#she can cast three fireballs and power word kill on the same turn and then gut someone with a riposte. as a treat

[mantisgodsdomain]

Maybe it's a bad idea to give a lich access to multiattack.

[gofancyninjaworld]

OPM Manga Chapter 139 Review: Abyss

Story:  Unexpected Blast

Perspective matters.  From our perspective last chapter, the hole that should be a hole is full of a curled up figure.   We start the chapter with Flashy Flash, Saitama and Manako trying to make sense of something in the blackness.   Try as Manako might,  she can bring no light to bear on whatever’s out there.   They’re interrupted in their investigations by a voice.  This voice invites them to touch the cube and let it grant them their wishes... if it wants... like the world’s worst genie. 

For more see under the cut!  This is a long one!

Before they can consider the terms the infernal cube is offering, what happens but your regular rip in spacetime that just so happens to deposit the much-mentioned but never seen hero, Blast?  He grabs the cube,  spins it on a finger and off it vanishes into another dimension, along with the outraged shrieks of the being who wasn’t finished tempting Saitama’s little troupe.   Blast is nice enough to take them to the surface, although not before explaining that time is running slow in the hole. So don’t expect Flashy Flash and Saitama anytime soon.

...I must confess I’m distracted by Flashy Flash’s ass and heels.

Anyway, back to the now.   Directly on the heels of Orochi being cast down, we watch the heroes who weren’t part of the monster-bashing festival acting as the rearguard, but mostly spectating.  Well, Child Emperor isn’t spectating -- he’s deep in a personal crisis from having erroneously excluded Genos and Bang from participating and wants Zombieman to take over command.  As Sweetmask pooh-poohs the idea,  Zombieman demurs, pointing out that the boy’s ability to admit error and seek to understand make for the capacity to improve.

AND THEN!  FATALITY!  Zombieman shoves Child Emperor out of the way just in time to catch the fireballs of Homeless Emperor, ugh.

The rearguard is under attack, but unfortunately no help is forthcoming as everyone else is transfixed (metaphorically) by  Tatsumaki transfixing (literally) Orochi using the former Subterranean city as a skewer.   It drives Orochi into the earth, twisting and smearing him as it goes, until he finally expires in front of an altar where there’s a mural depicting a suspiciously Orochi-like figure receiving sacrifices.   Gee, I wonder what that means? Orochi dying where he was born, always sweet.

Well, the scumtastic monsters collectively known as the cadre are finally bubbling up to the surface.  They’ve conveniently waited until their boss has taken the punishment and tired out the really big scary heroes they don’t want to tangle with. This is going to get nasty.

Meta: Evil Space Lawyers and other beasts

You didn’t read the small print

I don’t know the anon who wrote to me to point out that the confiscation that ‘God’ spoke of is exactly the same as the word used when He took away Homeless Emperor’s powers and that it’s a legal term He used.   Evil Space Lawyer indeed.  Setting up and executing unilateral contracts without notice. 

We don’t know much about God yet, but so far, the people who we do know He’s ‘helped’ have been exceptionally homicidal freaks acting out of a deep-seated hatred of humanity who’ve been all too willing to use their powers to inflict sickening harm on the world. 

Keep spoiling his fun, Blast!

You know, I’m pleased to meet the coolest uncle in the world, Blast, but honestly, there isn’t much *to* him.  At least, not yet.  Sure he’s cool. It’s great to see that Blast really is an exceptional hero who can spoil ‘God’s’ fun -- at least better than he can kill off giant monsters. Yes, it’s neat to see that he has a means to get around to the unlikeliest of places.  Yes, it’s nice to look at his eyes and realise that Blue is telling no more than the truth (characters in OPM usually are).  But okay, and? So? I’m sure that he’ll be back, and when he is, we’ll have more reason to care.

I do enjoy the detail of showing how he’s been ageing over time through the discrepancies between characters’ memories of him and how he is in the present day.

Sitch really was just telling the truth when he said that Blast was someone who wouldn’t be ordered around.  I’m not wondering either at Sekingar saying that Blast is semi-retired and only a handful of executives can get hold of him.  It all fits.

I freaking love that the various jack-in-the-box reveals are being destroyed and turned into more organic story-telling.  ONE has the space, he may as well, as it also clears the way to do deeper storytelling about both the OPM world and its denizens.

Sit down, be humble

Man, the small but interesting changes between how Flashy Flash’s Very Bad No Good Day unfolded in the webcomic and the manga continue to amuse me. He’s been buried in an undignified position and dug out by a pair of clowns.  His beloved Instakill has been murdered by a hyperactive midget with a twitchy index finger.  And now the worst thing of all, not feeling like he’s the fastest thing on the planet has happened now once, but TWICE.

Heh, I wonder who Flashy Flash will take his wounded ninja pride out on.

Oh, the humanity!

Parentification is when a child is pressed into the role of taking on adult responsibilities to make up for unreliable adults.  It’s been a big problem that Child Emperor has been struggling with and I was both heartbroken and hopeful to see Child Emperor admit that the impossible position he was in was, in fact, impossible.  I wouldn’t call his decisions bad -- under the circumstances, with no one by him to advise, they were the best decisions he could make.   The outcome of the decision was just very unhelpful.

I was more than a little sad when the upshot of Zombieman’s kind words boiled down to Child Emperor still being left carrying the can.

Speaking of humanity,  it’s a gimme for web comic readers that Amai Mask is speaking without turning his head to look at Zombieman. So far, he’s been able to hide his shame from everyone, that he’s turning into a real monster.  But for how much longer?

In passing

Fun little thing.  As Manako lights up the world, just look at Flashy Flash’s body:

A second fun thing: Child Emperor’s memory of Genos being a mix of actual observation -- the lack of spikes -- and what he preferred to remember.  Choosing not to remember that he was naked, good boy!

Btw, between Flashy Flash, Saitama, and Blast, that’s three of the four known cape-wearing heroes in one room. Nice!

[self-loving-vampire]

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985)

Ultima 4 is a very historically-significant game, as well as being where the Ultima series cemented itself as something truly unique. Where the previous games in the series (as well as the RPG genre in general) often dealt with defeating some kind of evil overlord, Ultima 4 has no antagonist and instead calls on you to perfect yourself and embody a set of eight moral virtues.

Summary

You start the game by answering several moral dilemmas to determine your class and starting location. You are then transported to the fantasy land of Britannia to embark on a spiritual quest to become the Avatar of virtue and read the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom in the Abyss.

To do this, you must master eight virtues and understand the three principles involved in them.

The game has been widely ported but I will be reviewing the free version available from GOG.

Freedom

Ultima 4 is an extremely open game in many ways. There are eight possible classes and each is rather different, with a unique starting location. Most importantly, all of the many tasks the game asks you to complete prior to the final descent into the Abyss can be done in any order you desire.

You can maximize your virtues in any order, explore dungeons in any order, travel the world as you wish, find the runes in any order, and etc.

So all in all, this game is very non-linear when it comes to exploration and objective order.

Note, however, that due to the way this game is designed it is not actually very replayable. Even if the initial experience is different for each class and you can complete the game’s many objectives in any order, those objectives are still the same and they all do need to be completed by the end. There are no alternate ways to complete any objectives.

By the end of the game, you will be playing largely the same way regardless of what your initial class was or what order you did things in.

This is made worse by the fact that ranged weapons completely dominate the game. There is little reason to use melee if you have the option to use ranged weapons.

Character Creation/Customization

Besides your name, gender, and choice of class, you cannot really decide anything about your character. Once in-game, you also don’t have that many options for upgrading your party besides obtaining better equipment and finding magical orbs in dungeons.

That said, the game does get some points for the variety of classes and for how radically some of them can affect your experience, particularly in the early game. 

The most striking example is the Shepherd class, which you get for having humility as your favored virtue during the character creation questions. Shepherds are terrible at everything. They can’t use magic at all (most other classes can to varying degrees) and are awful at combat, having a very limited selection of weapons and armor available. They also start in a ruined island populated by monsters. It is basically the game’s “hard mode.”

You can answer these same questions and find your class here (the link says Ultima VI but it’s really the same ones as far as I can tell, or at least close).

Story/Setting

The game world is reasonably large and memorable, but to be honest the setting of the Ultima games has always been on the more generic side, even if some of the games in the series are pretty immersive. The virtues introduced in this game are really the primary spice on the game world.

It is a medieval fantasy setting with all the staples: Fireballs, orcs, dragons, liches, skeletons, and so on. It does have a few less common creatures as well (like balrons and zorns).

A generic fantasy setting is not necessarily bad, but it is not particularly good either. It is just the baseline as far as I am concerned, and can be boring on its own if you are not drawn in by anything else a game offers.

In this case, the setting is not really the game’s selling point so much as its unique objective. It is also still a massive improvement over some of the earlier games in the series, which feature things like space travel and time travel.

Another point in favor is that the towns scattered throughout the land are not just generic fantasy towns, they are dedicated to specific virtues. Those virtues seem to be particularly alive in the minds of their inhabitants in this game as well. The virtues are so embedded in the setting for the rest of the series that it does give it more of an identity.

The story itself is, as previously mentioned, unique among all RPGs I know of. While there is a lot of combat and dungeons to explore, there is no big antagonist for you to defeat.

Your behavior is tracked from beginning to end. You will need to do things like donating money to the needy, donating blood at the healer, and letting non-evil creatures (generally animals) flee in order to become the avatar. I also do not recommend “grinding” out these virtues unless you really need to, as I found that as long as you know how to raise them you can easily achieve avatarhood in several of them just by playing the game normally, talking to everyone and visiting Hawkwind every time you’re in the castle.

In addition to maximizing your virtues and then meditating at the proper shrines, your quest will see you travel throughout the entire world to collect the artifacts you will need for your descent into the abyss. 

You will need the eight stones of virtue (most of which are within dungeons), the Key of Three Parts, the three artifacts of the principles, the word of power, and more. You will also need to recruit seven party members to aid you in your quest, each representing one of the virtues (you are the representative of the eighth).

Immersion

I know it’s probably not that bad by the standards of its time, but I can’t say the game’s immersion is all that good. It does gain some points in some areas such as the way the manuals work and how you need to actually do things like keep track of the phases of the world’s two moons (clearly not something you’d see in our world!) to make proper use of moongates, but overall it is definitely not on the same level as other RPGs I have played. As was sadly the case for the technically-limited time period the game was made in, the world does not really react very much to your actions even though your virtues are tracked.

I do like the initial character creation questions, however. Trying to answer them honestly based on your own moral principles can be a good way to get started. It is also good that the whole virtue angle requires you to actually roleplay the quest of the avatar in order to win.

Gameplay

Playing the game is extremely simple as long as you reference your keys as needed and read the manuals (perhaps it is even too simple, with only one type of non-spell attack action and relatively few and uninteresting equipment options). Talking to every NPC you meet is also recommended, as they not only have a lot of advice but also several vital clues that you will need if you plan to complete the game without a walkthrough, as the whole thing is rather obscure about certain aspects of your quest.

The magic system is a mixed bag. You have to gather and mix reagents to cast spells. The reagents must be mixed ahead of time and are consumed. You must also know which reagents to mix. The spell manual that comes with the game explains most of the combinations, but there are some that you must discover on your own within the game, and they are for some of the most potent spells too (such as Resurrect).

On one hand, I like how the game invites you to actually learn its magic system in order to make use of it, with many reagents having consistent qualities that can let you guess what kinds of spells they may be used for. On the other, it can be a bit time-consuming to manually mix these reagents every single time you want to prepare a spell.

However, the thing that really kills the second half of the game is the combat.

The combat is initially a bit simple but functional. You can press one of the arrow keys to move in one of four directions, you can press A followed by a direction to attack in that direction, or you can press C to cast one of your prepared spells.

With such simplicity, combat in the early game doesn’t take very long, especially since as far as I can tell there are less/weaker enemies early on (though there’s enough encounters to make it a bit of a pain still). However, as you gather more companions (and you must have a party of 8 before venturing into the final dungeon and completing the game) combat starts to drag on as you have to manually command each of your eight party members.

It’s especially bad in that one party member in particular (Katrina the Shepherd) is, to put it bluntly, a complete burden on the party as you might expect from a shepherd. She will be missing every single attack against the stronger enemies that populate the late game, and not hitting very hard when she does hit due to the awful weapon selection shepherds get. I wish you did not need to recruit everyone.

This would have been a bit of a pain on its own, but not that bad. No, the real problem is one single spell: Sleep.

A handful of late game enemies (such as gazers, but especially reapers, and balrons) will spam this one spell without mercy, even if your entire party is already sleeping.

This is a spell that can incapacitate multiple characters, potentially half your party or more, for several turns. The Awaken spell is pointless as a counter to it, as it affects a single target and the enemy can spam Sleep every round while you will quickly run out of Awaken even if your spellcasters somehow manage to avoid the sleep themselves.

Your characters do not wake up if they take damage, and there seems to be no limit to how often the enemy can use Sleep.

This is still manageable when fighting only one or two of these enemies in reasonably open ground, but in tight spaces where sleeping characters can block the way for the rest of the party or in dungeons where you face half a dozen or more of these enemies in a single room it can make for an experience that is just painful.

It is not even that this makes the game difficult either, the enemies do very little damage even when they are not spending all their turns casting Sleep over and over again, but it does make some dungeon rooms feel like they exist merely to waste your time.

The single worst offender was this room at the bottom of the Abyss.

10 Balrons that you can’t even reach due to a wall of force (central blue square) in the way. They can Sleep half your party despite this, regardless of where anyone is in the room. I timed it and it literally took me about 20 minutes just to walk everyone east at this one turn. There are other rooms that have this same issue as well.

While there’s annoying things like that, the game is actually extremely easy in terms of combat, at least once you get over the initial hump.

Aesthetics

As noted in the setting section, the game is on the more generic side aesthetically. That said, the simple graphics are at least readable for the most part (magical fields and the like aside) and the unique main quest gives the game a very distinct feel.

Accessibility

Surprisingly high due to its simplicity. Combat is about as mindless as you could ask for in an RPG other than making it completely automatic like Ultima 7 did, and there are not actually that many keys to remember.

However, there are still a couple of things that modern players will have to adapt to. Chief among them are consulting the manuals throughout the game and taking notes.

The game has no quest log to record all the clues the game’s many, many NPCs provide you with. You have to actually write those things down together with things like the mantras for meditating at the shrines, the visions you get as you achieve partial avatarhoods, and etc.

Your knowledge of the virtues will be tested at the very end.

Conclusion

I would not blame anyone for jumping ship once the late game begins, as things become slow and repetitive at that point. However, I believe that this game is worth trying regardless (especially now that it is given out for free).

This is an RPG unlike any other I have seen, demanding its players to not only live up to heroic (and largely secular) moral principles but also encouraging them bring them out of the game and applying them to their lives and become better people.

While its combat can become a bit of a pain later on, the game’s ideas remain interesting at the very least. It is also possible to import one’s Ultima 4 save into Ultima 5, and then from that game to Ultima 6. Both of those games also have rather interesting premises that I will talk about in time.

In the end, I think you should at least try it if you are interested in the history of RPGs. This is the point where Ultima really “gets good” and ditches the nonsense that plagued the early games, though Ultima 7 is still likely a much better starting point for modern players.

The game ends with a call to action. The Quest of the Avatar is a lifelong journey that does not end with the game. You are told to return to your own world and put the virtues you have learned into practice and live as an example to your people, to truly be the avatar.

In the future, other games in the series will challenge and twist these ideals in various ways, but I like the heroic idealism on display here.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #111: Irisviel (Holy Grail)

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making the holy grail herself, Irisviel von Einzbern! Iri’s most well known for her healing abilities, but she can still surprise you.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: Your cup runneth over again, but in a slightly less Destroying Humanity kinda way.

Lineage and Background

I’m almost getting tired of using Protector Aasimar for half-god characters, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t fit her. This lineage gives you +2 Charisma and +1 Wisdom, as well as some Darkvision, Celestial Resistance to necrotic and radiant damage, Healing Hands to start off your healing skills right, and the Light cantrip, using your charisma.

You’re not that far away from the rest of civilization, but I’d say literally being the holy grail probably didn’t help your social life. That’s enough of a justification for being a Hermit, I think. This gives you Religion and Arcana proficiencies, as well as one juicy secret directly from the DM themself.

Ability Scores

Good news! You’re a really nice person. Also, Charisma is your main casting ability, so we’re making that really strong. Your Wisdom is pretty good-you’re a mom, you have eyes in the back of your head, you know how it be. You’re also part omniscient wish-granting cup, so your Intelligence isn’t half bad either. After that is Dexterity, you’re not really wearing armor, not getting hit is pretty vital to your survival. Your Constitution isn’t great but we try not to dump that if we can. The same can’t be said for your Strength- it isn’t very useful in this build, and you’re definitely not in the same niche as Jalter.

Class Levels

1. Sorcerer 1: Yes your power comes from the holy grail, but it comes from you being the holy grail. That’s a Divine Soul Sorcerer if I ever saw one. That makes you Favored by the Gods, letting you add 2d4 to a failed saving throw or attack once per short rest. “Please don’t let me get hit by that fireball” is a pretty easy wish to grant. You also get proficiency with Constitution and Charisma saves, as well as two skills. Persuasion and Insight should help you keep Illya in line.

You can also cast Spells, using Charisma as your casting ability. On top of the normal sorcerer spells, your Divine Magic lets you grab spells from the cleric spell list, including Cure Wounds as a freebie.

For your other spells, grab Friends to strengthen your mom stare, Control Flames for a bit of that elemental nonsense from the end of the zero event, Prestidigitation for the hell of it, and Mending so you can heal inanimate objects as well. You can also Bless up to three creatures for up to a minute, giving them an extra d4 for attack rolls and saving throws. You should also grab Mage Armor so you don’t die.  The Dress of Heaven gives you a lot of things, but AC isn’t one of them.

2. Sorcerer 2: Second level sorcerers become a Font of Magic, giving you a number of sorcery points equal to your level. As a bonus action you can spend sorcery points to make new spell slots, or spend a spell slot to make more sorcery points.

You can also cast Purify Food and Drink now, to clean up all the grail mud.

3. Sorcerer 3: Third level sorcerers can use Metamagic to customize their casting. Irisviel can cast Quickened Spells, reducing the casting time of a spell from an action to a bonus action, or Twinned Spells, casting a single-target spell to two targets instead. Turns out being part grail gives you an edge over traditional mages.

This is also the level your Radiant Soul takes effect, letting you transform as an action once per long rest. It lasts a minute, giving you a flying speed for the duration, and letting you add radiant damage to your attacks and spells once per turn. The extra damage isn’t super useful, but you’re a literal angel now!

To celebrate, you can also say a Prayer of Healing to heal your party all at once.

4. Sorcerer 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to round up your Wisdom and Charisma. More Healing, and later more healing! What’s not to love?

You can cast Guidance this level to add a d4 to a creature’s next check as a cantrip, or Enhance Ability to help grant some ability check-related wishes.

5. Sorcerer 5: Fifth level sorcerers get third level spells, but they also get Magical Guidance. When you fail an ability check, you can re-roll the check by spending a sorcery point.

You can also cast Daylight now, shining light out from either a point or object you choose and dispelling magical darkness.

6. Sorcerer 6: Sixth level divine sorcerers have Empowered Healing- whenever a nearby creature is healed by a spell, you can spend a sorcery point to re-roll any dice in that spell, once per turn.

To make the most of that feature, you can now cast Mass Healing Word, to heal six creatures as a bonus action.

7. Cleric 1: Being a cleric and divine sorcerer causes a bit of an overlap, but come on-you are the holy grail, after all. As a Life Domain cleric, you get another set of Spells that use your Wisdom to cast. You’re also a Disciple of Life, giving extra healing based on the level of your healing spells.

(You also get heavy armor proficiency, but let’s just ignore that.)

Speaking of spells, you can cast the cantrips Resistance, Spare the Dying, and Word of Radiance now, and you can also prepare 1st level cleric spells, including your domain spells Bless and Cure Wounds. They’re not as strong as your sorcerer spells, but if you need something weirder like Create or Destroy Water or Ceremony you don’t have to commit as much as your sorcery spell list.

8. Cleric 2: Second level clerics can Channel Divinity once per short rest to either Turn Undead or Preserve Life. The former forces a wisdom save (of 8 + your proficiency bonus + your wisdom modifier) or they’re forced to run away from you until they take damage. The latter lets you heal five times your cleric level to any creatures within 30′ of you, but only up to half their HP, as an action.

9. Cleric 3: At this level, you learn how to use Lesser Restoration for healing status effects, and you can trace swords thanks to your Spiritual Weapon.

10. Cleric 4: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity so you don’t have to worry about dying quite as much. You can also cast Thaumaturgy, because we’re running out of cantrips.

11. Cleric 5: Your Turn Undead becomes Destroy Undead, instantly killing any undead of cr 1/2 or lower who fail their wisdom save. You can also cast third level spells, like Beacon of Hope to maximize your healing and Revivify to bring others back to life. Death is generally pretty permanent in Fate, but you’re the grail you do what you want.

12. Cleric 6: Your final level of cleric lets you use Channel Divinity twice per short rest, and you become a Blessed Healer. Whenever you heal another creature, you also regain a bit of HP.

13. Sorcerer 7: Back in sorcerer, you can finally cast fourth level spells! Aura of Life gives those around your resistance to necrotic damage, and your allies regain 1 HP if they start their turn in the aura with 0 hp. One HP is always a lot when it’s the difference between consciousness and having to make a death save, but combining that with Disciple of Life will give them just a bit more breathing room.

14. Sorcerer 8: Speaking of not dying, use this ASI to get a bit of Constitution for a retroactive 14 bonus HP. A lot of casters are pretty squishy, but there’s limits to what you should have to put up with.

You can also cast a Death Ward on a creature to give them their own guts, preventing them from reaching 0 HP or dying once in the next 8 hours.

15. Sorcerer 9: Grab Mass Cure Wounds as your first fifth level spell to get the most out of all your healing bonuses.

16. Sorcerer 10: Tenth level sorcerers get another Metamagic option- Extended Spell will help you get the most out of Death Wards and Auras.

Your newest spells don’t benefit from this, but Gust and Greater Restoration are still great picks, giving you a bit more elemental control as well as taking care of more stubborn status effects.

17. Sorcerer 11: Your first and only sixth level spell is Heal, for, y’know, healing. It heals a flat 70 HP, and ends blindness, deafness, and disease. 

18. Sorcerer 12: Use your last ASI to bump up your Dexterity one last time for an even better AC.

19. Sorcerer 13: Your final spell of the build is multiple choice! Investiture of Flame, Ice, Stone, or Wind will let you take on one of your Elemental personas from the event. Flame deals damage to creatures near you, makes you immune to fire and resist cold damage, and you can use your action to launch gouts of fire at your enemies. Ice makes you immune to cold and resist fire damage, the area around you is difficult terrain for anyone who isn’t you, and you can use your action to blast freezing cold. Stone gives you resistance to nonmagical weapons, you can use your action to create earthquakes, and you can pass through earth-based difficult terrain or solid stone normally. Finally, Wind causes disadvantage on ranged attacks against you, you gain a flying speed, and you can use your action to make windstorms that push creatures and deal bludgeoning damage.

20. Sorcerer 14: Your capstone level gives you an Angelic Form, using your bonus action to create a pair of wings that give you a flying speed until you dismiss them.

Pros: 

You’re really good at healing your party, with multiple features to maximize your healing spells, and metamagic to fit as many of them into a turn as possible. 

Flight is incredibly useful for casters, as it significantly reduces the number of enemies that can hurt you. It also lets you ignore difficult terrain as you move between teammates. 

Thanks to Blessed Healer and your metamagic, you won’t have to make as many choices between healing yourself and healing your party. 

Cons:

You have very low hp, so you’re in danger of getting destroyed by surprise attacks from martial classes or getting hit with a Power Word Kill.

You don’t have too many spells with Concentration, but you do have enough to make your low constitution a bit of an issue.

Your low strength means you might be getting pushed around by beefier enemies.

[officialleehadan]

Argument Array

(Tell him he’s an idiot.)

(I can’t do that!)

(Fine, fine. Tell him that he’s not compensating for the power-flow through the fourth rune. It might hold for his piddling little spark of magic, but it will explode if you charge it properly.)

(You’re sure?)

(You could always try it and find out. I suggest you do it from a distance.)

Morzan accompanied the suggestion with a graphic image of Keeli overcharging the faulty rune array, and dying in a particularly impressive fireball. Keeli winced at the thought.

“What does your impertinent bond-mate have to say?” Shandar, never a patient man and not at all thrilled to suddenly have to share his most powerful student, demanded. “More criticisms of my rune mastery?”

(Tell him he an shove his ‘mastery of runes’ sideways up his-)

(Morzan!)

Keeli was no happier than Shandar as the three of them, with her mostly serving as a conduit for conversation, worked on a rune-array that would, hopefully, help protect the town from any more mageborn attacks. There had been two more packs, but with Morzan’s warnings, and more time to make the arrows needed to kill the monsters, they were holding their own. 

The runes, however, would offer the kind of protections that could keep the mageborn monsters out completely.

Now, if only they could get them to work.

It wasn’t going terribly well. Shandar and Morzan were both mastermages, both had strong opinions on each other, and were both limited to using Keeli as the medium to discuss their mutual problem.

“Well?” Shandar demanded when Keeli was quiet too long. “What does he say?”

(Tell him if he shouts at you like that again, I’ll peel his face and hang him in a crow cage.)

“Neither of you are making this easy!” Keeli snapped to them both, the words echoed aloud and across the bond a the same time. “Shandar, Morzan says the runes won’t hold the amount of power we need. They’ll explode. Morzan, stop threatening him. It’s not helpful!”

“He’s threatening me?” Shandar asked, briefly distracted. “That whelp!”

(I’ll show you a whelp you overgrown blowfrog!)

(He can’t hear you!) Keeli snapped at Morzan, and leveled her glare on Shandar, well past the point of being afraid of her teacher. Shandar was clever and skilled, but not actually powerful enough to rise above his status as the village dark-mage. “Insults are not useful. Can we please get this done so I can have a little quiet in my head for five bloody minutes?”

Shandar stared at her, caught somewhere between outrage and shock. 

Morzan went silent.

Keeli took a long, slow breath to regain her own equilibrium, and leaned over the rune array.

“Now,” she said, when it seemed like neither man was inclined to interrupt her. She pointed to the rune in question. “Morzan, how do I fix this rune?”

“I told you-“ Shandar started. Keeli stared him down until he closed his mouth again. 

(Chain it with this one,) Morzan told her, much subdued as he drew the rune for her to ‘see’ through his eyes. (It will act as a secondary containment for the magic.)

(Thank you,) Keeli said, and adjusted the runes in question. It was just as well that they were still in the design phase, since the actual array would have to be carved into a block of salt-crystal. Not the most forgiving material. “Shandar, how do I chain this with the conversion rune?”

“It will have to be cut to purpose,” Shandar said thoughtfully, “But I might have just the thing.”

Shandar’s workroom was walled in many thousands of tiny drawers, accessible by half a dozen sliding ladders on rails. The contents of those drawers were as varied as the drawers themselves, but immaculately organized and labeled. 

When he returned, it was with a spool of silver wire, and a bag of raw amethyst. “I have a craftsman who specializes in runework. He’s only got a pinch of magic himself, but he’s a master gem-cutter.”

(Amethyst lends itself well to the work, although I don’t like it myself,) Morzan approved. Keeli passed his message along without hesitation, just glad that they were working together for now. (Try the new array. If it works, the ink should turn gold and you’ll feel the temporary protections go up.)

(Should?)

(Or it will blow up.)

(How likely is it to blow up?)

Morzan thought about it, his mind moving faster than Keeli could really follow, before he compared it to the same array he had written on a scrap of parchment before him.

(Should be safe,) he decided after a while. (Go ahead. Oh, here- I think I can hold a shield on you while you cast.)

(Couldn’t Shandar do it? He’s right here.)

(I’ll admit that he’s halfway decent with runes, but he couldn’t hold off a blast. Better I do it.)

The feeling of Morzan spinning up a shield in his power, and carefully blowing it down through their bond, was frankly strange. All the same, there was a strange sort of comfort to seeing his black-tainted red magic boil up around her into a glassy shield. Shandar raised a brow, but after most of a moon spent figuring out what they could and couldn’t do together, he wasn’t surprised to see the shield. 

“Stand back,” Keeli warned Shandar, who looked at her, and the shield around her, and went for his component drawers again. This time he pulled out a charm that shimmered the purple-gold of Mala’s magic. With a shield around him that was, hopefully, strong enough to take a blast, Keeli turned her attention to the rune array. “Here we go.”

The runes burst into light when she spun her own silver-blue magic through them. The paper trembled furiously, not made to hold the power contained by the iron powdered ink. 

For a moment, she thought they were going to hold, as gold bled through the ink here and there.

And then, with a mighty whoosh of power, the paper went up in smoke, and the magic contained within exploded outward in a swirling mix of Keeli’s silver, and the echoed-gold from the runes themselves, made more powerful by the amplification they had built into the array itself. Keeli ducked under a table on instinct, and blessed Morzan’s dry suggestion that they put away anything fragile before they started playing with runes.

When the power faded, and the smoke whirled up through the high vent Shandar had in the ceiling, Keeli peeped out of her shelter, Morzan’s shield still safely around her. Across the room, Shandar muttered threats, and hauled himself to his feet.

(Well,) Morzan said when the last of the smoke faded. (That didn’t work. Go get another piece of paper and some ink. There’s something wrong with the containment chain.)

“I’m going,” Keeli mumbled tiredly, and gave up on her distant daydreams of a hot bath any time soon. She grabbed another sheet of paper and her glass pen as Shandar returned to the desk with a wary glare for what was left of their rune array. “Alright. What went wrong?”

+++  

Blood Magic:

Blood Mist

Flower Crown Dreams (Subscriber Only!)

Runes Written

Blood Fire

Red Salt Warning (Subscriber Only!)

Hunter Cry  (Subscriber Only!)

Cool Water Bond

Runes Written Gold (NEW!)

At the Last Moment

Healing Touch

Unbound, Unbroken

+++

More Stories!

+++

[starswordartblog]

Two hours late but given how college is going I’m surprised I wrote it at all. For @oc-growth-and-development​‘s OCtober prompts, day 30: Flight.

This was not meant as a sequel to day 13 and happens years after day 13′s piece, but it kinda works as a sequel to that.

"U.F.O.?" Moira asked, looking at the newspaper Uni had come to show her.

"Yeah, isn't it funny?" he said, "They say here it stands for 'Unidentified Flying Object', because that city has this big observatory to take pictures of the sky, and they got a pic of me and Nathan flying over!"

Moira looked down at the picture he pointed on the page. It was nothing but a blur of red and blue across the sky. Moira didn't know how Picture Magic worked, but she knew how fast Uni had become from training his magic for years. It wasn't surprising that the image didn't get them well, but why even report such a thing then?

"I guess that city doesn't see mages very often," she mused.

"Yeah, there were a lot of weirdos there too," Nathan joined in the conversation, "we stopped by and a bunch were running to the woods to chase the mystery or something. Uni was floating right there! I tried to explain it was him!"

"Well, I was out of power so I couldn't prove I can be that fast," Uni said, lightly tapping his brother's shoulder to calm him down. Because Uni had barely grown since childhood, he had to float a bit higher to do that. "I don't get why they were convinced it had to be a big ship though. How would a ship fly in the sky?"

Moira raised an eyebrow at him. "You are a fish and fly in the sky, don't you?"

"Exactly, and that's just me!" He made a pretentious pose in the air with a hand on his puffed out chest. "I'm a Unique Fish Object."

Her eyebrow twitched. "You're okay being an object then?"

"I'll allow it," he waved his other hand, nose still upwards in the goofiest image of pride. Then he broke the pose to float closer to her with an excited smile. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about! You name your spells, right?"

"Oh? Yeah, everyone does it, right?" Her sister had encouraged her to do it to make it easier to learn and remember them, and also to keep her knowledge organized. But never the studious one, Moira cared most about finding fun or pretty names.

"Yeah, but a lot of people pick names from their tutor, or family, or whoever they studied it from. Nathan got most of his from his dad, but they don't really work for me."

"Hey, I already said they do," Nathan interrupted, "Ultimate Fire Magic has a U and a F, we just gotta find an O to put on it!"

"Yeah, but a lot of your spells have 'Elemental' or something like that on them, I can't do that, mine can't have an E!"

"Fine," Nathan crossed his arms. "You think Olemental is a name?"

"You can't just shove O's into any word..." Uni frowned.

"Of course I can, we need them, don't we?"

"See, that's why I knew we would need Moira's help."

"Wait, wait, waiiiiit," Moira finally jumped in the conversation again, shaking her arms to get the boys' attention. "I, I got totally lost on this! I can help you think names for your spells, but why do you need O's and E's and all this letter stuff? I didn't get it."

"The U.F.O. thing," Nathan explained. "We thought it was funny so we want all his spells to have these letters too. It's gonna be like, U.F.O Magic."

"It can be Unique Fish Object, Ultimate Flying Object, and a bunch of other things!" Uni added, "Isn't it nice to have a name that means a lot?"

"In all of those you're still an object," Moira sighed, but with a smile. "But you're right, it's a great name for you. It's gonna be hard to find words for all spells though, shouldn't you guys ask someone smarter?"

"No way, it has to be you!" said Nathan, holding her tight by the shoulders, "You're our best friend, and you're smart, you taught Uni to talk more than me, right?"

"I..." She couldn't help but blush at his sudden touch and how intensely he stared her right in the eye. Normally that's where she would tease him about being "totally into her", but she was the one flustered this time so it wouldn't be fair to make fun of him for that, right? "A, alright, I'll do my best then!"

"That's the spirit!" he grinned and squeezed her harder before letting go. It hurt in the way a bone breaking hug does.

"Uh, by the way, how many spells do you even have, Uni?" Moira asked as they sat in the park, after borrowing the biggest dictionary Nathan could find in the library. "You usually just fly, or make Nathan fly."

"Oh, there's a new one but we should save it for the end," he said, and Nathan's face lightened up immediately, but he didn't say anything. "Everyone also says swimming is a different thing, but to me they're the same."

"Yeah, I think that's just how your magic is," Nathan added, "that's the fun of the Flying-Fish F. But it isn't a spell I think, you don't cast anything on yourself. It's like how my magic makes me immune to fire without me having to do anything. It just counts as a spell if you decide to manipulate your magical power in some way." He lit his hand on fire. "Like this, or this," he continued on, lightning a tiny fireball and then other and others and making them dance around in the air.

"You always know a lot about this," Moira praised. "So Uni flies naturally and breathes in water naturally... well, he's part fish, maybe it would be weirder if he didn't. I guess I never thought about it because I don't have anything like that."

"Is that so? Usually there's always something, that's why it's dangerous for a mage to lose their magic," Nathan said. "Never mind that, though! Uni still has spells," he hastily changed subjects as he always did after talking about dangerous things, "giving other people flight is a spell for you, right?"

Uni nodded, "Yeah, that takes way more effort than flying, and I can't do it if the person doesn't want to," he started pointing at random strangers, and Moira could feel a weak flow of magic from him, "it's a pain, I really wanted to prank people."

Nathan ruffled his hair. "Don't worry man, I'm sure one day we'll do it."

"No, please don't," Moira said, "the townspeople here are used to magic but that doesn't mean they'll be okay with getting hit by one. Let's save that for our fellow mages I guess, that would be funny."

"That's exactly what Nathan wanted, yeah," Uni said, and his brother's grin did confirm it.

"Okay, we'll be here all day if we keep getting distracted,” she said. “We need to name your spell. The F part is easy, you have ideas for the rest?"

They stood in silence for a moment. Uni then flicked a finger in Nathan's direction and he began to fly around.

"Got something?" Uni asked him.

"Not yet, but I knew you were gonna do that before you did. Your magic really connects people, huh."

"Connect has a C, Nathan, we can't have that."

"I'm trying okay, there has to be a similar word! Connection, link, bond... Union! There, see, I found one!"

"Oh, you really did it!" Uni celebrated throwing his arms up in the air. Union Flying Object... that still doesn't make sense though."

"The, the spells are objects too...?" Moira questioned. "But, United by Flight sounds nice, doesn't it? We'd just need an O now."

"Oh, nice one, Moira!" Nathan said. "Couldn't we do something with 'over'? Since we go over stuff when flying. And there's a bunch of words that start with over, overflow, overwhelm, over..."

"Overdid it, it's what you say when I make you go too fast."

"Yeah, let's not talk abou- AAAAAAAAaaaaaaa...!" with a flick of Uni's fingers he was sent upwards at great speed.

"You're so mean," Moira said, but she was smiling.

"Oh, he'll live." Uni shrugged. "My magic lets me raise speed the more someone trusts me. Only Nathan can go that fast, so he's okay with it. He'll just have to get back at me later."

"Ah, brothers..." She wouldn't say it out loud, but she did relate to wanting to have some fun with your overpowered, prideful older sibling.

The overpowered, prideful older sibling landed back hot with fury, a phrase more literal than usual with Nathan. "I'll kill you," he growled.

"None of those start with O's, Nathan, let's stay focused," Moira joked, hoping they wouldn't indeed waste too much time fighting. And Nathan did calm down, if the air temperature going back to normal was any indication.

"Alright. United in Flight Operation, how about that? Operation is like acting out a plan, right? We make a lot of plans when we work together."

"Oh. That doesn't sound bad, actually," Uni said.

"It's kinda tough sounding, I guess it suits you two when you get serious," Moira added. "Also I really don't have any ideas."

"I guess the air up there really cleared your head, should I do it again?" Uni grinned, raising a finger at Nathan's direction.

"Shut up, I'll fry you for dinner, you jerk!"

"Boys!" Moira warned, putting up a finger in each of their faces. "Focus! Otherwise none of us will even be home for dinner!"

"Alright, alright!" Nathan backed down. "So, I was thinking the U could be for Underwater when you let me breathe underwater instead, but United in Fish Operation works just fine, right? Like, I bet fishes do all their plans underwater."

"Yeah, that makes sense to me," Uni nodded.

"What do fish even plan about?"

"We don't have time to think about that, Moira, we have to focus," Nathan warned, face hidden in the dictionary.

"Oh." she said, staring at him, hands in her hips wondering if he'd get the sarcasm. He slowly turned back to her, meeting her serious gaze head on for a few seconds before breaking in laughter.

"You deserved it, you're always complaining," he pointed at her. "Also, we have only one spell left to name and we haven't shown it to you yet."

"Really? That didn't take so long then," she commented, pretending to not see Nathan's smug smile at that. "Let me see then! I'm curious that you learned something new." Uni's magic was very straightforward. He could always fly, and had learned the extra spell they just named more than three years ago. Since then he had only improved on control and speed. What could have happened for him to work on something new all of a sudden?

"Alright, let's do it then!" Nathan jumped in excitement, and reached a hand to Uni. "You sure you can do it?"

"Yeah, I got enough magic left, and we're syncing just fine I think," Uni answered, grabbing his brother's hand.

As he did, he began to... fade? Moira wasn't sure of what she was seeing, he seemed to be getting transparent enough that she could see through him, but there was also a circular pattern shimmering within him, like bubbles wavering and shining slowly. He then went through Nathan, and the pattern spread through the other kid, the bubbles getting faster and more numerous until they obscured the boys' forms completely

When the effect ended Uni was gone, but the person floating there wasn't quite just Nathan. Of course, the first thing off she noticed was Uni's green horn in his forehead. His hair was long as Uni's too, and a mix of their colors, blond like Nathan up to the size of his short cut and then blue in the lower part. The eyes were also a mix, one green and one blue. His skin was full of brown spots, and his feet had been replaced by bright blue fins. Moira could also feel the spell coursing through his whole body.

"It's... No way, that’s, both of you?" she gasped.

"Yeah, awesome, right?" They said, two voices in unison. They grinned, circling around her. "Like I said, Uni's magic connects him with other people, the more we flew together, the more we could feel each other's thoughts, kind of. It made it easier to coordinate together, since Uni has to control the speed even when Nathan is the one flying. Last time we just synced so much that this happened somehow!" They finished, spreading their arms wide and summoning a lot of flames to circle around them. Looking closely, Moira noticed their were slightly fish-shaped. "Ultimate Fire-Fish Onslaught! Oh, that's good! Onslaught really is a Nathan word!"

They kept grinning but their eyes twitched for a moment and with a loud popping noise the fused shape burst and faded, the original boys falling to the ground where it stood. Nathan jolted up, pointing to his brother with an angry face.

"I heard that thought!"

Uni quickly got up too, scowling at Nathan with his hands balled into fists. "And I was right! You really are too hotheaded to keep up with out of battle!"

"You liked the name! I felt that you liked the name, you couldn't stay five seconds without making fun of it?"

"We joke about everything, you make fun of everyone else too! You want me to just sing praises inside your brain? Geez, that's another level of self-obsession, your ego is so high I bet even I can't reach it!"

"Fine, see if I ever use this dumb spell with you ever again!"

"Like I care, you're the one always asking for support."

They turned away from each other, suddenly quiet enough to hear Moira's snickering.

"Oh goodness, boys, wait, wait," she walked up to them, "it was funny but you're actually mad at each other. C'mon, it was a great day, guys, let's not end like this."

"It wasn't me," they protested in unison, sounding a lot like when fused.

"See? Still in sync," she giggled, then pulled both of them by the hand until she could pass an arm behind each of their necks in a wide hug. "You are literally such perfect partners you made a whole new spell that way. Of course you don't think the same way all the time, that's why you complete each other. Maybe it’s not a spell to use all the time. And Uni is right, you two are always joking around so you have to know how to make up when you go too far."

"It's worse when it's in your brain," Nathan mumbled, "I spent the last two days working on this name stuff."

Moira felt Uni shake at that, and then once more as he sniffled. "Sorry. I liked it. I was having fun."

"Yeah it was fun," Nathan said, reaching a hand out to pull the smaller kid closer, "sorry I blew up on you."

Moira let go of them, and Uni wiped a few tears, Nathan's arm still over him, though the older kid still averted his eyes.

"Anyway, you're happy with the names, right?" he asked loudly once Uni stopped sniffling. "I'm definitely never coming up with this stuff again, we should write them down somewhere."

"It's okay, I'm not gonna forget them," Uni said, but Nathan had already left him and was marching towards the bench he left the dictionary in.

"Nope, no way, I'm not risking, we're writing it down right now!" he said, opening the book and lighting up a spark on his finger. Moira rushed and grabbed him.

"What are you doing that's a library book!" She shook him until he dropped it. Hopefully that hard cover was enough protection. "Geez, be careful with people's stuff. I'll just lend you a page from my grimoire, but no fire, what were you even planning with that?"

"Wait, seriously? But that's like, your most precious thing or something!"

"You guys are too," she said, carefully taking out a blank page of the mentioned book, "and these are some great memories to record. I do want something in return, though."

"Alright, I'll do anything!" he replied immediately. It stunned her a bit, was he that grateful? He took the page from her with unusual gentleness, she didn't realize he cared about her grimoire so much. Or, more likely, cared about how important it was to her.

"Anything, huh?" she leaned forward, eyeing him like a playful cat, a finger under his chin. Normally this was where she'd tease him about kissing her or something, but the whole day had been a lesson on joking too much with people's feelings. Nathan was an awkward mess of a teen and she loved him exactly like that. The kind of love was up for debate, which is why she waited for him to make a move or not, so maybe it wasn't fair to joke around when she was actually counting on him.

The moment really wasn't about her disastrous love sense, she should get back on track.

She straightened her posture again and held her finger up in a lecturing way. "It's been way too long since we had a fun adventure together. You guys work too much, and train too much too. Let's go on a flight this weekend, just explore stuff and have fun! I have a flying spell too after all!"

"Yay!" Uni flung himself into a hug with her. "It's really been so long since we flew together, we used to train all the time!"

"Yeah, you did, that's how you learned to fly really well," Nathan added, looking away, "and I, I kinda used to be jealous of you two." He turned to stare his brother down with a warm smile. "Good thing you're strong enough to carry me around this time, huh?"

"Yup!" And as usual, they had identical smiles.

[baidar-oroq]

13-Home

I originally wrote this story just after 5.3 launched as something I only shared with @voidsharkffxiv, as we’d always RPed Baidar and two of his characters, Kagetake Okeya and Naoh’li Nelhah, as collectively experiencing the Shadowbringers MSQ. In a lot of ways, while it is clearly resolving a lot for them, it also has served as the launching pad for what’s become my FFXIV Write 2020 work, and since today is a you pick day, I felt it fair to post it! Has spoilers for the 5.3 MSQ, especially the trial, so it will be tagged accordingly.) (Setting: Mor Dhona, the Rising Stones, the Source/The Crystal Tower, the First, the end of the 5.3 MSQ.) He has to will his hands to not shake as he places the crystal holding the memories and soul of Y’shtola by her head-it had been agreed, when the three had passed through the Rift, that Naoh’li would carry them, him having the most connection to all of the Scions, the longest friendships. But when the time came to place their souls and minds by them, it had been Krile that had offered Baidar Y’shtola’s, simply nodding at him. He remembers that day when he had carried Y’shtola out of the Barber at Rhalgr’s Reach in the aftermath of Zenos’ brutal raid, how Krile had wanted to ask what there was between him and Y’shtola. She had never asked in the end, but by then, it had become obvious what there was. He doesn’t quite realize that he has sunk to his knees beside her bed, Kage and Naoh’li standing at the end of it, waiting to see if this insane scheme was going to work. How can we know what will happen? What if she regains her soul but not her memory? What if something goes wrong? What if Krile screwed up somehow and this isn’t her soul and she turns into Urianger or something? 

He closes his eyes, the slightest smile coming to his face at that last thought. Baidar is faintly aware that the last thought is ridiculous, but these aren’t normal events in the least. Despite the time they spent on the First in saying their farewells, his body is still bruised and worn from the war against Elidibus and the specters of Light that he had summoned to face them, to fuel his ascendancy into godhood, to become the primal he was in truth. The desperate race across Norvrandt, battling beside old friends and allies, until it had been them, and the Exarch, climbing the Crystal Tower to bring it all to an end had been etched into his bones, and it never takes much for him to recall those last desperate moments…

Light storms down on them from the armored figure that Elidibus had ascended into, the first Warrior of Light of myth given form. Portals explode into being around them, figures of Light appearing and racing at them, weapons raised. Kage’s shield is up, his feet braced, the power of a goddess manifesting itself as wings unfurled from his shield and his very body. Every bolt of power, power that shakes the Crystal Tower, that Elidibus hurls at them, alongside blows from his immense sword, hits the Rock of Hydaelyn and does nothing but elicit grunts of effort. “That all you got?” Kage yells in defiance. 

Under the cover of the shield, Baidar and Naoh’li fight, Naoh’li throwing magics out as if they were party favors, Baidar’s katana a blur in the light. The specters try to rush them from both sides, but neither give way. Baidar in fact is laughing, laughing yet again as he kills, and Naoh’li shoots him a look. “What are you laughing at?” he yells. 

Dragonsong draws a complex pattern in the air that destroys a dragoon made of energy just before he lands on top of Baidar, who is still laughing. “That all you got?” he yells, grinning madly at Kage. “Been fighting beside me too long!”

Kage gives him a smile as he weathers another desperate assault from Elidibus. Then his face snaps back into its serious mode. “We can’t keep this up though! Going to clear you two some space and then give the bastard everything you’ve got!”

“It won’t be enough!” Elidibus roars, racing towards them, sword raised, glowing with the power of a star, like a landslide coming to wipe them from existence. Kage waits, waits, balanced on that edge that he’s learned to walk so well beside Baidar and Naoh’li, and at the last possible moment he strikes. He parries the sword with an impact that causes shockwaves in the air, and then with every ounce of his strength he barges the Warrior of Light in the face with his shield with a sickening impact. Elidibus falls backwards, staggered, as Naoh’li’s codex snaps open in his hand and he says an incantation that sounds as if a dragon had roared. A roar that is answered as a form appears in the air above Naoh’li, wings flapping with dread menace, the Calamity himself making itself manifest from aether. 

A shade of Bahamut, the destroyer-god, ender of worlds, appears above them, infused with as much aether as Naoh’li can spare from what he has gathered in this battle, and as if it was a falcon cast from the falconer’s glove, Bahamut races towards Elidibus, trailing the same flames that had devastated Carteneau. The construct explodes in a fireball that drives Elidibus into the floor, smashing the Crystal Tower’s surface. “Baidar!” Naoh’li yells hoarsely, “Finish it!”

Baidar raises Dragonsong over his head, the crimson aether of Nidhogg roaring upward in a pillar of rage as Kage and Naoh’li step behind him, Kage with his sword and shield at the ready, the words in Naoh’li’s codex glowing with aether as Elidibus slowly rises to his feet. More power than Baidar has ever raised fills him, drawn from the aether of two of the most important people in his world, and the floor craters under their feet as the power builds to a crescendo in their souls. He remembers something he said to Y’shtola on the night before they attacked Vauthry on Mount Gulg, as he was falling prey to light sickness, and it comes to his lips in a shout that he directs at an embodiment of hope. “What do we do?!”

He slashes Dragonsong a dozen times in the air in front of him, drawing lines of power in front of him before focusing all of his might into a colossal beam of crimson that races out towards Elidibus, the ultimate art of the samurai, the Doom of the Living. “WE HOPE!”

For a moment, an endless moment, the last of the Unsundered, child of Amaurot, the Warrior of Light, resists the attack, but in the end, he is driven to the floor by it, his armor rent and torn, a god taken down by mere mortals…

Baidar realizes that light is beginning to glow around each of the crystals by each of the Scions, and he can sense as one by one, aether moves into the bodies of each one of them. He hears, distantly, Alisaie and Thancred sit up and speak, but all he can see is Y’shtola sitting up by him, becoming a blur as his eyes fill with tears, and he doesn’t properly register what she says until he realizes she has spoken his name. He looks for a moment at Kage and Naoh’li, neither even bothering to hide their joy, then he turns and takes her hands in his and smiles as tears run down his cheeks.

“Hey, Y’shtola. Welcome home.”

[in-arlathan]

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Read on AO3 | Start on AO3

I just realized that we’re already half-way through the story! Can you believe it? Because I certainly can’t!

Before we jump into the chapter, I wanted to let you know that I made an important change in naming. Until now, I have tried to simply describe the creature Solas was sent out to hunt. I came to realize that I need to give it some sort of name, so this one specific creature is set apart from all the other beasts that make an appearance in this story. So, from now on, when I’m writing about the “Black Dread”, you know this is the name for that big bad creature.

I will work the new name into the previous chapters at some point. For now, I wish you a wonderful time reading!

_____

Chapter Seven: A Convergence Of Wolves

The wolves came for him, covering the distance between them with incredible speed.

Solas shifted into a fighting stance and opened up to the magic of the skies. The world flickered and green mist began to dance around him as he gave himself to the Beyond. Its energy flowed through him, filling him up to the brim with power. For but a moment, he remembered how he had felt as a spirit, a creature of pure wonder, and he smiled.

With his mind, he warped the Beyond into flames and formed it into a fireball. When the wolves were close enough, he released the magic, casting of a wall of fire that reached seven feet into the air. 

The pack leader snarled, commanding the remaining wolves to go around the fiery barrier, while it picked up speed, charging at Solas directly. Its mighty paws thundered on the blackened earth. Dust whirled around the beast when it jumped. 

Solas dodged the attack, rolling over and drawing Felani’s blade from the scabbard at his belt in a single movement. The metal sang as he turned to face the pack leader. “I don’t want to fight you,” he said, enhancing his voice with the Beyond so that his words echoed in both layers of reality.

The only answer was a deep growl and second charge.

Solas stepped sideways, casting a fireball at the pack leader. Behind him, the remaining wolves encircled him, drooling and barking. In a heartbeat, Solas drew the ambient magic of the area toward him to create another barrier. It would protect him from a few attacks but not all of them. That much he knew. 

With his free hand, he reached to the skies and called their power down to him. A moment later, meteorites of raw energy peppered the ground. The wolves howled in surprise, then scattered in all directions. Three beasts stumbled and fell, dropping dead with their skulls smashed in. 

Solas had no time to enjoy his small victory. The pack leader was at him again, and he angled his blade to meet the wolf’s attack. He aimed for its side but the leader was too fast. It flung itself at Solas, clawing at his armor. The onslaught made Solas lose his footing, knocking him down. He landed on his back, and the impact drew the breath from his lungs. Warm salvia covered his face as the pack leader lowered its head over his.

“Stop,” Solas urged the creature, modulating his voice once more. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

And once more, the wolf ignored him. It barked and dug its long teeth into the pauldron of Solas’s armor. The force with which the beast tore at it reverberated in his body. Solas tried to push the beast away with his hands, but it only fought more vigorously.

I have no choice.

“I’m sorry,” he said while amassing magic around him. With a blast of air and thunder, he repulsed the pack leader. It landed with a painful howl, and the other wolves answered in kind. 

They were incredibly close. Solas could feel the warmth of their bodies despite the cold. He got back up on his feet and let the Beyond take over. Another mind blast drew the entire pack backward, blowing up dust in a wide radius. He heard the wolves whimper as some bruised and others broke their legs when they landed. 

But it still wasn’t enough. 

As soon as the wolves were back on their feet, they coordinated again, coming at him from all sides at once. No matter how fast he cast his spells or how elegantly he slashed through the pack with his blade, the wolves would bring him down eventually.

And so they did. They closed in on him, rendering unable to move, and bit and clawed at his armor furiously. In a combined effort, they tore at the metal, ripping it apart piece by piece. Solas clenched his teeth, waiting for them to go for his legs and arms as he brought down his blade on his attackers. Charged with magic, the sword was ablaze with fire and cut through the wolves without effort. Blood sprayed and he tasted vile in his mouth. Dead beasts dropped around him, as the remaining pack robbed him of his pauldron and breastplate. They bit down on the metal and tossed it aside with rage and revulsion.

It’s the armor, Solas noticed. They’re after the armor!

Suddenly, it all seemed so painfully obvious. Andruil herself had told him that she had traveled these lands with her hunters in search of the Black Dread, and she had been corrupted with a new madness in doing so. 

Certainly, the wolves had witnessed Andruil’s transformation or at least made a connection between the creature and the goddess and her party. And now, another elvhen appeared to follow in Andruil’s footsteps, wearing the same armor that she had.

No wonder they saw him as a threat.

“Wait!” Solas yelled, casting another blast that drove the wolves back. The wolves landed violently, dazed by the impact. In that instant, Solas dropped his sword and took off his gauntlets. He tossed them aside, then removed the greave and cuisse on his legs. He was fumbling with the vambrace–that long piece of metal that protected his lowered arms–when the leader howled at its pack.

And just like that, the wolves backed away. 

Solas breathed a sigh of relief and divested himself of the remaining armor and chainmail. Clothed in nothing more than the linen shirt and trousers he had worn underneath the armor, he got to his knees and held out a hand. 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he repeated. 

The pack leader stalked closer, sniffing and smelling. Solas waited for the wolf to make its assessment, panting heavily. He didn’t even notice how much he exerted himself in the fight until then.

The wolf growled and looked at him.

‘You are different than the others.’

The wolf’s mouth remained still, but its voice echoed in the Beyond. Solas could hear it in his mind, as long as he maintained his connection with the magic. The sound had a masculine quality to it.

‘You can call me Leader,’ the wolf told him.

“My name is Solas,” he said and bowed his head. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

***

After they had buried Solas’s armor, Leader and his pack brought him to their lair. They had made a home for themselves in a cave system that tunneled a range of ice-covered hills.

Solas followed them, shaking and shivering from the cold. Without the armor, he was left unprotected from the weather. He used his connection to the Beyond the heat up the air around him but soon began to feel the exhaustion the fight and his extended use of magic caused. He would be able to keep himself warm by supernatural means forever.

‘We will take care of you once we reach the lair,’ Leader promised.

More wolves waited for them when Solas and pack enter the caves. They were sleeping or chewing on the remains of an elk they had killed a while ago. Solas could smell blood, urine and wet dirt in every corner.

Leader stopped by a stone at the very entrance of the cave and asked Solas to wait there. He sat down and wrapped his arms around his torso. The rest of the pack watched him carefully, their eyes alight with suspicion and fear. 

Soon after, Leader returned with two she-wolves that carried the dead body of another between them. They placed the dead wolf in front of Solas. 

‘Our brother died from his injuries two nights prior,’ Leader told him. ‘Soon, his body will begin to rot. I assume you can use your magic to turn his hide into clothing. The elvhen still cloak themselves in wolf’s skin, don’t they?’

Solas opened his mouth and gaped at Leader. 

“I cannot keep his hide,” he said.

‘Why not?’

He thought about all the wolves whose lives he had ended. If Leader or his pack were mad at him, he could hardly blame them. They were only doing what they thought was necessary.

“I already took to much from you,” he said. “I won’t to take any more.”

Leader looked at him for a long moment. ‘You really are different. The elvhen that came before you simply took what they thought was theirs without so much as batting an eyelid,’ he said. ‘Consider this a gift from my pack, then.’

Around them, the wolves stirred and let our low growls that got under Solas’s skin. He drew in a long shuddering breath. 

“Thank you,” he said and reached out to the Beyond. The magic welcomed him and he redirected its energy to the dead wolf lying before him. Following the image in his mind, the magic stripped the pelt for them wolf’s body. It was a very clean affair without any blood. And when the skin was finally removed from the corpse, Solas wrapped the pelt around his shoulders and released the energy of the Beyond. 

“Thank you,” he said again.

Leader didn’t answer. Instead, he growled at his pack. An order, Solas suspected, as the wolves immediately retreated deeper into the caves. They left the skinned body of their companion where it lay.

‘Why have you come here?’, Leader asked.

“I'm here to hunt the Black Dread,” Solas replied. “It poses a terrible threat and has killed many of my people, both spirit and elvhen. I want to end its reign of terror.”

Leader regarded him for a long moment. 

‘Come,’ he said and made his way to a small opening at the side of the cave. ‘I want to show you something.’

Solas conjured a small fireball to light his way, then followed him through the gap in the stone. He had to shuffle through sideways, but Leader waited patiently for him. 

The ground lowered as they ventured on. Soon after, they entered a tiny cavern that smell of death. 

Solas fought the urge to gag. “What is this place?”

The big wolf trotted to a pit that the pack had dug at the center of the cavern. In it lay more dead wolves. Their bodies were broken, the flesh burned from their skin. Black bones lay scattered around. Solas recognized smashed-in skulls and twisted spines.

‘This Black Dread has killed many of my kind, too,’ Leader told him. ‘We have tried to hunt it down, but the creature is too strong for us.’ 

Solas picked up a bone from the ground beside the pit and examined it. t was part of a jawbone by the looks of it, but the teeth were missing. The bone was marred by the magic that had killed the wolf. He brushed its surface with his thumb and pushed back the memories of the dead elvhen he found throughout the land.

Leader nodded towards the dead wolves in the pit. ‘These were my best fighters. The Black Dread brought them down like it was nothing. We have retreated to our stronghold to keep the pups safe. I’ve been patrolling the area with what remains of my hunters ever since.’

“Wait!” Solas said. “Does that mean⎯you know where the Black Dread is?”

‘Yes,’ he admitted reluctantly.

“Can you take me there?”

Leader considered his request for a moment. 

‘You said that you wanted to end the Black Dread’s reign,’ he mused. ‘Why do you think you can destroy this creature? What makes you so certain that you will come out victorious when so many have died fighting against it?’

Solas swallowed. “Because I have to.”

He truly wished he had a better answer. Something that sounded competent and reassuring.  But the truth was that he had no way of knowing whether or not he could win. He’d had to defeat the Black Dread or die trying. There were no other options.

Leader let out a snarl that might have been a resigned sigh if he were an elvhen. ‘I can take you there,’ he said, ‘but I will not risk any more lives besides my own. Once we reach the creature’s lair, I will leave you to yourself.’

“Of course,” Solas replied. “I am grateful for your help.’

‘We leave at sunrise,’ Leader said. ‘You should rest and eat to maintain your strength. I will tell the youngsters to clear a space for you. The pack will watch over you while you sleep.’

Solas thanked him once again.

“May I keep this?”, he asked, holding up the jawbone.

Leader’s ears flinched and he gave him a quizzical look. ‘Why would do this?’

“It will remind me what I'm fighting for,” Solas said. “Not just my own people, but for spirits and wolves and every other living creature.”

Silence. 

‘Take it if you have to,’ the wolf said at last, then turned back to the gap in the wall. ‘Whatever good it may do you.’

[mst3kproject]

Psychomania

MST3K featured some British movies; they had a couple of zombie movies; and they did way too many biker movies.  So here is a British zombie biker movie, because of course that exists.  I don’t think anybody in it was ever on MST3K except for Rocky Taylor, who was an extra in Gorgo, but director Don Sharp did make a couple of Fu Manchu movies and you know my stance on those.  And if you’re interested, the butler is George Sanders, who sounds familiar because he was the voice of Shere Khan in the original Jungle Book.

The Living Dead are a biker gang I just cannot take seriously, mostly because their helmets look so much like something Kinga’s Boneheads would wear.  Leader Tom is obsessed by the idea of becoming one of the undead.  He’s pretty sure his mother – a psychic who holds seances in her incredibly mod dining room – and her ageless butler know something about it, and tricks them into revealing the secret.  The next day he commits suicide, but he’s back soon after, encouraging his friends to join him in zombiehood.  One by one they off themselves in spectacular fashion, but Tom’s girlfriend Abby wakes up in the hospital instead of the morgue, and realizes this is madness.  How can she take on an entire zombie biker gang all by herself, though?

Spoiler time: she can’t.  Tom’s mom casts a spell that turns them all to stone, Abby has a nervous breakdown, and I guess the butler was the devil the whole time.  It sucks.

Weirdly, I’m one of the few people who seems to think so.  This movie has an eighty percent on Rotten Tomatoes and has been described with words like ‘effective’ and ‘tightly-knit’.  I have no idea what drugs the people who said that were on, because it is definitely neither of those.  As crummy movies go it’s pretty coherent and you do care about Abby, who is the nearest thing to a heroine (although Tom is closer to being a POV character), but the plot is dumb and the zombies are about the least interesting undead I’ve ever seen in a movie.

I’m gonna keep calling the revenant bikers ‘zombies’ but they don’t rot or eat brains, so it’s mostly for lack of a better word.  You’d think being undead would come with both powers and drawbacks, but this seems to involve neither.  They can’t die, and they may or may not have super-strength (I can’t tell), but other than that they’re exactly the same as they were when alive.  Undead bikers walk into churches and wander around in broad daylight with no problem.  They can apparently still eat and drink, although I guess they don’t have to. They’re not even cold to the touch… in fact, when Abby pretends for a while to be a zombie, it turns out even they can’t tell the difference between the living and the undead!

Tom’s mom is delighted to see him back from the dead but when the others start joining him she freaks out, saying it’s evil. I think it was okay when he did it because he had a magic toad amulet to protect him and his friends didn’t, but exactly what the difference is and what it means for them, we’re never told.  If they’ve lost their souls or whatever, we don’t hear about it.  They don’t seem to be any more callous assholes than they were when they were alive. Nor do we learn anything about the locked room where Tom’s father died, even though it sounds like it’s gonna be a big plot point.  There’s a flashback in which Tom’s mother sells him to the devil but that doesn’t seem to relate to anything much.

Based on the setup, I figured Abby would eventually go to Tom’s mother for help and the two of them would defy the satanic butler end the zombies’ reign of terror together, but no.  Instead, the Mom’s getting off her ass to do something about the situation is prompted by Tom’s decision to murder all the police officers and teachers in the country, and it’s the butler who helps her with what she does… which makes no sense after it’s been repeatedly implied that he’s the devil!  The ending we get is one in which Abby’s life is saved by mere coincidence, and it feels like a cop-out.

Toads are a motif of sorts in the movie. There’s the toad amulet Tom carries for protection, and the satanic butler wears a toad ring.  There’s also a toad that Tom catches at the beginning and that the butler seems to keep as a pet until Tom’s mom uses it in her dark ritual at the end, when she turns into a toad as a punishment for breaking her pact with the devil.  It’s obvious that toads are supposed to be connected with evil, but exactly how the symbolism works here is never clear.  I kept wondering if the explanations were cut to fit the time slot… but then I remind myself that this wasn’t actually on MST3K.

I’m equally confused about what we’re supposed to think of the bikers.  The only time we really see them out of their leather jackets and bonehead helmets is when they’re holding their own funeral for Tom – and it’s a pretty hippy-dippy funeral for a bunch of death metal bikers, too.  They all wear bright colours and make flower wreaths to throw into the grave, which doesn’t exactly make them seem like murderous psychopaths. Tom’s the only one who has any prior interest in suicide, and it seems odd that they’d all just hop to killing themselves when they know there’s a chance they won’t have enough ‘faith’ to rise again.  None of them regret it.  I guess why would they, when the difference between ‘alive’ and ‘dead’ is minimal.

Some of the badass bikers go by have nicknames like Hatchet, Gash, and Hinky.  The others use their own names, like Tom, Abby, and Bertram.  Yep, Bertram.

The very concept of zombie bikers is one that seems to call for excess, for wild stunts and body parts strewn across the screen, for dark rituals or people losing arms in accidents and then just stapling them back on.  There is absolutely none of that in Psychomania, and it’s weirdly indecisive about the violence it does show. There’s a scene where Tom begins to strangle a barfly, and the bit where a truck rolls down a hill and explodes in a huge fireball, but actual deaths are kept tastefully offscreen (there is a pretty neat shot in which three murders are hidden by a pan around the room, but it stands out as a ‘neat shot’ rather than a storytelling device) and I don’t think I saw a drop of blood or heard a single swear word in the entire movie. Although there was a scene in which one of the bikers pulls up and parks next to a ‘no parking’ sign.

Almost the entire movie is shot outdoors on sunny days, in bright 60’s technicolour, which has killed the mood of many a horror movie of this vintage.  Tom even emerges from his grave in broad daylight, where any self-respecting undead abomination would surely wait for nightfall!  Also, oddly, it seems to take Tom way longer to resurrect than it did his friends.  They woke up in the morgue, before their autopsies even began, while he had time for a whole funeral.  Is there a reason for this?  I have no idea.

I have to admit, there’s some fairly nice choreography (car-eography?) in some of the scenes where the bikers disrupt traffic. There’s also a pretty cool use of mirrors while Tom explores the locked room, although as I mentioned, that’s rendered ultimately pointless.  The hallucination Abby has after her overdose is okay, too – it presents on the one hand the potential eternity with the man she loves, and on the other the horror she will visit upon her family through her suicide, and it’s quite a bit clearer about that than just about anything else in the movie.

The fact that Abby chooses an overdose as her way to die is telling.  The others all choose far more spectacular methods: motorcycle crashes, leaping out a window or off a bridge, drowning in a river.  These are all events that will definitely kill or maim, things there are no turning back from, while an overdose can be treated with minimal ill effects if it’s caught in time.  This goes with what she tells Tom later – she doesn’t really want to die.  She wants to be saved, and so she is (although who found her and got her to the hospital is another thing we never find out).

I guess this is a movie about the romanticization of suicide.  Tom wants to make a suicide pact with Abby so that they can be together forever, and the song performed at his funeral is all about how death is better than being a law-abiding member of society!  Unfortunately, there’s only the most minimal attempt to deal with a suicide’s effect on loved ones, and besides Tom, none of them seem to bother contacting anybody else they knew while alive.  The story does make the point, with Abby’s reluctance, that suffering is temporary but suicide is forever, yet the lack of consequences or limitations on the zombies means there’s no real force behind it.  Free spirited types are known to describe others as ‘zombies’, and inverting this into them being literal zombies could have been cool, but it wasn’t.  The whole movie feels like everybody was too shy to take it far enough.

As a final note, I am obsessed with the set design in Tom’s mother’s house, which is the only thing here that really counts as outrageous.  She’s got one wall painted with a nebula and another with a giant geometric fish.  The latter looks like something you find in bits at the Goodwill and buy even though you have nowhere to put it, and it steals every shot it’s in.  I want to knit a sweater with it as a motif.  Hands-down, the best thing in the whole movie.

[ask-chaos-kin]

Origins of Chaos

Edit: This is a Rough Draft of the actual origin story. This highlights the big parts of Chaos Kin becoming a Freak. It’s bound to look different later. on when I redo the story.

Most mercenaries enter missions to take down Merasmus and just come out with more cosmetics. These poor teams however did not have that same fate, they were rather unfortunate to have come across one thing all humans have learned to fear. Freaks, to put it simply. Mercenaries who undergo a strange mutations, deaths, or for some even whole transformations and become creatures of unknown strength and abilities. This story follows a young mercenary named Lily, and her transformation from one of the youngest mercenaries on her team, to one of the youngest freaks.

“Mission begins in 10 seconds,” The announcer came on the speakers, the young female Scout got in a starting pose. Adrenaline rushing to her brain, She was both nervous and excited. She could hear the faint humming of the Respawn system starting up below them.

“Five… Four… Three…. Two…. One. Control Point Enabled, Move!” Without a second thought, The two Scouts dashed out the gates.

“Keep up Lily!” The male Scout called as he jogged backwards ahead of her.

“Was gonna say the same to you Anthony!” She sprinted past the male.

“Cousins,” He shook his head as the two raced to the cauldron. The First to show up to the brawl being that of the enemies scouts, Lily took the one coming from the left while Anthony took the right. Everything seemingly being as normal as possible. That was until Merasmus showed up. He threatened them all which called for a truce between the two teams.

“I hate that Wizard so much.” Anthony called out, the BLU Scouts agreeing with him. Everyone started to unload their ammo onto the robed wizard. Lily and Anthony going in with the other Scouts to melee Merasmus. Merasmus spread everyone away from him but sharply turned to one of the bases leading to the cauldron itself. An Undead looking scout wearing a strange mask. He wore mummy wrappings all over his body and dragged a machete in his hand.

“Who the hell?” Lily looked at the masked Scout who stared at her and her team. Merasmus froze upon sight of him, he started to stutter his magic words.

“IT’S TEAM KILLER!” The BLU Demo shouted as the RED one got to close to the masked Scout and for that, lost his head. Everyone in the area started to panic, Some of the BLU team tried to attack Team Killer only for them to share the same fate as the REDs that Team Killer already had slain. Merasmus fled in horror dropping the Bombinomicon on the ground after he left. The RED Medic noticed the enchanted item and rushed to pick it up, having remembered using the book against Merasmus before. He was accompanied by Anthony in hopes that they would have a better chance of surviving together. Team Killer was about to attack Lily’s Cousin, she refused to let him attack her family. She picked up the Baseball her Cousin used to stun the enemy Heavy before this Team Killer showed up.

Chucking the ball at the back of the freaks head sending his attention straight to her. She got out her bat and prepared to defend herself against the masked murderer. He charged at her, Machete ready to slice her in half. She waited for the moment she knew which direction he was going to swing and met his blade with her bat. She would step back and he would follow her moves to the act speed. A waltz of deadly proportions. 

“BARPO KABELTO!” Lily heard Ludwig bellow. A large fireball shot at the two warehouses. Wood knocked over as the two buildings caught on fire. Anthony and Ludwig looked up to see a support beam fall from the two buildings and crash on top of the cauldron. Part of its contents spilling onto the ground below. Lily hopped onto one of the support beams hoping it would deter Team Killer from following. This would prove to be one a grave mistake.

Lily’s bat was the only thing keeping her neck away from the blade, as she nearly lost her balance on the board above the cauldron. Ludwig attempted to cast another spell to Team Killer off her as Anthony dashed towards the cauldron ready to attack. 

Everything slowed down as the blade moved from one hand to the other, plunging into Lily’s side while the other hand shoved her chest away from it. A loud splash solidified the horrors as Lily’s body was enveloped in the cauldron’s contents. Team killer turned to the Medic and charged at them, he wanted these REDs dead and gone. Anthony refused to let another one of his teammates die and tackled Ludwig to the ground. Having charged into his stomach, Ludwig let go of the book sending it flying forwards into the cauldron. The two managed to trip Team Killer and a large gurgling and bubbling could be heard from the Cauldron.

***

Inside the Cauldron, Lily had yet to die. Struggling to keep alive she watched as a book dropped into the cauldron with her. The Bombinomicon snapped open and starting rapidly flipping pages, landing on a creature of darkness with purple eyes and a deadly stare. Lily turned and jerked as the cauldron’s contents changed to a bright RED color. She was starting to undergo a metamorphosis. Her Clothes being died a dark grey color, her wounds healing as her muscles flexed and contorted. Her eyes snapped open as she let out a pained scream, her left eye changing to a bright red color as her screams transformed from that of her normal scream to that of the creatures. She was no longer the Lily the mercs knew, she was something far more now. With the newfound energy and power she burst from the Cauldron, landing with a great thud. She looked around in panic that she was too late, only to see Team Killer above her Medic and Cousin. She looked around to find any of her weapons to no avail, she did however find a metal pipe. She grabbed the pipe and roared at Team Killer, it caught his attention pretty easily. She threw the Pipe at him and grabbed a longer one. He dodged it and went to attack this seemingly new foe in front of him.

“GO! Get out of here!” She shouted to the remainder of BLU and RED. Before Anthony or Ludwig could object their Engineer and Heavy grabbed the two and headed off towards the vehicles to leave the area. Lily was now able to match and parry the blows that Team Killer sent at her. Though she couldn’t tell for how long as her arms where getting tired after each blow. After watching the RED Truck which held her former Engineer, Medic and her Cousin. She eased up, though Team Killer had a different idea. He was about to strike her down by slashing down along her body. She gasped as she could see the blade coming down, she closed her eyes and thought about a different area of the map. To her shock the blade never came down and her head felt slightly dizzy. She opened her eyes to find herself there with Team Killer about to attack her again. She looked at another place and like before teleported to the spot. Now on a roof it would be harder for him to reach her now. Still adamant about killing her he aimed and launched his machete at her. She then thought about her base and focused almost all her remaining energy into it and with a puff of purple flecks she was gone from the line of sight or sense of Team Killer.

***

Lily fell onto the ground behind her base. She struggled to her feet and entered the base through an open window. She needed to get to a health pack then wait for her team members to help her find out what happened to herself. If anyone knew how to deal with this, they did.

“They know nothing of me, Lily.” She froze as a voice joined her.

“Who are you? And where are you?” She asked aloud.

“Tough question, you have yet to give me a name and I’m right here.” It responded, she looked around.

“Where is here? And why do you sound like you’re in my head?” She stopped, leaning against the island in their kitchen.

“You mean our mind? I am you, for we are the same person.” It responded.

“Bullshit.” She snarled.

“Well, I’m a new part of you. I am your Powers.” Just then the lights in another room flickered on, The two went silent as their heavy entered the kitchen. Overwhelming anxiety filled her and she went to hide. What if no one could recognize her, they just got attacked by someone like how she is now. Her Heavy opened the fridge and took out her Dr. Pepper collection.

“This is sad day. Lettle girl will no longer be able to enjoy drinks.” He opened the window to the trash can and was about to dump them out. Her powers took over her and before she realized it, her heavy was knocked out and the pops dropped near him. In a panic she picked up the pop and wrote a note of apology. More people where coming, she had to leave before things could become worse. Leaving out the window she climbed into she tripped and fell outside. Rain started to pour down around her. 

“Who’s out there!” She heard the engineer call out, her tone was angry. She scampered to the fence and squeezed between the one loose board and the rest. She was covered in mud which made it slightly easier. There was no way she could return to her base she was a monster now, a beast of the night, a Freak. She absconded through the rain in hopes of being able to find a new shelter to call home. She fell forwards under a large oak tree. She wanted to cry, he ripped everything away from her. 

“I told you, they know nothing of me. I’ve never existed before now and you out of everyone should know this.” It mocked her.

“SHUT UP! It’s your fault I had to run away. If you didn’t attack Heavy then-”

“Then he would have had you locked up in Ludwigs lab and the only people you could talk to is me and the doves. I saved you from that.” She held her head.

“You saved me from nothing!” She curled up into a ball, she could hear slight splashing coming towards her.

“Run!” The voice told her, she was about to get up when the person spoke up.

“Wait, please.” She stopped, it sounded like a Spy. she turned to be greeted by a pure white spy wearing a priests uniform. “Thank you. Why are you alone young one?” He asked her.

“I-I… I ran away from my base.. I’m a Freak.” She responded. The spy tilted his head slightly.

“A Freak you say? Like Painis Cupcake or Team-” He stopped when she made a face and looked like she was going to run. He sighed and looked to her. “I see. I am Christian Pure Spy, I too am a Freak.” He introduced himself to her. “Do you have a name I can call you?” She shook her head, she didn’t want them to know her true name, not yet anyways.

“This rain doesn’t suit you.” He extended his arm. “Come with me young one. Team Killer is an enemy of mine, On my word as a priest. I will keep you safe.” She had to think, another freak had to know how to deal with being a freak. She decided to accept his hand. He opened a portal to his Church and lead her through. When she entered she could hear the sharpening of a blade and someone reloading a pistol.

“Back already Pure?” An Australian voice called out from nearby.

“Yes, I have brought someone with me. She may need our help getting used to things happening.” They approached the two, A sniper dawning Black bloodstained clothes sharpening a Scimitar looked at her, He was with a Red Spy wearing a Fancy Fedora. 

“A new one aye? They call me Christian Brutal Sniper. You sheila can call me Brutal.” He chuckled, severed heads he kept as trophies decorated the wall.

“I thought I told you to clean those off the walls..” Pure sounded disgusted.

“Apologies, I tried but he refused to let me remove them.” The Red Spy put his Ambassador away as Brutal pouted.

“Their my damn trophies. I’m allowed to keep the heads of those I kill.” He growled looking at pure.

“Pardon me mon ami, I am Gentlespy. Call me Gentle.” The Spy introduced themselves walking over to greet her properly. 

“What’s your name Sheila?” Brutal asked, She thought about it for a moment and both her and her other voice said so in unison.

“I am Chaos Kin.”

[fallenidol-453]

31 Days of Unedited Writing: Days 22-31

I’M DONE.

7 or 8 Fanfiction (Dark Parables/various Mystery Case Files games starring OC Moira, Viking Destiny, and Dragon Prophecy trilogy) and 3 or 4 Original Fiction. I’m tired and my math is trite.

I strongly advise skipping Day 26 if you’re averse to descriptions of popping pimples!

Day 22: Fanfiction, Mystery Case Files: Escape from Ravenhearst

Moira’s hands shook. The animatronic newborn’s eyes flashed different colors. Red. Green. Blue. Those were the colors of the wires it was attached to as well. The eyes changed colors too fast. How was she going to know which wire to clip?

She aimed the wire cutters at the far-left wire and counted to three. Snipped the red wire when the eyes were—

Green.

A gurgle was her only warning to dive out of the way as the newborn exploded.

Day 23: Fanfiction, Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst Unlocked

She remembered an explosion. Fireball of debris racing toward her. She ran. Her only option had been to—

Jump.

Cold ocean sea at night. The water dragged her under.

Boat. Someone pulled her out of the water.

Bright light. Loud beeps. Numb. Her eyes open. Barely. She hurts but has enough pain tolerance to lift her arm where it hurts worst. A thick sutured scar runs from the end of her palm and down part of her wrist. It glows.

Someone is talking. She hears words. Injuries. Delirious. Her?

Red hair. Posh accent.

“A transfer to Manchester Asylum—closest in county—"

She can’t do anything to stop them. Her mind is screaming but she’s too drugged to vocalize.

Anything. Anything but there.

Day 24: Original Fiction, codename Grisaverse

The sheer amount of spellwork surrounding the black crystal makes Davaros’s blood run cold. There’s a whole network of weavings, as thick as rope in some places and as thin as spiderwebs in others. All of them link to the crystal’s strange, hollow center. The weaving had gone on for generations. Since—

“Luc, there’s no way we can undo all of this in two months. Lady Grisa will know we’re tampering with it.”

“That demon in your body was pretty damn adamant that his Prince was being held hostage in there, having his power siphoned away,” Luc replied. “He’ll probably help us free him. If you’ve been held hostage for centuries and have your powers taken from you, you’d be angry about it. Right?”

“R-Right.” It’s the most Davaros can say right now; he can feel Moseptus crawling under his skin, can feel he wants to emerge and take over. He doesn’t want to vomit more blood as payment. He loses focus and then feels Lukasz snap the shields back into place.

Day 25: Fanfiction, Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst

Moira ran up to the car and pounded on the window. Sterling rolled it down hurriedly, shocked at her disheveled appearance.

“Moira, I asked you to take pictures of the door locks! What happened?”

“There’s a skeleton in the house!” she exclaimed. “I think it’s Emma’s body, from the journal—”

Silence. Moira’s heart thunders in her chest. Sterling has the audacity to shrug.

“Are you sure it’s not a prank?”

“The bones aren’t made of shitty plastic and the coffin smelled,” Moira snapped. “Follow me.”

Day 26: Fanfiction, Mystery Case Files: Escape from Ravenhearst

The bed frame creaked dangerously as Moira straddled the obese Dalimar matriarch’s gut. She forced to herself to breathe through her mouth, trying to not smell the piles and piles of plates covered in rotting leftovers of food that lined both sides of the bed. Abigail was hurling verbal abuse at her, but it was easy to tune out. The abuse was for her son, not her.

There was really no other way to accomplish this task, was there?

The hand clutching a pair of tweezers shook violently.

Just—just squeeze! She shouted at herself.

She positioned the tweezers on a fat pimple on Abigail’s cheek, closed her eyes, and squeezed. Pus popped out and landed close to the open wound. Moira opened her eyes and grabbed the pus, putting it in her gloved palm.

She was grateful this was an animatronic doll, and what she was forced to get was solid and fake.

It didn’t make it any less disgusting.

(This is a real thing that happens in-game. It’s as nasty as it sounds.)

Day 27: Fanfiction, Dark Parables (Not sure which games, but probably the later/newest ones)

She tries to not think about anything involving her life late at night. But sometimes, the dark thoughts creep in in the haze between waking and sleeping, or when she catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror. She’s approaching forty, yet she doesn’t look or feel it.

Well, the latter might be a bit of a stretch. She’s resilient enough but can’t bounce back on her feet as fast as she’d like after taking a hard fall from a great height or falling victim to yet another unfortunate carriage accident. It’s a miracle she didn’t break every vertebra in her back after that one incident in Montefleur.

Day 28: Fanfiction, Dragon Prophecy trilogy

Harwing’s forehead stung. The foolishness of it all, walking straight into a tent pole while trying to make a hasty retreat from Lord Vieliessar’s pavilion.

Fortunately, the distance between the High King’s camp and that of House Mangiralas’s was long enough for him to gather his thoughts and rehearse what was written on the paper Aradreleg gave him. Memorizing the words of a formal declaration of surrender was no issue – his spy training saw to that – but the tight knot in his stomach was going to make him stumble over the words as he recited them.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“To Warlord Faurilduin, Ladyholder of—wait.”

He gazed at the paper. Aradreleg’s tidy handwriting stared back at him, clearly listing which titles came first. It was just a matter of reciting them in the correct order.

“To Ladyholder Faurilduin, Mangiralas’s Warlord—”

Mangiralas’s camp became perilously closer with each step he took.

Day 29: Fanfiction, Dragon Prophecy trilogy

He could see the mistakes those assistants had made as clear as day, but for every situation he mentally changed, every course of action he took differently, the chain of events still led to Gunedwaen’s capture by Caerthalien’s forces and his century in hiding, crippled and cast aside to die at War Prince Bolecthindial’s amusement, never able to fight again.

If he had seen that result, in his imaginings as one of those assistants, would he have killed Gunedwaen as an act of mercy?

For a split second, he felt like he wouldn’t have had the strength to do that. Not just out of loyalty, but out of love as well.

Was it a love born of loyalty?

His gratitude toward Lord Thoromarth was one brand of loyalty. His upbringing within Oronviel itself, even as the son of a lowly castel Horsemaster, was a sort of loyalty itself toward the House. If he fought alongside Lord Thoromarth in battle and was ordered to kill him to spare him from being captured, he would do it without hesitation.

But if he had been on that battlefield on a rainy autumn, holding a dagger and staring down at a badly injured Gunedwaen and told to deliver the same mercy kill—

He wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t. He would try to save him, against all odds.

Day 30: Fanfiction, Viking Destiny

Asmund has been keeping his half-brother in check admirably well these past few years, and he does not want to instigate an unneeded conflict or shatter his oaths and relationship with his king beyond repair.

“I once knew a brave and loyal shieldmaiden named Alva,” he replied instead. He chose his next words with care, not wanting to clue the princess in on her true heritage just yet. “She served King Asmund and was his fiercest warrior. I can teach you to fight like her - and your father does not have to know about it. It will be our secret.”

Helle’s face lit up. “I want to fight like a warrior!” she exclaimed.

Soini made urgent shushing noises, and Helle reluctantly calmed down.

“We will start at first light next--”

“Helle?”

Both Soini and Helle turned toward the sound of Prince Bard’s voice. Soini didn’t see his shadow looming over them in the darkness, but he sounded relatively close.

“Will we meet here?” Helle whispered hurriedly.

“HELLE!”

“Yes. Go to your father before he finds you,” Soini answered.

Day 31: Original Fiction, codename Sleeping Princess

Cila inched closer. She couldn't see the rise and fall of the stranger's chest that indicated she was breathing… but the woman wasn't dead either. There was no smell of decay and rot. Cila reached out for the woman's hanging arm--

--and stepped back in fear.

All around the bed was a spell caul of her father's making, a caul to trap someone in a magic-induced sleep. Cila knew she could have been affected by the caul’s effects if she’d touched the woman's arm.

She contemplated trying to unweave it. It was a task far beyond her ability to unweave spells - but she could try. Her father was holding this woman hostage, whoever she was. It didn't feel right to leave her under the thrall of the royal family, much less her father.

Her father believed her to have no magic at all, not realizing that she had been a late bloomer. She had kept her knowledge of her magic to herself, practicing her unweaving on the most basic of wards that anyone could trigger by accident. She had escaped getting caught - so far.

But a creeping doubt caught hold of her heart. Even if she unwove the caul, even if she freed this woman, what would she do? Cila didn't know this woman's name and she didn't know where she was from. She couldn't disguise this woman as a servant - the royal family would identify her in an instant.

Cila could help the woman escape. She knew all the secret passages out of the palace… but so did the royal family. Even worse, her father could discover her using magic and undoing his work. The beating she would receive from him would among the worst in her life. Her bruised back ached, a reminder of the most recent one at the hands of Gilla.

What was she going to do?

An idea formed in her mind. Father didn't know she could do magic - yet - and thus didn't know of her talent. If he discovered the caul being undone, he could suspect one of his rivals was doing it. Risky, as her father could strengthen the caul, but it would mean more practice for her… and more chances to get caught, if Father disabled his rivals’ magic.

She could try. There was nothing wrong with trying.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 43: Things Get a Lot Less Vague, But it’s Still Pretty Vague

I’m taking full advantage of the laziest time of the year and I’m watching even more Yugioh. I even gave myself a buffer. Sort of. I kinda lost a day playing Octopath Traveler and I don’t even remember that happening.

Now this episode doesn’t have anyone getting struck by lightning, but if that happened, it would have fit right in. A lot happened in this episode. So, to start off, Mai decided to play one of the three cards we were given explicit instructions to never ever play and it has immediately screwed her over via orb.

Everyone else watching the orb has become completely enamored by it. Especially Kaiba, who is pretty positive he can turn this sphere into a dragon. I don’t know why anyone would ever come to this conclusion, but welcome to Yugioh, it’s well into S2 and I’m just still jaw agape and saying “HOW?” at my screen.

Like y’all I don’t know how to play this game, which should be hella apparent from reading any of my posts, but like there is one thing that everyone knows--even I knew--about Yugioh the game. Let me just, once sec

Ah, there we go.

Like sometimes it shows that your game is originally in a language that doesn’t require spaces between words. And like this is coming from me. You know how verbose I am, I freakin love words. But maybe that’s too many words for a card.

(read more under the cut)

And while this is pretty much the worlds most BS card already, what’s even better is that none of this jargon appeared until after Mai played the card. Like basically the card pretends to be completely normal and then is like “Boom, gotcha. I’ll just be a cool Ikea orb lamp instead!”

At this point, while everyone is scrambling around trying to fathom what to do about this huge ass fake sun blinding everyone down in Domino, Marik decides to deposit some more bizarre lore.

I kind of assumed Yugi and Kaiba were born with the correct soul formula to become the reincarnation of these people from 3000 B.C.E. without any actual blood relations but apparently, somehow, you got people from Ancient Egypt migrating to Ancient Japan. Sure, I mean if you did enough trading routes it could happen. It just seems like it would be a difficult transition?

And we could get real head canon and talk about their parentage since there’s a lot we don’t know. Mokuba and Kaiba could have different fathers, since they are quite different looking, which may be how Mokuba is exempt from all this lore while it still applies to Seto (Cuz Mokuba has been staring at that card for like quite a while and he cannot read it). But like, I don’t know if the show will even bother to cover that.

I don’t know if we’ll find out when in their bloodlines Kaiba and Yugi’s Egyptian cursed lines arrived in Japan. Was this during like the Edo period? Was this to set up a really bizarre Shogun Yugioh spinoff?

Wait, is that a thing? I don’t actually know, Yugioh seems to have like 8 spinoffs that all look a lot of the same to me. It may just be 1 spinoff that Netflix keeps changing the preview image of to trick me into thinking there’s 8 of them.

Or, did Kaiba have a relative that showed up in the 80′s and had a crazy weekend and a one night stand? Would Kaiba even know who his real Dad is?

Whatever, I’m sure there’s plenty of fanfic made over the last 20 years to cover this so I don’t have to. Moving on.

And then this kid’s show decided to tie up Mai to a wall or something? Man, Marik and chaining people up, this is the fourth person he’s chained up today! At least this time she doesn’t have a box over her head.

Still pretty kinky though.

Yo did Mokuba just...casually walk out of Marik’s Shadow Realm just now?

Again, do they cancel the game at this point because the equipment is...clearly malfunctioning? Like, this is the part that Kaiba is supposed to have full control of because he made all the equipment they’re using and he’s just...glossing over this? Like, this is the one thing that Kaiba would be like “OK wait, wait, we can’t ship it like this, my company is actually ruined if the game can do this, one sec, cancel everything.”

Nah. They just kinda watch.

And now, Marik decides to say the bird chant so we can hear what was actually written on the card and it was...a...

...it was the definition of what a poem is all right...

This is the lyrics to the Ra poem, just so you can see how bad it is. My search engine history will never be the same, but I just want y’all to glory on how kid’s show this poem is, compared to everything else going on in this kid’s show at this moment.

"Great beast of the sky, please hear my cry./

Transform thyself from orb of light and bring me victory in this fight/

Envelop the desert with your glow and cast your rage upon my foe./

Unlock your powers deep within so that together we may win./

Appear in this Shadow Game as I call your name,/

Winged Dragon of Ra"

Bravo, writers. Bravo. This corny as hell poem with its very awkward meter was voiced over alllllll the other nuts stuff going on in this show and guys, it’s a juxtaposition.

Now at this point, Kaiba has his poem he needs to make the card works--so he no longer needs to translate it--so he can just cancel. He’s got everything he wants now. Time to just cancel. Throw the cursed boy in whatever prison you got on this ship. In fact, just toss him off the ship entirely. You no longer need him. He doesn’t even have the card anymore. Mai has it.

I honestly think Kaiba just spaced the hell out at this point.

Also then Marik follows it up by saying this:

Joey gets wind that this is pretty bad and we’re going to get a very dead Mai--I mean Joey was the one who just recently got struck by lightning so it’d make sense that he’d be the one to say "I know for a real true fact none of you are going to do a damn thing about this unless I do this myself.” So he runs directly over to Kaiba but then I think the show decided to edit out him talking to Kaiba because it just jump cuts to Joey talking to Roland instead.

Like it really felt like Joey went the long way around to get on this platform but I dunno, maybe he tried to punch Kaiba in the Japanese version and that’s why they edited it out? I dunno.

Also, how many times will Joey get DQ’d before he actually gets DQ’d? Will anyone ever in fact get DQ’d in this entire tourney?

As Ra starts warming up his engines to start spewing fire all over the field, Joey decides to take a moment to try and talk to Mai. To tell her that yes, he did have a dream about her, but didn’t want to tell her earlier, because no teenage boy in their right mind would tell an adult woman that they had a dream about them during a near-death experience.

Which honestly most of it was lost on the fact that Mai can only hear him as a sort of ghostly spooky echo.

So then, through the power of...the show only calls if friendship, but it’s very vague, y’all...they break the curse that Marik put on Mai, and she remembers Joey. Also because Joey is touching her face. Like literally touching her. This would have been way spookier if she could not see him at this point.

So Ra is getting ready to fry these two up and I thought “wow, we’re gonna get two bodies at the end of this episode. What a treat!” but there’s a twist.

What? Lol what?

Within like 3 milliseconds, Yugi goes “dammit what are these assholes doing?” and leaps up to the platform and then takes yet another direct fireball hit in order to save Joey Wheeler. No one even asked Yugi to do this--he’s not even competing in this game, but he certainly got up there and took it.

This episode must have been a right up shipping frenzy when y’all were 12.

Marik is so pleased that he got to eff up Yugi more in this duel than the one that he actually tried to kill Yugi Muto in. If I remember correctly he did mention that this all was very convenient--I mean he got 3 in one go and he wasn’t even trying. So, Because Yugi is passed out and because Kaiba will never actually step in and stop anyone in this show unless Mokuba orders him to, Marik walks straight up to Joey and Mai and makes some more nonsense right in front of everyone on this show.

This is right in front of most of the entire cast.

Maybe it’s the color scheme but I got strong Stinky Cheese Man vibes from this magic effect.

I thought of pulling more caps from this point but there was waaaay too much shirtless Yugi in it. In my mind, all cartoon characters, when they take their shirt off, have another shirt on underneath. And if they take off that shirt, it’s yet another shirt. It’s shirts and boots leggings on all the way down to infinity like a russian nesting doll, and the image of shirtless Yugi really puts a kibosh to my world view and I didn’t like it.

No kinkshame, of course, if that’s your thing, well, you got a 18x18 pixel shirtless Yugi right there for you to enjoy. Enjoy.

Now that Mai has been trapped here in this hourglass resort, she will lose her memories of her friends for the rest of time, obsessively watching everyone else's vacations that are full of friends having way more fun than she is having.

This is just Instagram basically. Y’all, this is just Instagram.

And some of y’alls Instagram has shirtless Yugis in it, I just know it.

And not to get too real but like, last episode we went through how Marik basically gave Mai depression--and it says a lot that his way of doing this was illustrated in a show written like 20 years ago in a lot of the same way social media works today. Just throwing that out there. 

Overall, I feel like the theme of the Mai ark is “Marik just sped up what they were already doing and it was super effective.” Mai trapped herself in her own false and negative insecurities. Kaiba failed to moderate anything. Joey waited way too late to say the right thing. Yugi sacrificed himself again to such a degree that he couldn’t save Mai later when Marik was just strutting around cursing people willy nilly.

And I’m not going to lie, Marik’s cargo pants/cape strut was hilarious.

It was probably supposed to be menacing, but this long cut of this ridiculous cast just watching this weird boy go was great.

Up until now Seto has been a very patient impatient person, but now it’s finally his duel, and he’s so excited to duel Ishizu--but y’all it’s just Seto up against a phsycic again. I imagine it’s gonna go real great.

Other than that one guy in town, will this boy ever duel a normal person?

Also...been debating on whether Mai is dead or alive, and her soul still seems attached to her body--like she’s still salvageable? So I’ll say alive for now. Seems more like a dream than like she literally got transported elsewhere.

Dude. It is S2 and I just realized that Mai Valentine is a pun.

Damn.

If you just got here, this is the end of S2 and things are rapidly losing their mind. Click here if you want to read from ep 1

[wearethechaotic]

Character Concept: My Mom

There are too many stories to tell about Dana. All of them would give you a glimpse into the family I was raised by and the people who made me who I am. My dad is a proud, invulnerable man who stands tall and keeps his chin high but my mother, she is an entire universe of kindness, selflessness, and unfailing loyalty encased in a body. Her body has failed her more times than any of us could probably count, but I think it because the mortal coil she’s stuck inside truly can’t handle the power and energy her eternal being has. She was not built for this mortal machinery, and it shows. In everything she does she is more than just human, everything she’s touched with her fingers now shines with gold shimmer and the words from her mouth are something not everyone deserves to hear.

Opinionated and as headstrong as a bull, Dana and I don’t always agree, but I can tell you that her mind holds a wealth of knowledge that I want so bad to drill into. She may not know everything, as most beings rarely do. She could tell you everything there is to know about Runescape, and while she’s still figuring out Minecraft, she probably knows more technical things about the game than most people. She has trouble coping with the death of her character and doesn’t want to fight mobs or be put in any danger. I don’t know if she doesn’t understand the respawn mechanic, or she’s just too caught up in the game to realize there’s more to it than surviving.

I can also inform you that she has no trouble taking life by the balls and telling it she’ll do whatever the fuck she wants. Dana is a thrill seeker, anything to get that adrenaline going. Recently she picked up ghost hunting. She’s not actually gone ghost hunting yet, but preparing for interacting with the spiritual plane takes a while and I’m not going to rush her. As she does, she’s also managed to drag all of us, (me and dad mostly) into ghost hunting as well, not that either of us is going to argue in fact I think we’re both just happy she’s having fun.  I have respect for her ghost hunting desires but I don’t personally share the need to be in a dark place with possibly angry people I can’t see wandering around with the sole purpose to fuck with the living, but Dana has always been a special kind of fearless.

Terrified of spiders and most small rodents, she maintains perfect composure as she comes careening down the stairs to wrangle my dad and sacrifice him to the spiders so they will leave her alone for another year. This technique along with this amazing thing where she releases noise and such high decibels, the spiders just pop. It’s truly impressive to watch. Not to mention that she remains completely lady-like as she strings together curse words with the diction and elegance of a well-traveled medieval pirate.

Dana loves her cats. That’s a big subject to unpack because I think that actually she just likes things that don’t have homes. Always the doorman, Dana has no problem letting in any stray animal or human for that matter that has the gusto to share a home with her in the first place. While she may open her doors to anyone who needs it, its best not to cross the woman herself as I’m pretty sure the garden was converted to a rose scented graveyard years ago. While the outside of the house is a little worse for wear, the inside is warm and welcoming and filled with cats. The fireplace is literally on all the time and by turning it off you’ll cause the whole house to collapse and Dana would not be happy to clean up the remains of her home and start rebuilding it again, so just don’t fucking turn off the fireplace.

Getting the chance to meet and converse with Dana is a time and moment that you will need to cherish as I’m pretty sure she will do what she always does and give you advice that could either ruin your life or make your day and honestly it’s your problem what you do with the power she gives to you. She doesn’t hold back anything, whether it be truly necessary advice or just how much of a dumb cunt you’re being. I do respect that about her, it takes a lot of courage to say what she thinks and feels, but also what does she have to be scared of? Based on my research Dana is one of the most powerful and unforgiving beings dancing around this reality.

Her true and unforgiving beauty emerges from the moment you manage to make her laugh or smile. Her radiance is so powerful it could blind a man. Pushing mid-life crisis age she still sounds, acts, and looks, younger than any of her samely aged peers. But again, her mortal appearance is the last thing you should be worried about when you encounter her. She is more than how she looks and that has always been mind-blowingly obvious. The light in her eyes only gets brighter the more you can get her to smile. I don’t see her truly happy as much as I would like, any scientist knows that the more you experience the phenomena the more you learn.

The rare instances where I am blinded by her radiance are times and days I will never forget. Days like vacation to lake Billy Chinook and teaching the goddess herself how to smoke weed out of a bong or play Kings Cup, Christmas Eve when she got a free dab pen from the store and got so high and giggly none of us could stop smiling, Dad’s last birthday and the look of utter disgust as me and him took shots of fireball and Baileys mixed together. Also anytime the words ‘don’t be a pussy’ leave her lips.

For the people who are lucky enough to even call her acquaintance, I tell you being her daughter is more magic than any of you could handle. As a DM, I often imagine the people I know as more than they are. Deep in the land of dragons and fierce fighters, they live whole other lives. In that world, Dana is like she is in this life, but more the way she deserves to be portrayed.

Danyra Witherwillow is a high elf witch. Tall and tanned skin, rapier on her side and heart of oak staff in her hand. She stands tall, black hair tied around her head in intricate braids, feathers and flowers dotting the style. She’s angry, clad in full leather armor, a storm brewing in the clouds behind her. She stands for the weak, in this case, her forest home. The king’s men are setting fire to the woods and she will not stand for it. Gathering all her strength the sky cracks with her anger and the look in her eyes is enough to turn the lead guardsmen to stone. She utters a simple warning, “I fight for this land, and we are not falling this day.”

Some of the guard's cackle, wondering what this simple elf woman could do to stop all of them. She deepens her stance, pulling the staff up to protect her body, and with a terrifying battle cry the skies open up and a searingly cold downpour clouds the vision of the guards. Danyra has no worries, she somehow knows it won’t be her watering the trees with her blood. With the confidence of ten million man army, Danyra begins casting. Roots and vines disarm the men who came here only to do harm, as it's hard to hurt anyone with no weapons. The forest watches as she kills every last one of the hundred soldiers sent by the king, some she kills quickly with her sword, and some she allows the forest to suffocate or be crushed with the strength of the roots and vines entangling them. She kills their warhorses too, unforgiving and righteous, she has no mercy. The weather clears and the sun emerges and the earth swallows the bodies.

Laying her hand on the trunk of a nearby tree she can feel it pulsing thank you.

My mom might not be an adventuring elven galavant fighting to protect her home. She’s probably sitting on the living room couch with a cup of tea, surrounded by her cats, watching YouTube videos on her phone, wonder, and laughter in her eyes as she researches whatever topic she stuck on that week. While she’s not a sword-wielding witch deep in the forest, she and Danyra are the same. Dana stands in front of her family, all three of her kids stood proud behind her. She stares at anyone who dares threaten the life we have here together. She’s not saving a forest right now, but she is saving us.

Dana has been saving us since before we knew we needed to be saved. Sometimes I look at her from my perch in dad’s chair or the adjacent couch and I wonder if she ever thinks about the lives she’s living in other people’s realities. I wonder if she feels the people she saved, her trees, pulsing thank you. I wonder if she feels me, radiating thank you. Those are the only words I should ever say to her anymore. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

The thanks aren’t much. Just a small effervescent reminder of all she’s done for me, my friends, our family. She has taken what we built together as a family and she has laid down her own life to keep what we have.

“Us versus the world,” she says and smiles at me “that’s the way it’s always been.”

I never really thought of it like that. Us, the five of us, against the world and everyone in it, but it has made me realize that we are Danyra’s forest. We are the sky filled with storm clouds above her as she screams a single threat at our attackers, we are the pouring rain giving her the upper hand in battle, we are her rapier slashing through the flesh of the weak minded people who came for us, we are the vines and roots that take out what she misses, and we are, above all else, her home.

((I love my mom and honestly, this character is a baddy and I would play her fr))

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #62: Tamamo-no-Mae

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making the Fox Priestess of Peerless Beauty, Tamamo-no-Mae! Tamamo’s a Theurgist (cleric-wizard) with a knack for being able to do a bit of everything. Fireballs, curses, magic support, splitting into multiple copies of herself.... she’s got a lot of abilities, is what I’m trying to say.

Check out the detailed breakdown below the cut, or the build summary over here!

Race and Background

We just made Tamamo Cat and we know her race, so it isn’t too surprising that you’re also a Tabaxi, giving you +2 Dexterity and +1 Charisma. You also get a bit of Darkvision. Fox’s Agility lets you double your movement speed for a turn, and recharges after spending a turn not moving. Fox’s Claws gives you a modest melee attack that you can use without weapons, and Fox’s Talent gives you bonus proficiencies in Perception and Stealth.

“Evil spirit that possesses kings” isn’t a background, but your side gig is. The Courtier background gives you Insight and Persuasion proficiencies, and helps you find your way around courtly politics.

Stats

Your highest stat is your Intelligence. That’s your casting ability, and hey look at that, you’re pretty good with magic. Second is your Charisma- that “Peerless Beauty” in your title isn’t just for show, and it will help you deal with people while saving your spells for bigger issues. Third is your Wisdom- you’re still a priestess, and most clerics are pretty wise. Your Dexterity isn’t bad, you definitely prefer getting out of the way of attacks. Your Constitution’s pretty low, but we’re not going to dump that if we can help it. What we are dumping is Strength. Let Cat handle the punching, you’ll take care of the rest.

Class Levels

1. Like I said in the opening, you’re going to be a Wizard. A lot of casters could qualify here, especially since your magic is more innate than learned, but wizards get the most variety, and we’ll need all of it. First level wizards have proficiency in Intelligence and Wisdom saving throws, as well as two wizard skills. Arcana will make you more magical than the average fox, and Religion will help with the “being a priestess” thing.

Wizards also start out with two features. You can prepare and cast Spells in your spellbook using Intelligence as your casting ability. You also have an Arcane Recovery, letting you regain a number of spell slots with a total level of half your level (rounded up) on a short rest

Wizards get a lot of spells, and you’re a caster, so you have some freedom when it comes to spells you should know. To save everyone some time, I’m just going to list off the spells I picked at each level, and note the ones that are needed for the build, either mechanically or to be in character. At this level, you get Fire Bolt, Gust, Prestidigitation, Burning Hands, Disguise Self(needed for a reason we’ll get to next level), Mage Armor, Protection from Good and Evil, Jump, and Magic Missile.

2. Second level wizards get to pick their school of magic, and the school of Theurgy from an unearthed arcana lets you blend your magical skills with the fact that you’re somewhat a minor god. When you pick this school, you also pick a Divine Inspiration, a cleric domain that will affect the rest of the build. You’re a Kitsune, so you fit nicely into the Trickery Domain. You also become an Arcane Initiate, letting you learn spells from the trickery domain spell list, and after that is exhausted, other cleric spells as well. 

Similar to the cleric, you learn how to Channel Arcana. Once per short rest, you can choose one of two options to channel your magical energy. Divine Arcana uses your bonus action to add 2 to your next spell’s attack roll or save DC, especially useful for spells that require a save every turn. You also learn the trickery domain’s Invoke Duplicity, letting you create an illusion of yourself for up to a minute with your concentration. You can use your bonus action to move the illusion around, and can cast spells from the illusion’s perspective, as long as the real you can still see the target. You can get advantage on attacks if you and your copy are within 5′ of the same creature, but that won’t come up too much. Technically these are exact copies, but if you want to make the other Tamamos I won’t tell anyone.

For spells, grab Charm Person to fill up that domain spell list, and Feather Fall.

3. Third level wizards get second level spells. Mirror Image lets you make even more copies of yourself without using concentration, and Pass without Trace is another gift you can give to members of your party. Both are also needed to fill up your domain spell list.

4. Use your first ASI to round up your Intelligence for stronger and more spells, and your Charisma for better social skills without using magic. Grab Shape Water for special water features, Magic Weapon for another neat wedding gift (we’re getting there), and Suggestion.

5. Fifth level wizards get third level spells. Yours are Blink and Dispel Magic to tick another two marks off your domain spell list. Also, nobody’s allowed to have fancier enchantments than you, or so help you Tamamo you will destroy them.

6. At sixth level, you become an Arcane Acolyte, giving you the first level benefits of being a trickster cleric (bar armor or weapon proficiencies). You can now bestow the Blessing of the Trickster as an action, giving one creature advantage of stealth checks for up to an hour. For spells, Fireball gives you some extra (literal) fire power, and Remove Curse lets you slap a talisman on a party member and stop their bad voodoo.

You can also Channel Arcana twice per short rest now.

7. Seventh level wizards get fourth level spells, and you get two more domain spells: Dimension Door and Polymorph. You’re not that into shapeshifting any more, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it.

8. Use this ASI to bump up your Intelligence for more prepared spells with stronger DCs.

9. Ninth level wizards get fifth level spells. Dominate Person and Modify Memory are the last domain spells you need to grab; you’re now free to pick any spells you want from both cleric and wizard spell lists.

10. Tenth level theurgists become Arcane Priests, giving them the sixth level features of being a cleric of their domain. You learn a new Channel Arcana feature, the Cloak of Shadows. You can use your action to become Invisible until the end of your next turn, or until you cast a spell or attack.

For your new cantrip, grab Poison Spray because I learned Tamamo spent the last couple years of her life as a poisonous rock and I wanted an excuse to share that with you. You also get two new spells. Raise Dead and Ceremony, so you can marry people. Yes, I chose this subclass so I could get this without wasting a feat on it. No, I’m not sorry.

11. Eleventh level wizards get sixth level spells. True Seeing will keep you from being fooled by others the way you’re fooling them, and Heroes’ Feast will help you set a proper banquet for your wedding night.

12. Bump up your Constitution with this ASI for better concentration and more health. For spells, grab Mislead for another way to copy yourself and Mass Cure Wounds.

13. Thirteenth level wizards get seventh level spells, and I’ve got to say, there’s not really much here that screams Tamamo to me. Grab Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion for some privacy and then go back to get Immolation.

14. You become an Arcane High Priestess, giving yourself the seventeenth level feature of your cleric domain. Improved Duplicity improves your Invoke Duplicity, letting you make up to four copies instead of one. You can control all four with a single bonus action, but their base speed and range are unchanged.

For spells, we’re going way back to grab Enhance Ability for people we like and Bestow Curse for people we don’t.

15. When you get eighth level spells, Clone is a given- how else is Tamamo Cat going to happen? Also grab Incendiary Cloud for your biggest fireball yet.

16. Max out your Intelligence for super strong spells. Grab Aura of Purity and Heal to protect the party from status effects.

17. Seventeenth level wizards learn ninth level spells. Shapechange makes your polymorph game even stronger, and Astral Projection is also a spell.

18. At this level you have Spell Mastery over a first and second level spell, letting you cast them without using spell slots. Pick Disguise Self for some free shape changing and Mirror Image for free copies of yourself. You can also channel your arcana three times per short rest now. For your spells, True Resurrection and Mass Heal should keep your party on their feet.

19. Use you last ASI to bump up your Dexterity for a better AC and sneakiness. For some extra party favors, grab Purify Food and Drink and Create Food and Water.

20. With your final level, you get two Signature Spells, third level magic that you can cast once per day without using a spell slot. A free Bestow Curse and Fireball should make you one scary fox.

For your final spells, grab Control Winds and Control Weather to set the perfect wedding day.

Pros

With a maxed out casting modifier, two spell lists to choose from, and the ability to pump up a spell when you need it, your magical abilities are massive.

You can create four copies of yourself with Invoke Duplicity, and have an extra three with Mirror Image. (This probably defeats the purpose of ID, but whatever.) This means the odds of you getting hit by an attack aimed at you is about 1 in 8. You’re hard to hit, is the point I’m making. This also means if you have TamaCat on the same team, you can have the entire Tamamo Nine running around at once.

You have plenty of illusions and charms to take control of any social situation, and your charisma isn’t half bad either, so you might not even need them.

Cons

You don’t have much HP, barely scratching past the 100 mark at level 20. Power Word Kill is going to be your worst enemy-if they can hit you.

A lot of your spells and Duplicity require your concentration, and you’re not good at that. You’re probably not going to get hit, but if it happens, it’s going to keep happening.

Despite having so many spells, you don’t have that many attacks, and even fewer damage types. Thankfully Magic Missile is a pretty good standard to fall back on if you’re forced to deal with fire elementals.

Just don’t get hit and you’ll be fine.

Next up: What’s a sling to a god?

[gastcrrific]

Safe (Loki X Reader)

Summary: Thanos has arrived. Half of the Asgardians are dead, and you, Thor, and Loki are on the verge of extinction.

A/N: i'm still tagging posts about IW with spoilers but um...i don't think they have a use now? but the plot in iw is included here in this story, so-- i guess...i'll still tag this. (you're an Asgardian warrior/enchantress, btw. so you can do spells and stuff, besides from telekinesis like Wanda) plus im changing what happens in iw because we all know us loki fans can't accept his death, right? *winks, finger guns* and this is my first fanfic on tumblr! i actually have a book on wattpad so go check it out

contains: spoilers duh, a small bit of angst and then a pinch of fluff, and warning you again just in case for the last time...spoilers!!

Y/N - your name

E/C - eye color

=====

"Give up the Space Stone, or your brother dies." Thanos threatens Loki, as he tortured Thor with the Power Stone he obtained from Xandar. Plus the Black Order surrounding Loki, Proxima pointing her spear to him.

As for you, you casted yourself an invisibility spell. You watched tremendously at the sight, as you were hiding behind the horrific situation. Proxima Midnight was already pissing you off by her looks and her hostile position.

"ALRIGHT, STOP!" He yelled, making Thanos stop his torture on Thor.

Thor was telling him that the Tesseract was destroyed in Asgard, but Loki's old habits die hard. "Did he...!?" You mumbled quietly, in shock.

He is now handing the Tesseract to Thanos, but before he takes it, you hear Loki say "For one thing, I’m not Asgardian. And for another...we have a Hulk." And so The Hulk came in and fought the purple Titan. Unfortunately, he didn't took it well, but Heimdall, sent him to Earth for a warning.

And then the worst has already came, the allseeing guard and friend of Thor's, Loki's and yours...is dead.

While Ebony Maw has Thor trapped, he hands Thanos the Tesseract, Loki tries to interrupt with his mischievous behavior.

From far away, you can see a glowing dagger appeared in his hand, hidden well. Loki, please. You were in the verge of anxiety, and you're unsure if his plan goes on successfully.

"Prince of Asgard..." His voice echoes the whole room of the ship. "Rightful king of Jötunheim...God Of Mischief..."

“Odinson.”

As he said it, he was able to catch a glimpse of Thor's eyes.

A few words still escape his lips, until he tries to stab the Titan.

Thanos caught his reaction mid-air by the stone... And tries to choke Loki.

"Oh, no that purple oaf isn't going to try and kill him." You were pissed at this point, so you prepared a temporary blinding spell to cast on Thanos, and it precisely hit him. With it, he gets blinded for a good few minutes, causing to let Loki go.

The Black Order turned their gaze to you as your invisibility spell has disappeared.

"Dare to take on one?" You taunted, with a determined look on your face.

"Who are you, perhaps another little Asgardian?" Ebony asks with a growl from Cull Obsidian. A sudden scoff escapes from your lips, and you have a stray metal already readied to throw at him.

"I don't think there's enough time for introduction."

As those words rolled out of your tongue, you threw the metal and it precisely hit his head, making him unconscious. Thus, Thor gets free by the metal Ebony was trapping him on.

Corvus Glaive lunges towards you, luckily, you dodged the tip of his spear and sent a painful blow on his back. You can even feel how painful it was since you were training back on Asgard. A yelp of rage can be heard from Proxima as she threw her spear to you, then you effortlessly took control of her own weapon. You didn't plan on stabbing her with it, but instead you threw it again and hit her stomach with the handle end of her weapon.

You finally take on Cull Obsidian, who's mostly alike with the Hulk. You just basically summoned a special shield for yourself. With it's full might still trying to kill you, you sent a fireball to its face. While it stumbles back from your attack, and with the rest of the Black Order weak (for now), you quickly escaped from their atmosphere and dashed towards Loki and Thor.

With this quick chance, you cast the same shield you have around both of them, then you pulled them both close to yourself and cast another forcefield around the three of you.

As Thanos recovered from your spell, he was unable to punch you from the forcefield.

The purple Titan grunts from rage, and stepped back away from you. At this point, the Black Order has already recovered from the fight earlier. "Another Asgardian...or a peasant, I see." He mumbles under his breath, facing away from you.

"You can have the Space Stone, and leave us alone." You demanded loudly, making Thanos face you. Loki and Thor exchange glances as you sigh. He turns his gaze to his 'children' and commanded them to find the other Infinity Stones. "You three don't deserve to live." Thanos says, using the Power Stone to blow up the Sakaarian ship, then leaving you and the brothers of Asgard to die.

"Thor...Loki..." You glance at both of them, and then bracing yourself by hugging them tight while the shield you summoned earlier stays close to you three. The brothers hug you back as well, keeping your heads down.

"Brace yourselves." You whispered, then the explosion happened.

And there it was. The most of the Asgardians are dead. The three of you are the only ones left.

Waking up from the explosion, you are probably somewhere in the Galaxy right by now. The princes are still unconscious, so you rushed to Loki. You moved away some of his raven locks from his face, and just by seeing his face makes you smile.

From your sight, there seems to be a spaceship heading towards your location. "No, no, no, no!" You panic, as your shield starts automatically moving towards quickly to the projectile, but you suddenly combined the ship inside the forcefield.

The people inside the ship were a bit starstruck and might be wondering how the three of you were still. "Um, in case if you're wondering, I joined your ship inside the shield I summoned... Now please let us in. I have lives at risk here." You assured them.

Finally letting you in with Thor and Loki, some of them helped you carry the two, and lying them down in some kind of table.

"I'm Y/N. I'm an Asgardian enchantress, or a warrior. Can you introduce yourselves?" You introduced yourself. One by one, they introduced themselves. "Now who's these guys?" Peter asked, as you glanced at the two brothers. "It's...much more better if I let them introduce themselves." You assured them, tilting your head to the direction where the brothers lie down, while you were smiling a bit. "Now..Mantis, can you wake the two?" You asked her, and she walked up to the headside of the two, then placed each of her palm on their heads.

She then whispers, "Wake." And so Thor and Loki woke up with a yelp, both of them getting out of the surface they lied on to.

"Thor! Loki! We're okay, we survived." You calmed them, the brothers hyperventilating for a few seconds until it died down. "Who the hell are you guys?" Thor says in a defensive manner. "They're what they call themselves the Guardians Of The Galaxy." You introduced the team that helped you, and Quill himself was surprised that you introduced them by their team name.

"Now, boys, aren't you two going to introduce yourselves?" You asked them, in a playful manner. You can even hear a faint chuckle from Loki, which caused the corner of your lips tug upwards, forming a smile.

"Alright then," Thor sighed, straightening his posture. "I'm Thor, son of Odin. God of Thunder." He introduced himself. "And I'm Loki, God of Mischief. His brother." Loki added in.

"Huh. In the Norse mythology, there's someone si-" Peter tried to explain something, but you cut him off.

"They're that Thor and Loki. And I'm also that Y/N."

Peter suddenly became shocked, he had loss of words to speak. "W...WHAT!? REALLY!?" He blurt out, and so the rest of the guardians are also shocked. You shook your head as you glance at the brothers, smiling.

A sudden gasp escapes from your lips.

"We almost forgot to warn you." You spoke out, quickly turning your head to the guardians.

"Warn about what?" Gamora asked.

"Thanos is coming." Thor said out loud. Mantis suddenly gasps from shock. "He already has the Power Stone from Xandar and the Space Stone from us. If he gets to the Collector to get the Reality Stone, Tivan would be dead in seconds." You explained further. "An idiot would've given the Reality Stone to the Collector!" Peter exclaimed. "Or a genius." Thor mumbled under his breath. You glance at Loki once he exchanged a look at you.

After a few explanations or plans to talk about, Thor suddenly realizes something.

"I need a new weapon, or a hammer...I'm going to Nidavellir. Anyone coming?" Thor asked, getting inside an escape pod with a bunch of few things. Rocket and Groot also wanted to come with him.

"How about you two lovebirds?" Rocket teased. A small tint of red spread out across your cheeks, while Loki quietly scoffs at the raccoon. "We're coming with you." You sigh, rolling your eyes. There was a short moment of saying farewells, and so the escape pod was launched.

You walk towards the windows to enjoy the view of the galaxy. Sighing, Loki was already by your side, avoiding eye contact.

"Thank you for earlier."

t was rare for others to hear or see Loki thank somebody else, but for you, it wasn't. "You're welcome. Why attacking him with a small dagger would be such a great plan to you?" You replied, finally gazing at his face. "You were almost going to get yourself killed."

"It was part of my plan. Tricking him." He sighed.

"You are one for mischief, as always, and faking your death may be successful to you, but I can't lose you again." You said, caressing his cheek, and staring at his bright blue eyes. "And not only me who's worried for you, but also your brother. You and I are the only ones he has left, and he can't afford to lose both of us. I love you and so does he, as a brother— but still. I'm always concerned for y-you..."

You didn't realize tears were escaping your eyes until now, but Loki noticed right away.

"Hey, hey, Y/N.... Shhh.. I'm also concerned for you. I too love you and Thor dearly more than anyone else. Sometimes I also worry for you too. We're both equal." He comforted you, as he dry your tears with his thumb, staring at your precious E/C eyes. A smile formed on your lips, as he pulled you close to him and kissed your forehead.

"D'awww how cute." Rocket teased, again. Thor nudged him with his shoulder, saying "Don't ruin the moment, rabbit."

[trulycertain]

perchance to dream

It takes her a second too long. Morgana turns to cast, to stop the other mage, but the woman’s spell has already hit Alistair and he’s falling. The mage laughs and says something in Orlesian, something Morgana can’t quite catch.

Morgana throws a fireball at her, lets Leliana do the rest, and then runs to him. She already knows it won’t be enough. If she weren’t in the middle of a fight, she’d wince at the sound of armour hitting the ground.

His eyes are closed, and his sword has fallen somewhere next to him, his shield still on his arm. There’s barely a scratch on him - nothing that could have caused this. It doesn’t look like an entropy spell.

“Alistair,” she manages, putting her sword aside, dropping to her knees beside him and checking the pulse at his neck; it’s still strong and steady, but he doesn’t stir. “Alistair,” she tries again. “Please.” The last word is barely a murmur, and her hand lingers on his skin. She’s reaching out with healing magic before she can help it, trying to understand, but she can’t get a grip on any pain and her magic is telling her that nothing’s wrong with him. That’s impossible, surely. It’s as if he’s only…

“Asleep,” Zevran says, crouching next to her. “As I suspected.” He looks up. “My dear bard, are you thinking as I am?”

“I am,” Leliana replies, joining them. “I’ve seen this before, but it’s been a long time.” She meets Morgana’s eye then, and looks worried, almost… sorrowful. “Morgana... we need to talk.”

Morgana tenses, dread rising in her. If there’s something wrong with him, if he’s dying… He’s protected her so many times; he’s the son of a king, the best man she knows, and she’s just a Circle mage who fell into this world by accident. It wouldn’t be fair.

She looks down and realises too late that her hand is still lingering on his neck, her thumb tracing his jaw. She hastily takes it back, and her heart jumps into her throat when she sees Leliana and Zevran’s eyes following the movement. They exchange a look, but don’t say anything.

“What?” she demands, after the silence has gone on too long.

“I’m familiar with this spell,” Leliana says, and her voice is too gentle, too soft. “It was often used for purposes of… embarrassment, in Orlais. A friend I had, a mage - he was quite expert at casting it.” That look of old guilt crosses her face, but there’s not time for it now. “I don’t understand why someone would target Grey Wardens this way.”

“But he’ll be all right?” Morgana asks. “We can solve this?”

“He will.” Leliana sounds more certain now. “But… the spell can only be removed by a kiss.”

“An…? Oh.” Morgana looks back to his face. He looks younger like this, and somehow… vulnerable. She can’t just - “I’m sure he’d mind,” she manages, faintly.

Leliana makes a noise that might be a suppressed laugh. “Morgana - “

“Is there… It might be better if someone else…” It’s too much: it’s exactly what she’s dreamed of, but not - not like this. She thought he’d be bloody well awake, for a start. She can’t quite look at him, now she’s thinking of it, and she knows her cheeks are pink. But she can’t think of anyone he’d trust… Perhaps Leliana.

Zevran says, “Flattered as I would be, there is a requirement.”

Leliana says, “The kiss must be on the mouth. And only someone the sleeper is… interested in can break the spell.”

“Interested…?” Morgana echoes. 

Zevran half-grins; there’s something wolfish in it. “She means, ‘in love with.’”

Leliana glares at him, but Morgana’s too busy staring at both of them, trying to ignore the hollowness those words provoke. She opens her mouth, closes it again, and eventually manages, “Then it can’t be me.”

Zevran barks a laugh, and Leliana blinks at her.

“He’s not… He’d never…” She pulls herself together, makes herself look at Leliana steadily. “It won’t be me. I’m his friend. It might be you.”

Leliana rubs a hand over her face, and she sounds strangely certain when she says, “It won’t be me. Here, let me show you.” Leliana tenses a moment, sighs, and then leans down and gives Alistair a perfunctory kiss on the lips. He doesn’t move; he stays prone, lying there, without even a twitch of a finger. She looks back to Morgana. “I told you. Do you see?”

Morgana nods, still numb. “What about… Morrigan?”

“Such denial,” Zevran mutters, shaking his head. “Fereldans. This is too painful to watch any longer.” He stands, moving as smoothly as a snake, and begins to walk away.

“Zev - “ Morgana tries.

“I will see you back at camp. When you have woken him up.” He whistles as he leaves, and the sound fades through the trees until it’s gone.

Leliana puts a hand on Morgana’s arm and leans in, eyes wide. “I need you to trust me. It won’t be Morrigan. Believe me.”

“I can’t be…”

“Try for his sake, if nothing else. There is no other cure I know of. Surely you don’t want to take the risk that he could sleep forever?”

“Of course I don’t. But he can’t be in… love…” Morgana grits her teeth. Humiliation and pain are rising, searing, in her chest. “Why are you doing this? Are you trying to prove some sort of point? You said this was some bard trick, for… for humiliation. This is just because I… I care for him, isn’t it? This is - You’ve been laughing at me all this time?”

Leliana doesn’t look angry, only sad. “Think, Morgana. You’re my friend. Why would I hurt you in such a way? You should not have found out like this, but you will realise. Please… try.” Then Leliana’s standing and leaving, too.

Morgana’s left kneeling next to Alistair. The clearing’s quiet around them, and all she can hear is birds. She’s sure that if he was awake, he’d be making some joke about all their companions waiting to jump out and laugh at them. She needs that. She needs…

She looks down at him, and contemplates never having his voice beside her again, his warmth at her side gone. She blinks, suddenly feeling like she might cry, for the first time since before her Harrowing. He can’t just… She already knows it won’t be her, and this is a waste of time. He’s a good man, but Chantry teaching is powerful, and she’s turned to him before, sneered at him and called him a templar… They’re friends now, but he probably couldn’t contemplate anything more. She’s been a bloody idiot to hope, but at least she had his friendship; that was enough. Anything he’d give was enough. Now she won’t even have that.

If this were a book, he’d wake up, and he’d tell her… She tries not to think of those three words. They frighten her too much, because love is pain and Harrowings and she’s a mage, even with a sword in her hand and the Tower miles behind her. They frighten her because they’re in the dreams she stole and hid away from the others, and from herself, and they’re all she could hope for.

She breathes in, and decides. Sod it, she’ll try. Then she can go back to camp and murder them for making her do this.

The worst thing is, he looks like him. High cheekbones, that jaw and that nose, his... his mouth. He looks like some sort of prince from a tale, exactly the sort of man she could never hope to have, but also like her strong, tired friend. She misses that warm amber gaze; she feels steadier when his eyes are on her. But if they were, then all this would be solved.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “You can kill me when you wake up.”

She runs a hand over his cheek, then cups his jaw. The angle is awkward, and she has to put her other hand on the ground and lean across him. She closes her eyes, trying not to wince, and she’s almost certain she hits his nose. Then her mouth is on his. His lips are dry, but exactly as soft as she imagined. It’s strange: she hadn’t quite imagined the scratch of stubble, but it’s not unpleasant. It’s…

No. No.

She moves back -

And he inhales, and his mouth moves slightly under hers, and… he’s kissing her. She nearly falls on top of him in her surprise. His eyes are still shut, but she feels his hand move to her waist, steadying her, before it slides to her back, urging her closer. She closes her eyes, and goes. He kisses her gently, with a half-awake, slow sincerity, and she finds herself relaxing into it. He’s so warm. She didn’t imagine that, or the gentleness of his hand on her back, or the way that he pauses, and she can feel him smiling against her mouth, before he kisses her again. It should be uncomfortable, and yet she never wants to stop, to let him go.

He draws back slightly, his lips a hair’s breadth from hers, and she hears him breathe, “Morgana?”

Surely he can’t know what he’s doing, he still seems like he’s mostly asleep - She throws herself off him, shuffling backwards, her arse scraping against the ground…

And his eyes blink open. He moves to sit up and squints groggily, before grinning at her. “Hey. I… think I just had a really good dream.” He rubs at his eyes.

“...Oh,” she manages, very, very quietly.

He stops, his face falling. “You’re looking a little… Have I done something? I thought you meant… You don’t usually just kiss me out of nowhere. Unless I’ve missed… a lot.”

She means, “‘in love with.”

She stares at him, wide-eyed. “You don’t… mind?”

He laughs, and even startled, the sound’s rich and warm. “It’s you. Most people don’t mind when they get exactly what they wanted.” His voice softens, and he watches her intently. “What they’ve wanted for… a long time now. You really didn’t know, did you?”

She shakes her head.

“We used to hear about sleep-spells, in the Chantry. I always thought they were just stories. The mage… she was laughing at me, when she cast it. I guess she thought no-one would, you know, want to wake me up.” He tilts his head and watches her consideringly, searching her face. “The stories always said the person who kissed you had to feel the same, or they couldn’t break the curse.” He scratches the back of his neck, ducks his head. “I mean, do you…?”

She crosses the space between them, takes his face in her hands and kisses him again. He makes a low, surprised noise, but he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her close. It’s not everything she’s dreamt of, not at all. It’s better.