your conversations. Of course, it's great to say, “Alexa, put on LadY Gaga,” when you're changing a diaper or throwing pottery clay. But it turns out that Alexa is listening to your every word. According to Bloomberg, Amazon employs a global team that transcribes the voice commands into audio clips of everything from the “mundane” to “possible criminal activity, including potential sex assaults.” The so-called mundane things could range from arguing with your spouse about in-laws to foreplay with your neighbor after a couple glasses of wine. Better be careful when you do your taxes. We've willingly invited Big Sister right into our bedrooms. Critics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) fear the worst Orwellian outcomes — as sinister as Stalin's thought-police or the Republican National Committee's loyalty oaths. This, apparently, is of little concern to younger folks, who think nothing of posting nude selfies on Instagram — until they go viral. (Oh, I feel so violated.) And some Facebookers post the most personal trials and tribulations with little thought to a global audience. It's not only the Russians who are watching. Forget the Fourth Amendment, privacy is on the way out. Hey Alexa, phone up that naughty chat line — but don't tell Wikileaks.

Treason Is In The Air

Chris Stewart, our dogged investigator of a congressman was right all along. There was spying. And it wasn't just any spying, it was dirty, damn treasonous spying. That's right. Attorney General William Barr confirmed to a Senate subcommittee “that spying did occur.” He didn't say who exactly did the spying, but whoever it was, it's downright dastardly. Well, let's see, it couldn't have been the FBI, because the Department of Justice inspector general already investigated those allegations, including claims by Donald Trump that Kenyan Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. But our Chris Stewart knows what's going on — you can't fool him. Along with his colleague, Devin Nunes — who sued Twitter over a cow meme — Stewart sleuthed out the real truth: And it's treason. The investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election was just a cover for an attempt to overthrow Trump by evil-doers. It was a Coup de Ville — or whatever. There are treasonous evil-doers lurking as sure as Joseph McCarthy sniffed out all them Hollywood commie pinkos in his Un-American Activities purge. And Barr will get them. But even if he doesn't, President Trump and Sean Hannity will love him for his efforts. Unseen treasonous enemies are the best kind.

Post Script — This has been another great week for President Trump. He threatened to send detained immigrants to sanctuary cities as payback to those stinkin' liberals. It's a better bluff than his promise to close the southern border. Some will say he's a sinister, lying, crazed maniac and poor excuse for a human being. That aside, he's a great bluffer. Mayors from San Francisco to Boston are in a dither. Haha. Trump's base just loves it. And as they say on the shopping channel, That's not all: The president's re-tweet of Congresswoman Ilan Omar superimposed over the Twin Towers falling on 9-11 has put her life in danger. One man already has been arrested for threatening to put a bullet in her brain. What a stroke of genius from the guy in the Oval Office. When you're good, you're good.

Well, that's it for another rock-'em sock-'em week here at Smart Bomb, where the staff also has been busy getting ready for swimsuit season. We've been working on a cleans of onion juice, prune juice and Maker's Mark. We got a pilates book and went to the sauna and we broke down and bought some TRUMP-brand spray-on tan. Of course, Wilson and the band are sitting the whole thing out. Their idea of a fun beach day is lounging under the cabana with a cooler of Dos Equis while inhaling smoke from burning herbs. OK, Wilson, wake up the band and put us in the mood: Sunshine came softly through my window today / Could've tripped out easy but I've changed my ways... / We stood on a beach at sunset, do you remember when? / I know a beach where, baby, it never ends...

[blade-the-demon-fangirl]

How To Be A Wizard: Chapter One-Welcome To Wizard City

A Wizard101 fanfiction

I don’t own anyone except my own characters!

Chapter one: welcome to wizard city!

A wise old man leaned on his staff in exhaustion, peering into the crystal ball on his desk as if it held the answers to the universe. A gray owl wearing a cap flew onto his staff, peering into the crystal as well.

“Whooo are they, headmaster Ambrose?” the owl asked in a throaty voice.

“These seven teenagers are the key to stopping Malistaire once and for all, Gamma.” the aforementioned wizard teacher stated, stroking his beard in thought. “They come from a world that has magic, yet they don’t even believe in it! How unusual…” he murmured.

“Then we should bring them to Wizard City as soon as magically possible to teach them how to use their magic! There isn’t a moment to lose, headmaster!” The gray owl cried.

The old man sighed and adjusted the monocle on his left eye, “I suppose you are right, Gamma. The fate of the Spiral rests in their, albeit inexperienced, hands.” The owl flew off the staff and hid behind a stack of books, peeking his little grey head out to watch his master perform the spell that would bring the teenagers into their world.

In a matter of minutes and in a flash of light, there in his office stood seven teenagers. Three boys and four girls, all looking confused, worried, and scared.

The tallest boy, a latino with startling grey eyes spoke first. “Ay, what’s going on, ese?!”

“What the hell is going on…??” a girl with brown hair and light blue eyes questioned, examining her surroundings and her new comrades.

“Whoa! Check out the threads we’ve got!” a girl with tanned skin and amber eyes grinned and fingered the hem of her maroon sleeves.

Indeed, as soon as they set foot in this new world, their clothes changed from typical jeans and sneakers to cotton robes and soft but sturdy boots.

The commotion continued amongst the teenagers, as they examined themselves and questioned their whereabouts, their voices growing louder in panic.

This continued until the headmaster slammed the butt of his staff into the ground beneath him, sending out a blast of air and silencing the new students. Seven shocked faces finally acknowledged the person that brought them to Wizard City.

“I understand that you must be confused at the least, but if you will allow me to explain, then I shall.” He straightened up as much as possible, “I am Headmaster Merle Ambrose, of Ravenwood school of magical arts. This is my assistant, Gamma.” He motioned to the now revealed grey owl, who bowed in greeting. “Now, as for why I’ve brought you all here.” He gestured to the crystal ball on his desk and displayed a picture of a man with long black hair and beard. He had beady black eyes and a scowl on his face. “This is Malistaire,” he explained, “a dark wizard who seeks to destroy Wizard City for reasons unknown. He hasn’t done much yet, but he will eventually. And while I pride my school in teaching the wizards of the next generation, I fear that none of them are ready to stop this menace.” He swept a hand over the crystal and the image of Malistaire disappeared.

“Okay, that’s all well and good but…” the boy with gold eyes and long brown hair gestured amongst himself and the others, “…what makes you think that we can stop him? I mean we’re just simple humans, not mages or wizards or whatever.”

“Ah, but that is where you are mistaken.” headmaster ambrose waved his hand over the crystal ball again, this time displaying moving images of the seven teens before him. “You see, you all display great magical power that has been shown in your actions.” he turned to the latino boy. “You, young man, are Antonio Suncatcher. Your intense will and respect for others gives you the ability of divination. Storm magic.” the latino, now named Antonio, glanced at the crystal showing him at a young age sticking his finger in an electrical socket, giggling as his dark hair stood on end. He blushed in embarrassment at the image.

Merle then turned to a girl with black hair pulled into a ponytail and pretty violet eyes. “You are Angela Darkcaller, a woman whose love for others goes beyond even the grave. In turn, you have been given the ability of necromancy, the magic of the dead.” the crystal ball then showed her talking to a ghost standing above its grave. Angela smiled sweetly and forlornly, as the ghost was the spirit of her late mother.

“You, young lady, are Rowan Dragonblood,” said short-haired brunette girl with light blue eyes jumped at her name being called suddenly. “You have a cold soul yet have a warm heart, thus granting you ice magic, or thaumaturgy.” she turned to the crystal ball, which now featured her with longer hair and playing in the snow…in a tee shirt and shorts. Rowan blushed heavily, shielding her face with the hood of her robe.

The headmaster turned to the boy with lime-green eyes and disheveled blond hair. “You, my friend, are Blake Ironheart. Your spirit thrives with light and life, which is the magic you have been given. The magic of life, the theurgist’s magic.” Blake gazed fondly at the crystal ball now displaying a scene where he was making his aunt’s old withered rose bushes thrive with new life.

“You, are Calamity Moonhunter, a girl who was gifted with the magic of balance. You were given this magical talent due to your ability to adapt easily and to see things from all points of view.” the girl with amber eyes and dark brown curly hair grinned childishly as she peered into the crystal, showing her manipulating sand at the beachside.

“Oh, I remember that! You see, I was entering a sandcastle building contest and I was so desperate to win, so I tried my hardest to build the best sandcastle ever and I mean EVER, but it was still kinda disappointing and I was about to give up but then all of a sudden, I was CONTROLLING THE SAND! Can you believe it? I mean, everyone was staring at me like I was crazy, I mean, of course I’m crazy, who isn’t nowadays? And I-”

“Oh for the love of god, shut up!” the shortest girl with blonde hair and ruby red eyes shouted.

“You!” ambrose pointed to the girl who had shouted. “You, Iridian Flamerunner, have a fire in your heart that reflects your magical gift. You will have to learn to take control of your fire before it burns you.”

“Um…yes sir?” she bit her lip as she glared at the crystal ball displaying a memory of her as an infant playing with hot embers from the fireplace. The headmaster placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry young one. You are among friends who can help you master pyromancy. You won’t be alone anymore.” iridian smiled weakly as ambrose moved on to the boy with the gold eyes and long brown hair. “And lastly, Kane Wolftail. You have been given the gift of conjuring, of taming and befriending mythical beasts. You have a heart of gold and a great sense of responsibility.” the crystal ball pictured Kane helping an elderly woman walk her dogs, comforting a little girl who had scraped her knee, coming home with a straight A report card.

Ambrose stepped away from the new students and addressed them all as one. “You are the key to Wizard city’s survival. You were chosen to come to Ravenwood for a reason, to assist each other in the fall of Malistaire.” he gestured to Gamma. “It’s getting late. I will have Gamma show you to your shared room for tonight. Starting tomorrow, you will be attending classes based on your schools. But for now, I suggest you all get some sleep.”

“Wait, I’m sure we all still have questions!” Blake said, stepping forward.

“Questions I am afraid will have to wait for now,” the headmaster said. “Now, off you go. Tomorrow is a big day, after all.”

“Wow, this is soo cool!” Calamity jumped on her maroon-colored bed in excitement.

“No, this is so NOT cool!” Iridian stormed around the large, circular room in a fiery rage. “We’re stuck here with no idea why, a crackpot old man thinking we’re wizards, we don’t even know each other and we’re expected to work together to take down some guy for whatever reason!” unbeknownst to her, her feet started flickering and leaving scorched footprints in her wake.

“Uh, Iridian, you might want to calm down…” Blake said worriedly. Iridian stopped her pacing and whirled to face the Life mage.

“I’M COMPLETELY CALM!!!” she roared as flames shot out of her open mouth and hit Antonio’s long purple and gold robes.

“Ay! Caliente! Someone help!” Rowan shot a blast of ice at the latino, effectively putting out the fire. Unfortunately, it also froze his feet to the ground. “Eh…gracias, Chiquita,” he muttered.

“Ooh, so we’re practicing? Okay!” Calamity jumped off her bed and started waving her hands above her head like a madman. “Lookit what I can do!” out of thin air, it seemed, a mini tornado formed above her head and exploded into what looked like mock fireworks, getting everyone dirty with sand.

“Gah! Hey, care to cool it with the sandstorm, chica?” Antonio, who had successfully smashed the ice around his feet enough to walk, said in exasperation.

“Oopsie, my bad!” the Balance mage giggled cutely.

“Okay, everyone STOP!” Kane’s voice boomed in the large room and like he commanded, everyone stopped what they were doing as if someone had paused a movie. He took a deep breath and sat on his yellow and blue colored bed. “Look, I know this seems…well, insane to say the least,”

“Understatement of the year,” Rowan muttered.

“But we were all brought here for a reason, and that reason is to save this world.” Kane continued.

“But what about our families? Our friends, our LIVES? Do you really think we can just up and leave that behind?” Angela asked worriedly, fingering the skull brooch on her collar.

“I…” Kane hesitated. He took a great interest in his boots.

Rowan saw his hesitation and picked up where he left off. “Listen, we may be stuck here for now, but that doesn’t mean we probably won’t go home once all this is over.”

“So what you’re saying is that if we just off this Mal-whatever dude, we can go home?” Iridian interrupted.

“Yes, exactly!” Rowan said, throwing her hands in the air, accidentally freezing the ceiling in the process. “Oops…”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Kane spoke up, “but for now, let’s just get some sleep,” he pulled back the covers on his bed. “Like the old man said, we’re gonna start classes tomorrow, and we’ll need all the help we can get.”

“Okie Dokie, artichokie! G’night!” No sooner had Calamity plopped onto her own bed, she started snoring.

“Jeez, she falls asleep fast,” Iridian muttered as she took off her red and orange hat and set it beside her similar-themed bed. “But the dork’s right,” she followed Kane’s example, “The sooner we stop this guy, the sooner we can go home.”

The rest of the wizards decided to just leave it at that and call it a night.

As Rowan was removing her pale blue cloak, Kane spoke up. “Hey, Rowan?” the brunette turned and saw him sitting up, tugging on his fringe. “Thanks. For speaking up for me…I appreciate it,” His face warmed up as he glanced away from the ice mage.

“Hey, it’s no big deal. It was just impulse, y’know?” Rowan shrugged and got into bed.

“Still, it means a lot to me. Not a lot of people would do that for me.” Kane explained.

“How come?” she questioned, “you seem like a nice enough guy,”

Iridian spoke up from under her covers, “Hey if you two are done flirting yet, some of us are trying to get some sleep.”

The duo blushed and said a hasty “good night” to each other before diving under their own covers.

Tomorrow would hopefully be a bit better.

[ecotone99]

[MF]The Further Adventures of Aydan & Weebs - 14. Trains Pt. 1

The tiny maestro walks to the podium, "Another One" tik tik tik -

A squeaky red curtain goes up....

​

​

The Further Adventures of Aydan & Weebs

14. Trains

Klickety-klack, klickety-klack.

A strange new vista, different from the last one as is always the way.

Klickety-klack, klickety-klack.

The opening of a darker scene, night, an autumn feeling night; though, it being so late it was impossible to tell what time of year it was save for that smell, that autumn-y smell.

Aydan was thrust hard to his knees, bodily, before a small fire glowing and raging like a small demon in the coffee can in which it had been set.

Klickety-klack, klickety-klack.

The train jostled the scene, pitching one way, then pitching the other, and forcing those on their feet into prescient stances full of taut tension. Three men, moving on Aydan, while, around this grouping, other interlopers inside the train car did their very best to disappear, to get out of sight, while they moved away from the prickling violent overtones beginning to break out.

“You dun fucked up now, kid,” said a large bruiser in a large brown overcoat; dark hair and darker eyes. The man stood over Aydan, two of his buddies flanking him. “You thought you could just hop on any train? Like you owned it?”

Aydan didn’t speak, eyes travelling around and behind the men as he rolled onto his backside. Catching the eye of an older man that seemed to occupy himself tending the fire in the can, he could see no threat there. That old coot was as caught out as Aydan. In that half flickering instant of connection, Aydan shot the man a quick wink, meant to be a comfort.

The old man had straightened then and a blossom of confusion rose upon his puss.

“You thought you could just ride the rails like in olden times? Is that it? Just bumming some free travels, are’ya?” the man was getting amped, and the bedpost with the bumper hitch attached to its’ end, for that was Brown Overcoat’s choice of weapon and spoke a good deal about the sort of man that would wield such a device, seemed to be going the same way.

“I was looking for a friend of mine.” Aydan said, picking himself back up in no great hurry.

“You don’t have any friends here, Sonny Jim.” The man in the brown overcoat, inclined his head and the man to his left stepped forward. The man was as unclean as unclean men can be, and he had that beard and hair that they get; long and dirty and he moved towards Aydan with a flapping of his arms.

Aydan splayed palms at the guy “Hey,” taking a step back, but the thug meant business. Aydan didn’t have the luxury of time to consider things much, train cars are spacious in their way but are also cramped in their way. Aydan took another slow step back, then he set his jaw.

The thug caught the first blow deep into his belly, too hard, a pain the man had never felt coursed into his body. In the center of his eyes, small points of electricity began to crackle and radiate in waves out through the black hole of his iris’. Pain, profound pain; pain in such a way that redefines the term for an individual, that is what the wild bearded man felt then. His eyes blazed at Aydan, uncomprehending, then the levy broke and the pain, for pain is flammable, caught flame and a great inferno of fear burned out of the man. His dignity wouldn’t let him cry out, Aydan might have stopped too, if the man had; might.

The second blow, like a baseball bat to a bag of rice. The wild man never knew it, but the moment after the impact of Aydan’s second strike, he was carried, now unconscious, out over the lip of the open side of the train car.

Klickety-klack, Klickety-klack.

The wild man left behind a shitty wife and two shitty kids that would never know what happened to the man that they’d all known as ‘Marcus’, which wasn’t his real name; the wild man had always been a pretty cagey type.

Brown overcoat, took a step closer to Aydan, and brought his crazy club up to bear, in the flickering light of the fire can, the man was a demon possessed of a crazy drunk, “What the fuck did you just do?” the tone of voice was almost indescribable , Brown Overcoat, himself, had no idea what he was feeling in that instant. Loss, assuredly, he and Marcus had been on I don’t know how many adventures; they’d been so much more than just what you could see. A blinding rage had frozen him, as though he could see before him an infinity of possible tortures to visit upon this man that had just, probably, killed his bud; and he froze trying to decide among them, he chose all. Fear, he felt that too; so he wanted to play things a hair more cautious than ole Marcus had. It was a moment of anger, confusion, and desperate reassessment. “You suffer for that!” Brown Overcoat snarled with an abandon that only the suicidal could understand.

The second goon, darted wide, triangulating, he was older looking and broad like a farmer but he was wearing a nautical looking sweater. He moved to buy his boss space, then called to Aydan “Oy, right here, ya prick, lookit me…” it seemed like there’d been more to come, but the nautical hobo had bumped into another party there in the train car. One that had stayed away from the, to his thinking, wretched light of the fire can. There was an uncomfortable shifting of places for a couple of seconds. The juxtaposition of bodies about the flame in the coffee can allowed for a new visitor to step to the fore.

“Who tha fuck is that, there? Ted?” Brown Overcoat broached.

Stepping slowly into the light, a pair of eyes blazed back the shadows and shone bright than the fire can every had; the man wore a veil of shadow cast by the brim of his hat, an old knock off Ernest P Worrell hat with a button up flap that, currently, wasn’t buttoned up. It wasn’t buttoned up at all. In the full glow of the fire, this man, all hat and shadow, gave a curt nod to Aydan.

It was returned in kind, and Aydan upped the ante with a half-smile that was an exhalation of relief the likes few of us will ever know.

“Oh, what the shit is this?!” said the triangulating nautical hobo, looking from this interloper to Brown Overcoat.

“This is why I hop trains,” Aydan, where he stood, taunted from behind balled fists “good service here.”

As Aydan said the words, Weebs passed him a pair of studded brass knuckles. Saying nothing, he bounced his eyebrows and gave two hard blinks, he’d drawn his collar up to look more mysterious so his pal Aydan couldn’t be sure, but the man in the Jones’ hat would have set better than even odds that his buddy was a smiling wide under that collar. Content, Aydan, turned back to the ruckus pair and Weebs did the same; they shared no words, as was their way after a spell of absence.

“Ok, you assholes” Brown Overcoat began swinging his maniac bludgeon over his head in a great circle, and an insane scream began to build.

The nautical one took the cue, drew out a pair of rusty looking butterfly knives from secret pockets. The knives slithered into his palms, rubbing themselves into the folds of his life lines, and took purchase against them. Their throne. The knives were more the nautical hobo than he was so, naturally, they hid behind his mask. Each snaked up in a show of the 'hobo’s' skill, but it ‘twas the knives guiding the man’s motions. Snicker-snakt, and a ragged gash down each of the nautical man's forearms; the blades drooled dark syrups as they came. “Now, I don’t need to kill you today. I touch you, and I kill you eventually.” The voice was replaced by a terrible laugh, born from a place that gets the broad gestures of how the mechanics of laughing works but understands very little of the theory.

Weebs, repulsed, scrunched his nose and fired a perfect black hole through that spot nestled right in between the nautical hobo's eyes.

The air in the car stopped.

The tender of the fire can, in horror, triggered by the unexpected report of pistol fire, started something fierce and upset the coffee can in the process…fire spilled out in a circle and the shadows crept and darted in strange new arches, as the embers and sparks began to find new holds and perches to observe the proceedings from. Tendrils of flame began snaking this way, then that; the aged inside of the car was a grand banquet for the teeming fire snakes that had been set loose.

Aydan glanced down, saw the flames spilling between his legs. He tensed and looked to Weebs.

Weebs wasn’t looking. His eyes were on Brown Overcoat. “You were gonna kill my friend there? With that?” The pistol in his hand indicated the bed post club thing with the bumbper hitch attached at the top, "WITH THAT?!"

Brown Overcoat didn’t move, then lowered the stupid club that was useless anyway now.

Weebs pointed a finger, held Overcoat in place; the pistol slavered back in the direction of the nautical hobo.

Klicety klack, klickety klack.

Holding Overcoat, eyeball to eyeball, Weebs fired. Fired! Fired! Again and again and again! His eyes never left those of Brown Overcoat while the body of the triangulating nautical hobo twitched and danced at their feet. Weebs watched, his own eyes boring into those of Brown Overcoat’s, and made those eyes prickle at the edges.

Brown Overcoat, gone limp, watched the desecration of the only other man that had ever shared a set of parents with him.

Brown Overcoat, his mind cracking, his head twitching; a man trying to quell a vast sorrow within him. “You…” he broke off, stepping back from the now unfavorable odds “You, killed them.” He said the words, and saying them, just the words, made it all seem so unbelievable. Five minutes ago, Brown Overcoat had just been doing the usual with his bro and his bud.. his eyes stared at the man in the knock off Ernest hat, and he hadn’t the words. Brown Overcoat let the strangely dancing light of the glowing flames all around them illuminate the pain he could hide no longer. He let the sight of that great pain be his revenge for the moment; the loss he'd taken, brazen on his face, would haunt the duo with the unspeakable prickling violins that sing their tune at such thoughts. “You will both pay! “ The man darted at the open side of the train, “When this train stops, you will both pay!”

Brown Overcoat leapt through the open side of the train and was swallowed into the night.

Aydan and Weebs looked to each other.

submitted by /u/EconomyResident [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2N8vgOj