#spectral fiend

[aisling-dearelove]

More pac-man world stuff

[savanir]

The What Corps?

“we have you now spook! there is nowhere you can run and hide with our new spectral tethers active!”

Danny winces at the small metal clips that have hooked themselves in his leg, some new GIW tech that is messing with his powers.

“oh yeah? I was just dying for you guys to give me a challenge” plan. plan. He's gotta think of a plan to get out of here and fast. He takes a steadying breath and starts to look for anything that can help him.

he can’t get caught here. He just can't. He simply won’t allow himself.

suddenly the two GIW goons in front of him click their earpieces to clearly listen to what someone else is telling them, Danny is very glad for his own enhanced senses.

“Operatives K and O, be advised, there have been sightings of a new ectoplasmic entity near your location. Other operatives report that it’s incredibly small and moves fast. watch your backs, this may be an ambush”

small and fast? it better not be some poor little blob ghost, Danny sort of hopes it’s some manner of ectowasp, at least that could be entertaining to see.

“you better not be hoping for back up, ecto scum”

“I have no idea what you are talking about”

It's then that a small bright green light zips on scene and weaves through crowds in the distance with ease and then speeds up towards the two operatives who do not hesitate to shoot, missing completely like the storm troopers they are.

Whatever it is, it is indeed going very fast but Danny manages to figure out what it looks like and it appears to be a… ring?

“hold it you tiny accessory shaped ecto fiend!”

The ring does a speedy circle around Operative O while K is lining up a shot and ends up blasting the poor guy point blank in his face, “O!”

Danny takes a step forward with an arm outstretched and a “oh damn! Are you alright?” on his lips when the ring takes the chance to slip on his finger. “Daniel Fenton of Earth”

Danny already had a freakout about a ghost jewelry getting on him, his experiences with those so far have been incredibly bad after all, what with the rings and crowns and pendants… now this damn thing is just straight up outing him! 

Thank the ancients the two GIW stooges are too busy with each other right now to pay close attention to what this weird ring is saying.

“You have the ability to overcome great fear” ah so this is related to him steeling himself just now? Maybe? or something??

You have been chosen” never good, we are back to freaking out again.

“Welcome to the green lantern corps” 

… the what?

Danny notices that his usual outfit suddenly has more green going on, and his DP symbol has some sort of… he guess it’s supposed to be a lantern, maybe? shape around it.

He’s somehow even more glowy now, and there is something on his face. Feeling its shape makes him think it’s some sort of mask.

The metal clip things are no longer attached to his legs though so that’s great!

“You’re not getting away so easily ecto scum! sentient ghost paraphernalia coming to your rescue or no!” They both aim their weapons to take a shot.

Danny figures he can now easily hold them back with his usual shields,“you guys realize you just called this weird ring sentient and thereby negate the whole nonsentie-ack!”

“Attacking a corps lantern is punishable offense as of the instatement of the galactic diplomatic immunity as declared by the-” Okay so now Danny is just raising his eyebrow at this weird as fuck ring. Just what is it going on about?

“notifying nearby lanterns and requesting assistance with apprehension of hostiles”

what?

“getting your friends to help you out vile spook? such a thing is useless with the Blackout still very much in place”

Well… the two streaks of green light in the distance is making Danny doubt that statement.

Maybe there is more to this Lantern corps thing than he thought… And something tells him his life is about to get even more complicated than it already is.

[ckret2]

Chapter 39 of human Bill Cipher is SURE he's about to escape being the Mystery Shack's prisoner:

Ford's confronted with the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he's a little bit too obsessed with Bill.

And meanwhile, Bill has found a way to reach his loyal cultists... if he can find somebody willing to help him make contact.

He thinks Ford is the perfect target.

Maybe, just maybe, the obsession goes both ways.

(warning for an incident of self-harm via burning, and depersonalization and/or dysphoria (depending on how you interpret it) re: Bill feeling even worse about his body than usual.)

####

Soos, Stan, and Ford had stayed up half the night trying to generate enough NowUSeeitNowUDontium to prevent it from vanishing the moment one of them lost (or gained) focus. They'd eventually given up and stayed the night in Northwest Manor. Soos had texted Melody around midnight, and she'd immediately replied (which alarmed Ford, but Soos assured him she was used to those hours) and agreed, with some trepidation, to spend the night by herself in the shack so that the kids wouldn't be alone all night with Bill. She'd texted a half hour later to report that the bathroom was a disaster, but the kids had reassured her it was just some werewolf thing, so, not a big deal.

Ford had thought getting to spend a night without Bill under the same roof would be a relief. Instead, he found his sleep was even worse. He kept worrying about what Bill might get up to so far away and out of sight, where Ford couldn't do anything to stop him. Surely, by nighttime, Bill had to have noticed that the only humans he'd seen all day were the kids? Would he consider Melody any kind of threat, no veteran to combating Gravity Falls' weirdness?

It figured that the dream demon would find a way to disrupt Ford's sleep when he wasn't even there.

####

Ford had given up on sleep around two in the morning and gone wandering until he stumbled across a den with walls covered in bookcases, massive windows overlooking the forest below, and a pair of richly upholstered armchairs turned to gaze out the windows. He drifted between the chairs to one of the windows. It was the kind of personal library he'd dreamed of accepting esteemed guests in, back when he'd fantasized about one day being rich and famous. He suspected the Northwests had never read a book in this room.

Ford had been staring out at the still night and the dark pines for several minutes when he heard the creak of a door and soft footsteps behind him. He whirled around, raising a weapon. "Back, you spectral fiend!"

"Whoa! Easy, Sixer!" Stan held up a hand defensively. "It's just me!" He lowered his hand. "Why are you holding up a dinner plate?"

"Er—sorry." Ford sheepishly tucked the silver dish under his arm again. "I'm sure I saw a ghost earlier. I thought it prudent to arm myself."

Stan muttered, "This place sure is creepy enough for it."

"Mm. It's built on more than its fair share of bones." Ford returned to gazing out the window, hands clasped behind his back. "I'm sorry today was a failure. When I'm staring right at an experiment on which the fate of the entire universe depends, it's hard not to think about it."

"Eh, I wasn't doing too hot either," Stan admitted, joining Ford at the window. "There's only so many times you can hear Soos whisper 'Think about the miniature particle accelerator' in your ears on a loop before you zone out and start thinking about fishing season."

Ford huffed. "Maybe we should have switched places."

"Yeah, probably. I retired from thinking about science after I got your dumb portal running, and once you get your head stuck on something you can't stop thinking about it."

Ford laughed wryly. "Unfortunately accurate."

There was a moment of silence; and then Stan said cautiously, "Speaking of you getting your head stuck on something..."

Ford didn't like that tone. "Hm?"

"I was, uh... doing some light reading..." He held up Ford's journal.

A jolt of anger and fear shot through Ford. "Give me—" He snatched the journal back.

It wasn't until it was in his hands that he registered the absurdity of his own action; for the past year, he'd given Stan free access to Journal 5. He'd used it to document their travels and discoveries as a reference for them both; he'd even asked Stan to contribute a couple of entries. Based on a prior precedent of seven months, Stan had every right to look at Journal 5. Revoking that access now was... Well, it didn't look good.

Stan didn't immediately say anything. Ford supposed his own actions said enough. He tucked the journal under his arm with the silver dish.

Stan cleared his throat. "I think we're a little past the 'superhero nemesis' thing."

"It's not a problem," Ford said tersely.

"Not a prob—? Ford, you're letting him consume your life."

"He's consumed all our lives. The kids haven't been able to invite anyone over, Melody all but runs to her car after work, you ended up in a showdown with fae nobility—"

"It was just the tooth fairy!"

"Do you know how important a fairy has to be to claim dominion over all teeth?"

"Forget about the fairy!" Stan waved off the whole fairy topic with one hand. "Look, I'm not the one who's dedicated half a journal to talking about him!"

"You don't keep a journal, Stanley—"

"That's not the point!"

"—I'm just saying, if you did keep a journal, I think he'd have come up on more than a few pages—"

"But like this?" Stan gestured toward Ford's journal. "This is turning into an obsession. And not one of your normal obsessions."

The back of Ford's neck heated up. He wanted to argue that he had to obsess over Bill if he hoped to find a way to kill him—but Stan already knew that Ford had passed off that project to Fiddleford weeks ago. "How can I be 'obsessed' with somebody I barely even see? I'm avoiding Bill like my life depends on it! I talk to him less than Mrs. Ramirez does!"

"And you're using avoiding him as an excuse to obsess over him even more in private!" Stan gestured again, angrily, at Ford's journal. (Ford defensively tucked it further under his arm.) "You're acting like a stalker, Sixer. Not that I care about him, but, I'm starting to worry about your head."

"A st—?! I'm a scientist, he's a scientific curiosity! I'm documenting him! I document plenty of things!"

"Not like this, you don't."

"There's a lot to document!"

"Including spending a whole page trying to figure out—how to draw his—?!" Stan gestured furiously toward his boxers.

Ford pointed at him severely. "You were just as curious as I was to find out how a giant eyeball and a sentient triangle make that work, don't pretend you weren't."

Stan grimaced. "Okay, fine, I'll give you that one. But writing a full entry about his posture?"

"He's not only an alien being in a human body but a two-dimensional creature in a three-dimensional body, how he moves and gestures could tell us about how an utterly unfamiliar species perceived space! Nearly all his gestures adhere to an invisible coronal plane, that betrays worlds of information about his original anatomy. Do you know that elbow thing he does when he walks—"

"Ford. You're using your great-niece to get drawings of his childhood bedroom."

Ford raised a finger. "That's—" Ford lowered his finger. Ford sat in a nearby armchair, put his chin in his hands, and stared into space. "What am I doing."

Stan patted his shoulder.

Ford slid his journal and the dish out from under his arm and settled them in his lap. He stared at the cover, then thumbed through the pages. It was obvious when they'd returned to Gravity Falls; the drawings of Atlanteans, were-rats, shorelines, and boats immediately gave way to page after page of staring slit-pupiled eyes.

"It's just... Bill is an ancient being, many times older than our universe, and the last surviving specimen of his own bizarre species. As both an anomaly and a source of esoteric knowledge, he's an invaluable subject of study. He's going to die soon, and he should die, but... between now and then, I don't want to pass up the last ever opportunity to study him."

Stan sank down into the chair opposite Ford. "You're listening to yourself, right?" He didn't sound angry anymore, just worried. "This is a guy who tried to kill us. He isn't a 'specimen' you can add to your collection of weird stuff, you know that, right?"

"I know, I know." That was exactly why it was so important—why it seemed so important—to capture Bill in words and pictures before it was too late. (It was funny, Ford thought, how Stan's very first conversation with Bill had been a murder, and yet he was the one who talked about Bill like he was just some guy; while Ford had spent so many years obsessively trying to find out who Bill was that he'd almost forgotten he was a person instead of a terrible idea.)

"When execution day comes and you think you haven't dug up enough of his history, what'll you do? Give him a stay of execution until he's dictated his memoirs to you?"

"No," Ford said immediately. "No, of course not. I'm just taking advantage of the opportunity to learn what I can, while I can. It's no different from your 'shopping trip' at the mall—"

"Hey!" Stan pointed a finger at Ford. "Watch it! That was strictly business! It's not like I'm attached to the guy—"

"I didn't mean anything by it! I just meant—as long as we're stuck with Bill, make him useful, and—and to heck with him after that. Right?" Like Stan had said about the scratch cards: why throw away free money just because of the source? "He'd do the same to us."

Stan hesitated. "And you're sure that when the time comes, you'll be ready to pull the trigger?"

"I know I will. It won't be the first time. I'm just glad that this time I'll be able to aim at his own head."

"Hm." Stan didn't look convinced.

Ford sighed. "But, if I think I'll waver—I'll hand you the gun."

"Is that a promise?"

"Yes, yes, of course. I promise."

But he knew he didn't need to.

####

Soos drove the tired gang home just past dawn, early enough for him to open the Mystery Shack on schedule.

"Soon as we get home, I'm going back to sleep," Stan muttered crankily. Ford—eyes shut, leaning against the window—nodded in agreement. Stan yawned, "And there'd better not be any nasty surprises at the shack."

####

Bill sat sleeping in his attic window seat, knees to his chest, leaning against the window, ear pressed to the glass.

Outside, Stan wailed, "My car!"

Bill's eyes snapped open. He smiled.

He ran to the kids' room, knocked on the door—"Hey, the bigger Pines are back!"—and bolted for the stairs.

####

Soos got the door open at the exact same time Bill stumbled off the stairs and collided with the living room doorframe. Bill grabbed the doorframe just long enough to steady himself, and then bounded over to the door, shoved Soos and Ford aside, and leaned out onto the porch. "HIYA, STAN!"

Stan whipped around to face Bill. "YOU!" He gestured furiously at the wizard graffiti on his car. "WHAT did you DO to my CAR!"

"Do you like it?"

Stan let out an inarticulate scream of rage.

"Oh, you love it!"

"You massacred it! I've had this car forty-five years! I've done things in this car I can't say! And it's never, never been so—so—violated!"

Grinning ear to ear, Bill said, "What do you think of the girl wizard?"

"The what?!" Stan circled the car. He screamed again.

"Uh-huh?"

"Why does she have a beard!"

"Go on," Bill said gleefully, "tell me what you think! I want the full review!"

"This," Stan said, "is the most ugly, hideous, terrible—"

Bill glanced back at a sound on the stairs. "Oh, hey Mabel! Get over here!" He gestured proudly as Mabel joined him in the doorway. "And here's the artistic mastermind herself!"

Stan choked on his words. "—b... beautiful, stunning, museum-worthy work of art I've ever seen."

Mabel beamed. "It's not finished yet, we ran out of some colors! I was going to add a dragon on the hood!"

Stan's face went white. "No no, it's... perfect the way it is. Don't—don't change a thing."

"Really? You're sure? I don't mind!"

"Really." Looking slightly nauseous, Stan said, "I love it just like this, pumpkin."

Mabel squealed and ran outside to give him a big hug.

Bill was fighting back silent laughter so hard he almost fell down.

####

"...And I still haven't found any sign of the Nightwigglers," Dipper said, sighing dejectedly and dropping his journal on the counter next to the cash register. "So, I dunno, maybe I should give up on this one and move on."

Wendy was sitting back with her feet kicked up on the counter, but she straightened a bit to look at Dipper's journal. She skimmed the news article he'd paperclipped to one page. "Oh, I heard about this," she said. "The cops talked to me about the first burglary. I was in the thrift shop that day."

"Oh, yeah?" Dipper pointed at the picture next to the article. "Did you see anything like this?"

Wendy's eyes widened. "No—but I think one of my brothers did."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah, he was talking about it a couple nights ago. He said it was like an armless white thing wearing pants that went up to its face. We all thought he got spooked by a deer butt or something and made up the whole story. Then dad said we should drop it and told us we should stay in at night."

"That's when they come out! At night!" Dipper laughed excitedly. "Do you think your dad knows something?"

"Pfff, not if he can help it." Wendy pulled her feet off the counter and checked the clock. "I could show you the start of the trail my brother was on. It's like ten minutes by bike and the next big tour bus isn't getting here for half an hour, wanna sneak out?"

"Are you serious?! Of course!"

"Just promise you won't tell Gus if we find something. We've been making fun of him for days and I don't want to  admit he was right." Wendy laughed. "Let me grab somebody to cover."

"I'll get my bike!" Dipper was already headed out the door. "I've been looking for a lead for days! I dug through half the dumpsters in town searching for their nests..." The door swung shut behind him.

Wendy ducked into the living room. "Hey Goldie."

"Yello?" He was sitting cross legged on the couch watching TV.

"I've gotta do something with Dipper, do you mind covering for a little bit? Just twenty, thirty minutes."

His gaze flickered to the TV, then back to Wendy's face. "Sure! Anything for you, cool girl."

Wendy had a brief, eerie sense of déjà vu. She shook it off. "I'm not interrupting anything good, am I?" She nodded at the TV.

"Naaah, it's one of those terrible specials about pyramid conspiracies." He shook a cider can, "I'm taking a sip every time they mention Fishmasons or 'ancient dinosaur-worshiping civilization.'"

"Dude. You'll be wasted before the first commercial break."

"Really, you're saving me from myself." He set the can on the TV and followed Wendy into the gift shop. (As he did, Bill checked to see if he had anything on under his hoodie. No? The Pines didn't want him to be seen in public in his hoodie; they thought it would make him "too obvious." He rolled up the sleeves to hide some of the brick pattern and surreptitiously tucked the hood and the bow tie drawstrings into the collar.)

As she headed out the door, Wendy repeated, "Just twenty minutes! Thirty tops. I'll get back before the next tour bus, promise."

"No problem!" He waved her off.

"I owe you one!"

Bill made a note of that.

He looked around the gift shop—any readily-obvious mischief he could get up to? He grabbed an 8-ball cane and took it to the counter. And then he took the stool behind the register, propped his chin in his hand, gazed toward the living room, and resumed watching TV through the wall and backwards. He didn't miss hearing the conspiracy talk—he was sure it was actively making him stupider—but credit where credit was due; they made those CGI pyramid models really hot.

A cutaway of one pyramid showed its internal tunnels and chambers. Bill bit his lower lip. Oh yeah. That's what he came here for.

Several minutes went by. The door opened and a lone tourist crept in, a middle-aged woman with a sun-damaged tan. Bill straightened up and switched his eye patch over to hide his bleeding eye. "Heya! Next tour's in..." He checked the clock, how long until the next bus? "About fifteen minutes."

The woman nodded and quietly started circling the gift shop.

Bill glanced toward the living room, decided he'd better not start damaging his other eye too, mentally cursed the tourist, and pulled out one of Wendy's magazines to read. "Let me know if you need anything."

The tourist spent several minutes making a slow circuit of the room, and then crept up to the cash register. Bill looked up with a smile, didn't see any souvenirs in her hands, and asked, "Can I help you?"

Hesitantly, the woman said, "The sun sets a deep blood red."

Bill's eye flew wide open, his heart leaped into his throat, and his breath hitched. His gaze roved over her exposed skin until he spied a tattoo on her right arm: four triangles stacked atop each other, starting with an equilateral and each getting shorter and more obtuse as they descended, until they'd reduced completely and a single horizontal line underlined all four triangles. This wasn't quite the happiest he'd ever been to see the symbol of a devastatingly self-destructive high-control cult, but it was close. "Oh! Oh, this is—" He rubbed his temples, squeezing his eye shut. "I know this. I rhymed 'red' with 'pyramid.' Why do I give everyone a different code. 'But rises gold over the pyramid'—something like that, right?" Bill gave the woman a pleading look. "I'm close enough that you can tell I know what you're talking about!"

A look of relief washed over her face. "You know him." Voice low, she asked, "Is it safe to talk?"

Knew him? He was him. But he couldn't claim that without proving it—what would convince her?—telling her something that only he knew?—great, but what? Her face was vaguely familiar—he thought he might've given her a visionary dream once—but he had so many little worshipers and they were so unimportant, most of them blurred together.

So all he could do was say, "It's not safe. Everyone here is an enemy."

She nodded sharply. "Where can we meet?"

Bill paused. "We can't. I'm... trapped."

Her brows creased with worry. "They're keeping you prisoner?"

"Afraid so."

"I could get the police—"

"Everyone," Bill repeated, "is an enemy."

She paused, processing that. Bill's gaze flickered to the clock. Wendy said twenty minutes, thirty tops. She'd been gone twenty-two minutes. "Someone's coming any minute."

"Right." The cultist grabbed Wendy's magazine, tore a corner off a page, and grabbed a pen.

"How did you find me?" Bill asked. Of all the tourist traps in all the tiny towns in all the world, how had she come in hereand walked right up to him? 

"We were told a devotee was here," she said. "Someone sent the address and phone number to the Bahamian art studio."

Bill's mind spun. How? Who the heck would know to do that? The only person who knew he was here who'd come anywhere close to any of Bill's other worshipers was...

Ford? No. Did he?

The cultist shoved the paper in his hand and turned to leave.

Bill grabbed her arm. "Stay out of Gravity Falls," he commanded. "But stay close. Don't go back to Death Valley." Between the sun damage and the tattoo, she had to be one of his Death Valley girls. She looked like their usual prey: disaffected middle class white woman, probably had a dead end job and a mediocre husband and a useless degree from a liberal arts college. Maybe being able to guess where she came from would impress her.

It did. She stopped and turned back and looked at him in amazement—and then looked at him, staring hard at his eye. "You're... hosting him, aren't you?" Her voice fell to a whisper. "No. Are you...?"

"You got me." He smiled wryly—behold him, electric god bound in flesh, how low he's fallen, but at least he still has his good humor, doesn't he? "I always said you had great intuition." (It was a safe bet. He usually told the ladies that they had great intuition. Most of them ate that up, and the ones that didn't were often a little too savvy to sucker.)

It worked. She inhaled sharply. "You are," she breathed. "I knew you'd be a woman. Oh, Mary's a fool." She said this like she'd just won some years-old argument Bill had missed.

Mary, as in Mary-whom-Bill-had-put-in-charge-of-the-Death-Valley-compound Mary? Ha. She was getting on in years; maybe Bill could start a schism, that sounded fun. He opened his mouth to say something about Mary having great leadership but waning clarity of vision—

—when the cultist leaned across the counter, grabbed his collar, and pulled him into a kiss.

Okay. All right. She was one of those cultists. Got it. Got it got it got it. Wow. Definitely a "mediocre husband" convert, those were easy to seduce away with a little warmth and affection—nothing obvious, but get them infatuated with the idea of an unattainable incorporeal ideal lover and they'd chase him to the ends of the earth. Maybe a lesbian in denial that Bill had decided to push further into denial, if her assumption about Bill's gender was anything to go by. He tried to remember what he'd told this one.

He leaned into the kiss.

He'd done this before—in dreams, in puppets—he didn't prefer humans, but he could handle them well enough and earthlings had such pretty eyes. And this body he was stuck in made such insistent demands; a surge of human hormones washed over his brain so powerfully it made him dizzy. She broke the kiss to murmur, "Cipher, my lord—" and he took the opportunity to kiss her eyelid and lie, "I knew if anyone could find me, it would be you." He wished he remembered her name. She tugged his face back down to her lips. She was so eager. Cipher, my lord. Oh, it felt good to be revered again—

The door opened. "Um?"

If Bill had had one ounce of his power, he would have killed Wendy on the spot.

Instead, he seized his cultist's hands, ripped them off his hoodie, and shoved her away. "Whoa, lady! What do you think this is, a kissing booth?!" He laughed angrily. "We don't offer that kind of service here! Either get out, or—or buy a souvenir already!" He pointed at Wendy. "From her. Not from me."

Shocked, the cultist turned toward where Bill was pointing; and then turned back, understanding in her eyes.

Wendy raised her hands defensively, grimacing. "Yeah, no, I'm not serving you either. Just... get outta here."

The cultist met Bill's gaze for just a moment, then walked quickly out the door without a word.

Bill shouted after her, "And do not come back!" and quietly mourned as, for the second time in as many weeks, he had to watch helplessly as he sent away his only hope of getting any action/rescue.

"I am so, so sorry," Wendy said. "I leave for like ten minutes and you get one of the nightmare customers."

How Bill loved nightmares. "Twenty-five minutes, but who's counting."

"Psh, shut up." Wendy reclaimed her post behind the counter. "I think she's been here before, she looks kinda familiar. You okay?"

Bill hoped nobody else in town would recognize her. "I think I'll live after some mouthwash. Terrible breath." He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Hey, remember when you said you owe me one? You really owe me."

####

All his cultist had written for him was a phone number. Bill slid his stolen journal from its window hiding spot and copied the number down in two-tone dots and dashes. Plaintext transcriptions were usually tricky, given the vast difference between the language Bill wrote in and the languages humans used—but numbers, at least, were easy. Everyone had numbers.

And then he stared at the scrap of paper, reading the numbers over and over, until he was sure he'd memorized them, just in case he ever lost the journal.

And then he ate the paper.

And then he stacked the two cushions of his makeshift bed on top of each other, planted his face in them, and screamed.

Cipher, my lord. It had felt so, so, so good to be revered again.

His organs twisted with touch-hunger and loneliness.

####

Out in the Bahamas, along the southwest edge of the Bermuda Triangle, were two nut job hermits from Miami. Bill had convinced them that the only way they could purge their sins and purify their souls was by sculpting and selling golden avatars of God into which they could pour their guilt, and they had to keep doing it until they no longer felt guilty (and they would never not feel guilty; they needed so much therapy that Bill had ensured they'd never get). And then he'd convinced them that God's true face was an Eye of Providence in a top hat and bow tie.

Over the years he'd lost a little control over those two—in their desperation to be free of sin, they'd also started sculpting avatars to as many gods as they could find and selling them en masse to afford more art supplies—but hey, as long as his face was still mixed in with the rest, fine. Honestly, he was surprised those nuts weren't dead yet.

Somebody in this house had sent his location to them. And in a moment of what Bill imagined was stunning mental clarity, they had passed on that information to the single least dysfunctional pocket of Bill's top cult in the continental United States. Maybe when Bill was back at full power, he'd drop by the hermits' dreams to tell them they'd finally achieved absolution and could rest. Their decades of out-of-control scrupulosity would probably prevent them from believing him, but hey, he could say he'd tried. He washed his hands of all responsibility over them and their mental illnesses that he'd knowingly deliberately exacerbated for his own benefit. Not his problem.

But the question he came back to, over and over, was who had talked to them.

Bill needed to reach his Death Valley cultist. He needed a phone. Every phone in this house was well-guarded. No one would let him touch one... except, perhaps, whoever had sent the SOS on his behalf.

The only person who made sense was Stanford. Bill didn't think he'd ever told Ford about the nutty sculptors; but in the eighties he had given him the mailing addresses of some niche art dealers who would sell tapestries and statues of an obscure one-eyed god to collectors who could appreciate what they were looking at. Maybe Ford had gotten back in contact with them? Maybe he'd told them where Bill was, and they'd passed the information to the Bahamas?

Maybe Ford's feelings weren't quite so cold toward Bill as he'd been pretending.

Bill liked that idea a lot.

Maybe Bill's birthday gift had swung Ford back around to the side of reason—reminded him just how good he'd had it under a muse and mentor willing to teach him anything his nerdy little heart desired. Or maybe he'd always wanted to come back, and had just needed Bill to say it first.

He probably only pretended he hated Bill because they were surrounded by enemies—everyone in the house thought Ford was looking for a way to destroy Bill, what would happen if they knew the truth?

But the truth was there. Bill could almost seize it in his hands. All those moments where they almost talked like they were friends again, before Ford had to stop himself and leave. That one beautiful little word: jealous. And of course, there was the whole thing with the glass pyramid and the "Mysteries" that Ford had passed on—

—to Mabel.

There was another possibility.

As much as Bill would love if it was Ford, Mabel was the only person in the house who acted like she actually wanted Bill alive. Whatever "Mysteries" Ford was teaching her had something to do with Bill, the pyramid made that obvious. Maybe his lessons included the contact information of everyone else Ford knew who knew Bill? Maybe she'd taken it upon herself to call for help?

It was thin. And it was still dependent upon Ford harboring a secret loyalty to Bill that he was passing on to his great-niece. But that was where things stood: Ford was the only person in the house who definitely knew how to reach Bill's followers, but Mabel was the only person in the house who definitely might want to.

And he had to make completely sure of which one of them it was before he asked for a favor.

####

Ford had missed dinner again.

Fiddleford had sent Ford home with a pile of math. All the calculations he'd done to get the miniature particle accelerator to produce Dontium. By his reckoning, that there jar should've filled with Dontium faster than greased lightning; he just plumb can't understand why it trickled in like cold molasses. (His words.) He'd asked Ford to check his work, see if he'd missed something.

Ford was more than happy to help. It was a much-needed intellectual challenge that didn't involve Bill's underhanded birthday gift. Something that would let him feel like he was making progress. And it was comfortingly familiar. He and Fiddleford had spent weeks checking and re-checking each other's math in the lead up to the portal test, before they knew what a horror they were building.

As soon as Ford had gotten home, he'd put Fiddleford's papers in his underground study before going back to bed. Bill had already admitted he could glimpse the future, although Ford wasn't sure how far; and Ford was growing convinced that Bill's ability to perceive "higher dimensions" let him see through walls like they weren't there. He'd begun keeping Journal 5 and other sensitive materials down in his study at all times, hoping that the distance and layers of dirt and rock would keep Bill from peering in.

And when he'd dragged himself out of bed around noon—an embarrassingly late hour to get up, but he had been awake most of the night—he'd grabbed a quick breakfast/lunch, brewed a pot of coffee to take with him, and gone below to get to work.

He'd only worked seven or eight hours with a couple of reluctant breaks in the middle before his head began pounding too hard for him to ignore. He'd been neglecting his exercise regimen the past few weeks, and his back and neck were letting him know. In his thirties, he'd been able to work fourteen hours days and still want to keep going—and that was even before he'd handed his body over to Bill so he could keep working around the clock. He wasn't as young as he used to be.

He dragged himself upstairs after sunset, when the last ambient light from the sky still faintly glowed through the windows. He could make something quick and simple for dinner, go to bed early, and get up early to continue working. He pushed through the door to the dark living room—

"Hello!"

"Gah!" Ford jumped. "You. What are you doing here?"

Bill was leaning next to the door, a dim silhouette with his elbow on the wall and cheek in his hand. Even in the dark, Ford was sure he could see Bill's wicked grin at his reaction. "I happen to live here."

Ford let out an irritated huff. "Whatever you're up to, I don't have time to deal with it. Find someone else to bother." He pushed past Bill and headed toward the kitchen.

It would have been too much to expect Bill not to follow him, wouldn't it? "Aw, c'mon, don't be like that! Would it kill you to act like you're happy to see me?"

"Probably."

Bill's laugh made Ford's shoulders raise up around his ears. Maybe that was the source of his neck pain.

Bill shadowed him into the kitchen and leaned on the table, watching while Ford rummaged through the fridge. "But seriously, Sixer—who are you trying to impress by giving me the cold shoulder? I'm the only one here. You could afford to treat me like a person for two minutes." When Ford slammed the fridge door, Bill smacked it with the tip of an 8-ball cane. "Hey, have my food privileges been revoked? Give me a turn."

How long had Bill had a weapon? Ford snatched the cane from him, but opened the fridge and left it. "I don't consider you a person. I consider you an incalculably destructive force of pure, brutal chaos." He cracked three eggs in a skillet and opened a cabinet for one of the stove knobs they kept stored where Bill couldn't reach them.

"Flattering!" Bill started pulling out his usual nauseating array of condiments: today was sauerkraut, maraschino cherries, mustard, ranch dressing, and barbecue sauce. (Why did he eat like that? Did his species usually subsist on a mostly liquid diet? Was it the flavors—?) "Hey, make me mac 'n' cheese, wouldja?"

"No."

"Fine. Leave the burner on when you're done, I'll make it myself."

"You're not allowed to use the stove."

"Then how about I sit here drinking mustard while you enjoy a hot meal." Bill waved three eggs at Ford. "At least make me eggs too. Zero extra effort on your part. I'll even crack them for you if you want."

Ford gave Bill a dark look; but he supposed, as one of the people who had agreed that Bill wasn't allowed to cook, he was in no position to complain about Bill begging him to cook on his behalf. He snatched the eggs out of Bill's hand. "How do you want them."

"I haven't eaten enough chicken eggs to have a preference. Whatever you'll complain least about doing."

Poorly scrambled eggs it was. Ford shut the fridge and returned to the stove.

Bill sat on the table and crossed his legs in lotus position while he waited. "But really, what do you get out of pretending you can't stand me! We both know it's an act."

Ford gave him a tired, sour look. "Even for you, you sound delusional."

"I know you don't really hate me."

"I could write an entire dissertation and earn another Ph.D. on the topic of how much I hate you."

Ford hated how excited Bill looked by that. "Would you?"

"No! Why would I waste that much time thinking about you?"

"It seems to me like you're already doing that."

The hair on the back of Ford's neck prickled. Surely Bill just meant Ford's research into how to kill him; but his mind flashed to the miniature grimoire he'd spent all his time poring over—the blueprints of Bill's childhood home—the face he'd absent-mindedly drawn in his journal in the middle of the night and quickly scribbled out. Could Bill still see through that face? Had Ford remembered to blind Bill's eye on the blueprints? What about the eyes drawn in his human faces? Did Bill know about Ford's other studies? What did it matter—nothing Ford was doing was wrong. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Bill's smile slowly widened. "Sure you don't. You might hate me to my face, but behind my back you're as obsessed with me as ever. You might as well lean into it."

You're using avoiding him as an excuse to obsess over him even more in private. "I am not..." Wasn't he? You're acting like a stalker, Sixer.

"Oh, Fordsy, come on." Bill uncrossed his legs, slid off the table, and was across the room faster than Ford had expected. Ford instinctively took a step back and bumped into the oven; Bill reached past him to lean a hand against the edge of the stove, inches from touching him. "You're not hiding it half as well as you think you are. Did you think I wouldn't notice?" He smirked up at Ford, exposed eye wide and eager, utterly fascinated with him. "And bringing Mabel in on it? I'll have to admit, that surprised me. Can't say I disapprove, though."

Ford couldn't tell if the heat on the back of his neck was from Bill's accusations or the stove. "I beg your pardon?" What was he talking about—their conversation in Portland? The blueprints of Bill's home? (Using his great-niece to spy on Bill, lord, what was Ford doing?)

"Quit messing around! The Mysteries, Stanford. You think I don't know I'm the star of that show?" He poked the center of Ford's chest, "There's no way you joined a cult, you're not enough of a team player! What'd you do? Invent your own cult of one? Mixed a little of what I taught you, a little of whatever you learned out in the multiverse? I know you were asking around about me." Bill chuckled. "You want to keep your little rituals private, fine—I think it's cute, really—just tell me one thing I've been dying to know: how much have you told the kid?"

Ford stared at Bill.

Then he laughed in his face. "You really bought that?"

Bill's smile immediately vanished. "What?"

Ford shoved Bill's hands away. "There are no 'Mysteries.' It was a joke."

Bill stepped back, staring at Ford, brows furrowed. "A...? No," he said. "She's got that glass pyramid—"

"She wanted it because it was pretty," Ford said. "I gave her one since I was throwing them all out."

"That's the stupidest story I've ever heard. Then why would she have brought up the Mysteries!"

"Because," Ford said, "I told her, if you asked about the pyramid, she should make up something to confuse you."

Bill's mouth was open, but no words came out. His face had rapidly turned red. Several emotions flashed across his face in quick succession, from shock to confusion to humiliation to a rage so deep it almost looked like disgust. For a moment, from how Bill's fingers were curling like claws, Ford was sure Bill was about to attack him.

But then he clenched his jaw, backed off, leaned on the table, jammed his fists down against the tabletop, and glared at the floor.

Ford turned back to the stove, grinning to himself. Some of the eggs had burned slightly. Those were Bill's now. "What's the matter? Did you forget that humans can lie?"

Bill didn't reply.

"I'm surprised you didn't expect it. I seem to remember we got you with an impressive whopper last year—"

"Shut up."

"Now you don't want to talk?"

"Now you do?"

Good point; he didn't. If he'd finally rendered Bill speechless, he should enjoy it while he could.

He'd have to thank Mabel later for inventing the Mysteries. Sometimes that girl could be genius.

Ford turned off the burner, put the stove knob away, and dumped the eggs onto two plates. He didn't even bother to keep track of which plate had the burned eggs.

He shot a quick, exasperated look at Bill—he'd sat on top of the table again—and dropped a plate next to him. "Here." He grabbed a bag of bread and looked around for the toaster.

Behind him, voice trembling but low and dangerous, Bill said, "Don't look at me like that."

Ford glanced back warily. "Like what?"

Bill violently shoved off the table. There was an awful squeal of sliding furniture. Before Ford could react, Bill was in his face, grabbing him by his turtleneck, dragging him in, forcing him to look up at Bill.

Ford's peripheral vision was filled with gold. They were so close their noses nearly touched.

"Like you don't remember who I am!" Bill stared down with wide-eyed seething rage. "Your muse!" His voice cracked, "Your god!"

Ford stared up at Bill, speechless.

Then he looked down.

Bill was standing on a chair to make himself taller than Ford.

Ford ripped Bill's hands off his sweater. "You were never, ever my god."

Bill stumbled off the chair, catching himself hard on the edge of the table to keep from falling completely. "That's not true!" He heaved himself back onto his feet with a wince. "You worshiped me—"

"I admired you!" Ford jabbed a finger at Bill's chest. "I respected you! I—I even idolized you, but I never worshiped you!"

Bill jabbed a finger back, "You're splitting hairs! You practically turned your study into a temple to me—tapestries, rugs, statues—"

"Because you said it would help me reach you!"

"And it did! That's what shrines are for, genius!"

"It wasn't a shrine! Not to me."

"You're kidding me! All the money you dropped on that gold-plated statue and you expect me to believe that wasn't an act of worship—"

"Do not. Remind me. How much. That stupid statue cost."

"If you didn't build a shrine for worship then what in the world did you build it for!"

"Friendship!" Ford took a shaky breath in. "I thought... I honestly thought you—you—were my best friend." The air in the room trembled with heat. They were standing too close to each other. Ford refused to be the one to back up.

"I was," Bill said. "I still could be if you'd stop being a moron."

Ford laughed in disbelief. "Which is it, were you my god or my friend?!"

"They're not mutually exclusive—!"

"You can't keep your story straight for THIRTY SECONDS!"

"Don't you call me a LIAR, after EVERYTHING I taught you—!"

"In all the years I've known you I don't think you've told me the truth ONCE—!"

Stan flipped on the lights.

They froze and stared at him. They had their hands around each other's throats. Bill had a foot planted on Ford's stomach like he was trying to get a foothold to climb him. They were both covered in egg.

Stan said, "Could you do this in the morning?"

Ford said, "Sure."

Bill said, "He started it."

"I st—?! You started all of this thirty years ago—"

"Guys," Stan said tiredly.

With some effort, Ford unpeeled his hands from Bill's neck.

To his surprise, Bill voluntarily let go as well. Ford snatched up what was left of his plate of eggs, took the loaf of bread—he had lighters, he could toast it downstairs—and left the kitchen, turning the light off as he went.

Stan was waiting out in the entryway. "Heading to bed?"

"No." Ford shoveled a forkful of eggs in his mouth. "Going to be up late." He was too angry to sleep. He could eat, take a painkiller for his headache, and keep working.

"More research?"

"No. Calculations."

Stan's shoulders slumped; but all he said was, "Suit yourself. Don't stay up too late."

Ford glanced back once into the kitchen. Bill wasn't moving. He sat slumped in a chair, elbows on his knees. He'd pulled on his hood. Its eye stared at Ford.

Ford wasn't about to pity Bill over a performative display of angst. He'd fallen for that already.

He returned to his study and mathematics.

####

Bill stared at his plate of eggs. He mechanically pushed them around on the plate until they formed a perfect equilateral triangle. He scooped out an empty white eye in the middle.

He stood, snatched up the plate, and smashed it on the floor.

They thought he was stupid. They thought he couldn't use a stove if it didn't have knobs, as if he was a child! The humans made it easy for themselves to think of him as a child when they treated him like one, "baby-proof the doors" and "no sharp objects" and "don't talk to strangers." He could show them.

He grabbed the stem where one of the knobs had been removed, and twisted. He heard the hiss of gas under the burner. Everyone was asleep. He could fill the house with gas. It would only take a little push to make a spark and set the entire shack ablaze. In the dark room, he could see the first glimpse of future flames flickering yellow-orange in the periphery of his foresight. No one would survive. Who's your god now, smart guy? He'd rise like a phoenix from his own corpse and he'd tear this town apart.

Where was Mabel?

Was she home tonight?

Bill turned off the gas.

He pushed up his sleeve and pressed the fleshy part of his forearm onto the still-hot burner. The pain burned away his jumbled anger so he could think clearly.

Who cared how the nutty sculptors had gotten Bill's address? He was making good progress on lucid dreaming; maybe he'd astral projected across the country to call for help and forgotten it when he woke up. He'd probably saved himself without even remembering it. It didn't matter. The important thing was that they'd received the message; and now, Bill had friends on the outside. Friends who were on his side.

If he could ever contact them again.

Bill would find a way. He didn't need Ford's help. "Never worshiped you." Ha.

He needed fresh air. Even if it wasn't safe to escape yet, he needed to breathe. He carried himself backward through doorway into the gift shop, pulled aside the curtain hiding the ladder to the roof—

The trap door was shut. He stared up in despair.

He shot a glare toward the vending machine, and angrily crossed back into the living room.

The air was so stuffy inside the shack. "Never worshiped you." Liar. If it wasn't worship then what was it?

Bill took himself upstairs. Hunger gnawed at his stomach. He lay on his makeshift bed curled up around himself, arms wrapped tight across his stomach, his burn pressed hard against a layer of knit yarn, thighs pulled up against his arms. It was a wholly alien position. It felt unnatural and bizarre. This body had curled like this of its own volition. It seemed like the only thing that briefly smothered the ache of emptiness and the hormonal inferno screaming loneliness through every vein. The loneliness wasn't his. He wasn't lonely. This body was. 

Cipher, my lord.

He hated this body.

He ached to be revered again.

####

It was two in the morning. Ford sat at his desk, pages and pages of math scattered before him, glasses off, hand rubbing his eyes.

He didn't want to be checking a mountain of math like a human calculator. He wanted to be studying strange magic and researching new anomalies. He wanted to be digging through Bill's grimoire.

He wanted to be awed again.

####

(I've been waiting to write/draw Bill screaming his grief over not being worshiped since literally April. I hope y'all enjoyed! This is one of my favorite chapters so far, I'd love to hear what y'all think!!)

[gribbo]

Wyll's new companions come from near and far: the spires of Waterdeep, the shires of Reaching, the ever-wheeling stars. And, he thinks with a pang, a dearer place.

"It's been years since I last saw the city," he says—and if he leaves out a pertinent detail, no one's parasite squirms in protest. "How fares the Gate?"

"The city's a rathole," says Astarion, making a fanged face. "Public health ordinances never pass. I should know."

"It's the same as ever," says Shadowheart, elusive. "I don't miss the smell."

Wyll misses the smell. Balduran's bones, he misses the smell—sausage pasties sizzling in the Wide, patriars' wafting perfume, the salt and sweat and tar on the westering wind. The green, tender bouquet of Portyr's hothouse garden. The grease that Father rubbed into his coat of mail. The stinking streets of Heapside that he'd played tag in as a boy, splashing through puddles beyond description, arriving home filthy to the knees and full of thorns from climbing the trellis. It's no wonder, after everything the Pride of the Gate got up to, that his father believed he could do worse mischief still.

(But his father, the blacksmith's son, had always scolded him with a smile—)

Poor, abandoned pup, croons a voice like poisoned treacle in his ear. No one else looks up. On his neck wafts a breath of sulfurous perfume. No use scratching at that door, you know.

He tries not to talk to invisible fiends in others' hearing. It's simple enough to slip from their company, in the bustle of the tieflings' shanty-camp, and walk—then, when he's out of sight, stalk—behind an outcrop of greening stone. "I'm not a dog."

Of course you aren't. The treacle all but oozes down his neck. You're a Blade—my Blade, the voice adds, sticky-smug, in case you've forgotten.

"How could I?" The old anger rises stiffly, like some beast frail with age; he stays its snarling with the old patience. When he taps the sending-stone, his whole face smarts. "Even when I sleep, this bauble rolls around in my head like a—"

How am I to know when you're asleep? whines the voice, feigning petulance. Then it sweetens again. I only peek through your poor eye every now and then—to make sure that my valiant Wyll is well. Two spectral fingers walk up his arm to pinch his cheek. Hard. You know I worry so.

Either she's in a good mood, or a very bad one. The difference is not always clear. Wyll touches his sword-hilt, for all the good it will do him. "Tell me what you want."

I want the head of Karlach Demonsbane, the voice snaps like molasses in the pan. Flame-roasted, à la carte. And it's been so very long since I ordered. The wait times, these days! Tut-tut.

Four long, lacquered nails trace the scars that mar his cheek. He hadn't flinched at seventeen; he doesn't flinch now. "No one says tut-tut, Mizora."

He's never seen a cambion lose her composure—but no cambion, he thinks, has ever seen him lose his. He watches his shadow stretch across the grass—

An insubstantial chin rests on his pauldron. From his shadow, like an omen or a growth, unfolds the vast shadow of a wing.

I wouldn't tarry long, if I were you, murmurs the devil on his shoulder. He doesn't flinch. Her nails, long enough to reach out of Baator, prick his throat like points of fire. Remember what you signed.

* * *

They rest that night in the tieflings' camp, in cloaks and wagon-beds, full of Okta's gruel. Gale grumbles and rubs his knee. Lae'zel, with brusque affection, tends her sword. The refugees murmur and cast bright, shy looks at the Blade of Frontiers.

The Demonsbane, he thinks, is a danger to them, too. He flicks a fleck of dust from his rapier's tip.

"Is it sharp?" asks a small voice at his shoulder.

He smiles. "As a dragon's fang."

Lae'zel raises a scarred eyebrow, but says nothing. Wyll settles the sword in his lap as the boy—one of the orphan-thieves, thin as a pauper, his horns buried in a mop of curls—steals around him to peek at his face.

"Mol, um—she says you'll help us," the child mumbles, abashed, toeing a line in the dirt. His eyes flick to his feet, then up again. "You and your friends. Will you, really?"

Exile looks at exile.

"I am your Blade," says Wyll, and touches a solemn fist to his heart.

[ttrpg-smash-pass-vs]

The night hag is a human-sized shapeshifting fiend steals and deals in souls. She tracks people down and harrasses them in thier sleep for weeks. They're experts in ambushes as they pop in and out of the spirit realm, usually are found with flaming spectral horses known as Nightmares, and are as strong as a bear. Warning however, if she scratches you it'll drain your fortitude, and they have incredible innate magic to bind your soul, put you to sleep, speak in or join your dream, give you nightmares, and turn invisible! On the bright side, they're very easy to bargin with as long as they think they have the upper hand.

[xphaiea]

SPRING-HEELED JACK by XPHAIEA

First witnessed in the early 19th century, Spring Heeled-Jack was a menacing spectral fiend, who delighted in terrorising London especially frightening young women whose clothing he would tear and personages he would maul at, as well as jumping in the pathway of coaches and causing dreadful accidents.

Jack was popularly imagined to be a tall, thin figure in a long black cloak, with clawed hands and fearsome eyes that "resemble red balls of fire" whilst also also commonly depicted as breathing blue or white flame and emitting a maniacal devilish laugh.

This urban prankster was often depicted in Penny Dreadfuls and other sensation fiction of the Victorian period.

[sleepanonymous]

Information about this song under the cut.

I could have sworn I posted this before? But I guess not? I must have made fun of the Chimp Spanner mention somewhere else 🤷‍♀️ Ves is a music nerd and I love him.

Anyway! For more context:

This was the digital art that baby Ves used for the video upload. A little bit of digging shows it may have been titled The Deep Abyss.

For those who don't know, Chimp Spanner is, and I quote from his Instagram, a "Producer, multi-instrumentalist and coffee fiend" 😏 Sound similar to someone we know? Anyway, I'm not familiar enough with his music to pinpoint which song baby Ves ripped off for the intro of this song, but if you know let me know 🖤

[avoicebehindthestars]

Under the Samhain Sky

I wrote this fic for Halloween last year, but never shared it on tumblr, so I figured I might as well, since it's this time of year again :) Enjoy and don't forget to leave kudos and comments <3

Rating: T

Status: complete

Word-count: 27k

About: A canon-compliant adventure in pre-Christian Ireland

Summary:

On a night of wonder and dread a certain angel is left stranded on Earth, defenceless in the face of horrors of myth and legend until the Serpent of Eden comes to his aid. Hidden from heaven's scrutinising eye, Aziraphale and Crowley find a chance to explore their timidly budding friendship that seems to carry subtle tones of something more.

Excerpt:

The angel couldn’t control the shivering of his body. He tried scooting further back but the loose earth escaped from beneath his hands and feet. He began to sob.

‘Leave him,’ a nefarious voice came seemingly out of nowhere. ‘He’s-ss mine!’

The creature hissed looking around. The ground crumbled and yet another, even larger creature emerged. At first, Aziraphale wasn’t able to discern and details of its vague shape. The monstrously massive head seemed to merge into one with the body without any neck to speak of and without any limbs protruding to its sides. The gangly creature spread out its wings and readied itself to fight over its prey.

‘You know what I am,’ the one that came from underground spoke calmly but threateningly. ‘You know who I s-ss-erve. Leave.’

But the grey spectral had no intention of heeding the warning. Instead it charged right at the massive monster. Aziraphale knew he shouldn’t waste his time observing the scuffle. He was about to roll onto his four, get up and start running when a piercingly sharp pain in his ankle forced him back on the ground. He must’ve sprained it when he fell.

Meanwhile, the monster shapeshifted into a man-like entity, its long hair falling on its shoulders in chestnut (or was it scarlet?) waves, and overpowered the grey fiend. The spectral shrieked as its now seemingly human opponent pressed it to the ground and twisted one of its wings painfully.

‘I did warn you,’ said the victor, his voice now clearer and less otherworldly.

The creature tried to wriggle its way from the powerful hold, but the warrior wouldn’t let go. Instead, he kept wringing out the wing until one of the bone snapped and the spectral cried with agony. Only then did he lessen his hold. The loser didn’t take its chances this time, immediately dashing off and taking to the sky. It flew away awkwardly with the broken wing barely supporting its weight.

The remaining contestant turned around slowly and faced Aziraphale, his yellow eyes glowing against the low moon.

‘Mind telling me what you’re doing here, angel?’

Aziraphale realised he had quite forgotten how to breathe. He now let out a deep quivering sigh of massive relief, finally certain that the thought that had occurred to him just a moment earlier was indeed true.

‘Crowley!’ he exhaled with a grateful smile.

@goodomensafterdark

[spacetimesally]

Dr. Fedley's abandoned Rejuvenation Chamber & Health Emporium becomes the makeshift hideout for the Potterson Gang, but as Sally goes in search of the ne'er-do-wells, she finds the healthy-minded hotspot has become a house of horrors in, "Frighten the Devil"

Other Timelines, Other Lifetimes Series…

Other Timelines, Other Lifetimes Series - The Astounding Wonders of Spacetime Sally, envisioned as a 1920s/30s pulp era sci-fi serial, this timeline/lifetime would see Captain Sally Hannigan as the number one ace pilot of Metropolitan Star Command defending and protecting earth’s capitol city, New St. Vivian, a sprawling metropolis and home to earth’s first spaceport.

...

I had ChatGPT-4 recreate the above storyline blurb as an old-timey sci-fi serial radio drama:

Listeners of discernment and aficionados of the astral drama, lend your ears to the unfolding saga of 'Spacetime Sally,' our valiant voyager of the void! In the chilling narrative of this episode, entitled 'Frighten the Devil,' a venue of vanished vitality comes to the fore.

Behold, Dr. Fedley's once-celebrated Rejuvenation Chamber & Health Emporium, a sanctuary for the ailing and the aged, now forsaken and forgotten. Yet within its silent halls lurks a presence most vile—the notorious Potterson Gang, scoundrels of the spacelanes, have claimed this deserted haven as their den of iniquity.

But fear not, for our dauntless Sally, ever the beacon of justice, embarks upon a quest to unearth these malefactors. As she delves deeper into the depths of the emporium, what was once a haven of healing reveals its true nature—a veritable house of horrors!

What unspeakable terrors await our heroine as she confronts the fiends within? Can Sally unveil the mysteries shrouded in the shadows of this ghastly retreat? Join us, dear audience, in 'Frighten the Devil,' where courage confronts the macabre, and the spectral secrets of the emporium await to be laid bare!

Do not miss this harrowing chapter in the adventures of 'Spacetime Sally,' where the eerie and the ethereal intertwine in a tale that will surely chill you to the marrow! Tune in, hold your breath, and prepare to be enthralled by the spectral spectacle!

[williamvapespeare]

i will make you reveal all your dark secrets: 22, 43, 36,

I will always reveal my secrets to you <3

22. Are there certain types of writing you won’t do? (style, pov, genre, tropes, etc)

Ok first of all if I'm getting paid I'd give anything a stab LOL. but personally there are a lot of styles, tropes, etc I don't like to read or write - not because they're bad or anything, just not my preference. more specifically I guess I really don't tend to do a lot of AUs (specifically different world/genre, etc ones), but I loooove reading them - a really good writer can take characters and put them into another time and place so PERFECTLY and have all these little hints of canon in there and it hits so good. It's just not what I tend to gravitate towards myself.

43. Do you take a sadistic joy in whumping your characters, or are you more the "If you hurt them I would kill everyone and then myself" kind of person?

>:) (nah but actually, I loooove making the lads sad it is known. I'm also just a h/c fiend and one just leads so nicely into the other!! I also like putting characters in high stress situations and letting them spiral their way out of it.)

36. How do you write kissing scenes?

Like this,

The thing was, once they started kissing, they never really seemed to stop. Edwin kissed like the world had ended and he was clinging to the last solid thing alive or dead, like the floor might drop out from under their spectral feet at any moment, or a massive spider might burst through the wall and drag him away through a portal to Hell. That last one made Charles cling too, a little harder than he might have with anyone else. With anyone else, he'd never been able to face this: need, desperation.

But Edwin took desperate and made it something else entirely. He would walk up to Charles, when he perched on the edge of the desk, with his head tilted slightly and the same look on his face that he used to study particularly tricky line of translation, or puzzle logic out of two unrelated clues. It was that look, but a little bit sharper, dark eyes and the a small tick at the corner of Edwin's lips. It made Charles - well, it made him want to bloody explode - but he'd settled for pinching himself once. He didn't feel it, but it worked just the same to get his mind back from where it was leaking out the edges of his ears.

And speaking of feeling, he couldn't feel that, but what he could feel was Edwin's hands sliding up his thighs, warm through the thin material of Charles' trousers. His fingers were long and pretty and Charles hadn't really thought much about whether fingers could be pretty, before he saw Edwin's. Those fingers were still moving, skimming up the front of Charles' polo to tug lightly on the gold chain around his neck, and Charles was already there to meet him, his hands cupping Edwin's waist, pulling him the rest of the way against his chest, until the warmth was everywhere.

Edwin's mouth was warm too, his lips soft and then insistent, his tongue flicking against Charles' lower lip. Charles grinned a little, despite himself, settled one hand in the small of Edwin's back and felt him arch very slightly against it.

They'd already sussed out a lot of what they liked - Edwin's hands in Charles' hair, tugging lightly, Charles' lips on Edwin's neck, his jaw, the sensitive place just below his ear - and some of what they didn't - Edwin being held down, or anything that put too much attention on a few scars Charles hadn't bothered to remember in years.

...Ok idk where it's going i'm gonna end there hope u enjoyed lol

[aerialsquid]

FFXIV Write 2024 Day 17: Sally

(Continuation of this scene.)

Author Note: This fragment has a content warning for nonconsensual aether feeding that might tangentially resemble an assault. Idk how to tag this besides 'fantastical violation metaphorically resembling real world ones' but like. Make your reading choices accordingly.

--------

It didn't hurt, was the problem. Even with his chronic anxiety Martyn took far too long to realize something had gone terribly wrong. Dollmaker had put the weird mouth embedded halfway down its neck on Martyn before, after all. No reason to not assume this was more of its wet kisses. Whatever strange stilling of the aether that Dollmaker did to disassemble and reassemble its dolls meant there was no pain when the teeth sank into Martyn's shoulder and the vast, dark maw began to feed. 

There was an odd tugging, a sense of dizziness, a feeling of cold creeping along his arm and then a feeling of emptiness that even someone who'd touched every magical discipline Eorzea would allow had no vocabulary to describe - not just emptiness, but an active, sucking void, a whirlpool that he was being pulled into.

His weary mind frantically battered the pieces of his thoughts together with the strange sensation until finally, by a mercy, the answer snapped into place.

The voidsent was devouring his aether, bite by slow bite.

This wasn't – I didn't agree to this, stop this–

"My doll, precious doll, sweet doll," Dollmaker moaned. "And how delicious your essence. Sweet and potent, fluttering with purest life. Just a taste, doll, just a taste, you owe me that much, you owe me…"

The oddly comforting locks around his limbs now revealed themselves for the chains they had always been. Martyn couldn't move, couldn't scream as the teeth dug into his flesh. The massive tongue laved at his arm, drawing his essence in deeper down the voidsent's throat.

Nonononono

His cane was across the room, as useless as if it were in remote Thavnair. Nothing to channel with. No focus. Incredibly unsafe, incredibly ineffective, but good gods he couldn't even cry for help. With that monstrous mouth across his vision, all Martyn could think of was the rotting undead goobue wandering the ruins of Amdapor, its hunger so vast that its own stomach had opened a maw of its own. The Gourmand, they'd called it. 

Spectral teeth bared in the dim light of the tunnel and snapped down on Dollmaker's gluttonous neck. The monster jerked, body wriggling at the impact. "What is this? What–" It slapped the teeth away. The slow drawing in of aether continued, but it had broken Dollmaker's focus just long enough.

By force Martyn ordered his body to flinch away, his neck to turn inch by agonizing inch. He pulled in what precious aether Dollmaker hadn't already devoured, coiling it, sharpening it.

Don't touch me don't touch me you can't touch me

Protection to harm his enemies, to make any hand that touched him suffer. The sharp edges of a thousand sabotender needles exploded from Martyn's body. Dollmaker screeched, dropping Martyn's body from its arms as it clawed at the tiny spines embedded in its dark flesh. Another burst and spikes of ice slammed into its mask, leaving a crack along it. Glowing blue seeped through the crack and the eyeholes of the mask, shimmering in tune with the rising rage in its voice.

"Fiend, how dare–how–!"

Later, Martyn would realize the moment the rage turned to horror and regret in the voidsent's glowing gaze. Right now, he just wanted the vile thing to burn. 

Martyn shook himself, rolling up to curl on his side. His clumsy arms folded around himself, a protective gesture for the blue mage's last resort. When you couldn't win a fight, you made it a draw. Fire aether channeled between his palms. The dripping voidsent reached out for him again, its voice high and piteous.

"Wait–doll, please, Martyn–"

There was the reek of sulfur, the crack and roar of flame, and then nothing at all.

--------

Credited as the source of the “bomb” voidsent family's name, Self-destruct, when used by blue mages, converts the entirety of its caster's energy into fire-aspected aether to cause an explosion. The application of oil has been observed to make it more effective─though likely also more painful.

[driftward]

Title: FFXIV Write 2024 - 28. Deleterious Characters: Zoissette Vauban, Solita Grey Rating: Teen Summary: The effect that naturalist had been having on the town seer was subtle, but the damage may yet be long lasting Notes: Weird Wild West AU - Desertwalkers

Solita held on tight as her chocobo's feet thundered over the landscape.

She was furious at the situation. She was furious with herself. She felt stupid, and it was only her own fault.

The naturalist!

The effect of that damned naturalist had been subtle, insidious. Solita had kept a close eye on her. She had been careful with the information she had doled out to her, kept an ear open for any rumors that surrounded her, had listened whenever she had come back excited about some discovery or new learning. She had been so convinced that the woman was a risk, that she was hiding something nefarious, that she was going to be a problem, that she completely blinded herself to the truth.

She had become blind to her own self, failing to listen to her own intuitions, ignoring the reality of the woman.

Zoissette Vauban was a well meaning, earnest, curious idiot.

Nothing more. That was it. She was not here for profit, she was not here to try and exploit the land, to try to defraud people, not here to run a long confidence game. She was exactly what she claimed to be.

And now, Solita's passive negligence had put her in danger. She had trusted Solita to provide enough information to guide her through these lands. Solita had been careful to follow the letter of their agreement, but not its spirit, and now it may well be the fell spirits of this land that would lead to the fall of the naturalist.

The real shame of it was that Zoissette was a useful woman. The Scions had learned much from her work, and she was eager to go about it. Solita could have nurtured a very different relationship with the woman, possibly even developed her into a member of the coven. Instead, if Zoissette survived this, she would almost have to drop her as a client.

Perhaps she would be amenable to a new contract. Starting over as though a fresh client, and allow the mistake to be overlooked.

And perhaps Bealsar would turn over his town, Louisoix would make a triumphant return, and Thancred would stop mooning over that school mistress and just ask her out already.

There were other more immediate problems. Solita cast about, clinging tighter to the chocobo saddle while she sunk herself gently into the Weave, feeling it whip by her as she tried to turn her sight outward, further, to catch any sign of the naturalist, while also keeping a wary eye out for any cerul rheums. This area of the ceruleum fields were dangerous, with fiends that were drawn to the energies of the area, scattered open shallows in the ground where the stuff came to the surface, and the occasional fire as one ignited for some reason or another.

A flash drew her sight. A loud bang. A rheum, ballooning and popping, possibly splitting into two. And a flare, cerul catching, casting its light high into the night. She hauled around, and brought the chocobo to bear. As they got closer to where she thought she had seen something, she drew her staff, and readied it, pulling on Weave, waiting to face whatever she saw there.

They were close, now. She thought she could see Zoissette Vauban.

She definitely could see a spirit. A ghostly spectral form with a purple aura, sharp and stark in the folds of the Weave. As they approached, it turned towards them, and she saw its eyes flash into purple orbs it as it brought its hands up. Tendrils of energy flowed off of it and its skirt - it was wearing a dress- flared out.

Solita barreled off the chocobo saddle, and rolled as she hit the ground, bringing her staff and her power to bear.

"Mistress!" the ghost called out, placing itself between Solita and Zoissette. Zoissette spun around, bringing a gun to bear.

"Solita?"

The Weave crackled around them, waxing with power being drawn, already flexing from whatever had happened previously. It was the thickness of the air before a storm, lightning in the wings of the clouds, power eager to be wielded and released.

The ghost's hair and form were wild, but it was not attacking Zoissette. In fact, it had materialized in the real, and small hexagonal shapes were appearing in the air wherever Solita pointed her staff. A shield of some sort. Of Pattern?

Solita looked to Zoissette, and held, looking for an opening against the ghost, but waiting.

Zoissette lowered her gun, and put a hand on the ghost's shoulder. "It is alright, Lavender. I know her. She means us no harm."

The tension held for a moment longer, but then the storm passed. Lavender lowered her hands, and she faded, leaving the material but remaining manifested. Only those sensitive to Weave would be able to see her, now, as her form became more ghostly, see through, but her outline and shape became more defined.

She looked like an elf. One with pale blue-gray skin, wearing a very old fashioned purple dress. The glow left her eyes, and she looked quite normal. Hovering slightly, feet above the firmament, but those eyes were unusual for a ghost. They were quite human.

Lavender inspected Solita warily, but folded her hands in front of her. Solita, her breath still hard, and her heart still pounding, slowly put her staff away, and stood up straight, regarding her in turn. The Weave responded, calming, the feeling of static in the air dying away.

"I saw a flash in the weave," said Solita. "I thought to investigate. Is all well?"

Zoissette nodded, turning away again, and crouching near what looked like thick ceruleum-coloured gel on the ground. "It is now. Here, look what I found. Some kind of rheum, but I do not think I have ever seen the type. It could shift form and mimic shapes, and I think it apparated from the immaterial."

"I assensed its approach and reacted accordingly, notifying the mistress," said Lavender, who was still keeping a sharp eye on Solita. "She was able to use her gun to dispatch it."

Solita walked over, slowly, trying to effect a casualness so as not to offend the ghost further. She peered over Zoissette's shoulder at the remains of the rheum.

"Cerul rheum," she said. "A risk out here after the misadventure of another naturalist. There are warding stones that are meant to keep them at bay, but we've not yet been able to replenish all of them. The particulars of those stones which have the correct properties and whence we might source them is a problem we have yet to determine the solution to."

Zoissette nodded, and pulled out a notebook, taking a few notes. Solita glanced over at Lavender.

"The ghost is with you, then?"

"Ah, how terribly rude of me, I apologize. Give me a moment to finish this here..."

Zoissette finished scribbling her note, then stood, and turned to face the two.

"Lavender, please meet Solita Grey, the seer who has been helping me with my research since we have arrived. Solita Grey, this is Lavender, my friend and constant companion. She is a ghost, one with a long history. She has been with the family for generations."

Lavender gave a curtsey in midair, and Soltia, after a moment, returned the gesture.

Zoissette let out a long sigh, and settled into the ground. "And now, after that little demonstration of hers, I fear I need to sit, rest, recollect myself, and probably eat something. I think I shall return to camp. Will you be joining us?"

Solita looked around, but saw no further threats.

"...I think I had better," she said.

Zoissette nodded, and after a few moments, got herself back up. As a group, they retrieved her chocobo which was some distance away, and over the next bell or so made their way over to where Zoissette had set up a bed roll, a fire pit, and some minor concessions to comfort out under the stars.

Solita was glad that Thancred had the presence of mind to always be prepared, and that she would have a bedroll of her own.

Assuming, of course, that she remained welcome.

Zoissette performed a few minor camp chores before slumping in a seat next to the fire. Lavender hovered nearby, keeping an eye out, but did glance over from time to time.

Solita settled to sit nearby, in the rare situation of being uncertain how to start the conversation she wished to have.

"I must admit, I am surprised to see you out here," said Zoissette. "You have never shown much interest in accompanying me on my field work, and such is certainly not within the scope of our agreements."

"Providing you with the means and information to accomplish your tasks is, however," said Solita. "And in that, I am here to correct a failure."

"Oh?"

Her stomach tightened. She lifted her chin, and squarely met Zoissette's gaze, looking directly at her own reflection in the other woman's glasses.

"I neglected to inform you of the full scope of the threats you would face here," she said. "I knew well that the warding stones had been damaged by a previous excursion, and that the full nature of the cerul rheums was yet unknown. You would have benefitted from that knowledge, and from having a Weave-worker such as myself with you."

Zoissette nodded. "Well, thank you, then, for coming out here."

"Do not thank me," said Solita. "The failure on my part was intentional."

Zoissette tilted her head.

"Why?"

No prevarication, no outburst. Just a simple question, cut to the quick.

It was near how Solita would have handled the matter herself, though with rather more heat.

She did not quail. That was not her way. She would face this, with honesty and truth.

"We have had incidents with so-called naturalists before. Might you recall our first meeting, where I described the actions I suspected you might engage in while you were here? You dismissed it at the time as sensationalist drivel."

Zoissette frowned, but nodded.

"I but told you the tales of those who preceded you. We have had trouble with naturalists before, and though I am not wont to paint with an overly broad stroke, the last one made a particularly poor impression. With particularly disastrous consequences. The consequences which led to the re-emergence and adaptation of the very cerul rheums, one of which you encountered tonight."

"You thought I might be like that."

"I thought you were. You had many of her mannerisms. A severe-seeming politeness, a genteel affectation. Particularity on matters to a fine and sharp point. A keen mind, and sharp eyes."

"I do not not even know what that is meant to mean."

"It means naught, but I allowed it to mean much. I was so certain you were a threat, that I refused to take you at face value for who you are. Even as you demonstrated, again and again, the inherent honesty and truth of your spirit."

Solita was angry. Angry at herself. Angry that she had let the situation get this far. This was idiotic. The actions of a woman half her age, and half again her supposed wisdom.

"I was a fool, and through my negligence, I thought to allow you to tarry forth, thinking you might come to a poor end, and I would at last be rid of you."

She took a deep breath in, and let it out, calming herself. It would not do to have Zoissette think she might be mad at her. "A dear friend had to point out my folly. And once I realized it fully, I traveled after you, to attempt to rectify it. Though it seems, I need not have bothered." She laughed a little. "Always prepared. In your care and in your intelligence, you were more than the match for the wilderness. But nevertheless, I have come here... not only to make up for my severe error in judgment, but to apologize.

"Lady Zoissette Vauban, I apologize for placing you in undue risk through my own negligence and malfeasance. I promise you, I shall not allow such to happen again."

Lavender hovered close to her, frowning at her, and swept around her slowly, menacingly. "We might leave her out here, mistress. She was so keen for you to fend for yourself. We could let her do the same." She stopped in front of Solita, and grinned broadly at her, baring her teeth. Solita just looked back flatly at her. "I do not doubt her chocobo could be encouraged to keep us company instead."

"No. Leave her alone. It is okay, Lavender."

Lavender turned her nose up at Solita, and with a 'hmph!', floated back to hover closely, protectively, near Zoissette.

"I accept your apology. Thank you," said Zoissette. "And thank you for coming after me."

"You would thank me?" said Solita, incredulous. "I have confessed to seeing to your end. Surely you should be upset. Angry."

Zoissette watched the campfire for a bit, before reaching up, and taking her glasses off. She rubbed idly at their lenses with a cloth, before closing them, and just holding them in her hands.

"I should be. Maybe. I do not know. Maybe I should get mad, or yell about it, or follow Lavender's advice and leave you out here without supply, but I do not want to do any of those things. Would it help anything?"

"No. I suppose it would not."

"Then I am inclined to accept your apology and you at face value. There has been no harm done. You have treated honestly with me, save for this singular omission, and made no attempt to harm me directly. You have made a mistake. That was an error. But you did not compound it by ignoring it, or running from it. You faced it. And you tried to correct for it. I find it hard to be angry about that. Tired, maybe. Disappointed? I guess? A little... let down, I suppose."

She should leave that alone. She should accept Zoissette's graciousness, and exit the conversation as gracefully as she could manage, spend the night, and then terminate their agreements and return to Stonewood.

"Let down?"

"We worked well together. I liked that. Other than this one incident, you have always been forthright with me. Blunt, but I like that about you."

"We might still yet."

Zoissette looked over at Solita. Her eyes were studying Solita. Inspecting her.

"Perhaps... we begin again," offered Solita. "This time, I shall leave my preconceptions behind, if you will forgive me my transgressions."

"Okay."

"... okay?"

Zoissette nodded.

"You might ask for guarantees, or for more favorable terms. Though I know I am the one who offered it, I must confess, it was in haste. I did not expect you to accept it so readily."

"That would defeat the purpose of starting over," said Zoissette, now watching the fire. "I am willing to accept your proposal, but only if it is a clean start. For both of us. Deal?"

"...deal."

"Then we have an accord."

Lavender huffed, and rolled her eyes, but after a moment, she bowed her head. "As the mistress commands, I shall follow her lead."

She meant it. She really meant it, Solita realized. Zoissette was willing to sweep past all this, to ignore all that had happened. She was either hopelessly naive, or the strongest woman for malms around.

"You are too good for Stonewood," said Solita.

Zoissette looked up at her, sharply.

"No."

Her voice was deep. Her tone flat. Her words dark.

"I am really not."

The fire continued to crackle into the desert night, as Zoissette unfolded her glasses, and put them back on. Her eyes once more hidden from the world. Solita could see the reflection in the lenses.

"Well," she said, well after the ensuing silence had made its weight felt, "If it is all the same to you, I think I shall turn in. Shall we set up watches?"

"No need. Lavender?"

Lavender bowed, and floated up a little higher, to get a better view of the surrounding area.

"Well," said Solita, feeling unusually awkward. She got up and retrieved her bedroll, setting it up and laying down on top of it. She faced away from the fire, looking out into the night.

"Good night, Miss Vauban."

"Sleep well, Lady Grey."

She wouldn't.

[dailycharacteroption]

Planar Tour Guide: Negative Energy Plane part 3

(art by Nexumorphic on DeviantArt)

Denizens

The Void may be empty, but that doesn’t mean that it’s uninhabited, a fact that makes it all the more dangerous. Of course, most entities are not truly native there, but were created from those who visit. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what entities linger in the depths of Entropy’s Heart.

Perhaps the most common type of undead on the plane are the many different varieties of spectral dead. Wraiths, spectres, allips, shadows, and more, all formed from poor hapless fools that were obliterated by the plane’s nature. Perhaps most horrifyingly of all, while they have no statistical difference in terms of gameplay, these spectral undead are less trapped souls and more like echoes left behind from where a soul was obliterated, with truly nothing remaining that could be brought back or reasoned with.

Similarly, nightshades are also a sort of inverse shadow of something consumed by Entropy’s Heart. When especially powerful fiends, blinded by ambition, are consumed by the darkest depths of the plane, they come back just as evil, with new forms and barely if any memory of what they once were. These nightshades, or darvakka, seek nothing else but the end of all life and light in the cosmos, their old goals forgotten. And while this may make their goals the same as daemon-kind, even the Abaddon-spawn are not safe from their depredations. (Side note, all the Second Edition nightshade art is a step down from the First Edition art in my opinion. Being able to see clearly all the details of what is supposed to be a shadow monster simply does not have the same effect).

Similar to nightshades are the devourers, though they are not created by the plane nor are they natives. Instead, the soul-stealing devourers traverse the cosmos at the behest of some terrible entity that waits beyond the very edges of the Great Beyond, and many of their errands seem to focus on the Negative Energy Plane as part of their “Shepherd’s” plans.

And then there are the reapers. Be they minor reapers or true grim reapers (or perhaps THE grim reaper. Nobody is sure if there are more than one), nightmarish undead which bring death wherever they go, and so find the Negative Energy Plane soothing or useful in their plans reap the seeds of life. They supposedly originated in Abaddon, but can be found in the Void as well, to the ill fortune of all that cross them.

Of course, not all mortals or immortals end up dead on the plane. Whether it be by huddling around a failing magical effect or artifact, or by being trapped in one of the rare minorly-negative parts of the plane, some living creatures adapt to the constant blight around them, becoming the void-ravaged. Such entities tend to be hateful and solitary, but not necessarily malicious. However, they can never return to the light, for even the neutral levels of positive energy on other planes burns them, slowly destroying them.

And then there are the entities that are neither undead nor tainted, but enter the plane anyway. The most benevolent are perhaps the movanic deva angels, who watch over the plane as part of their duties to the inner planes on behalf of the celestial forces. Less benevolent are the hunduns, whose interest in the cosmic entropy of the Maelstrom overlaps with that of the Void, which they sometimes visit to contemplate Unsurprising given their role as cosmic monks of chaos. And lastly, there is at least one danava titan dwelling in the Nothing, though none can say why or what it is doing there.

And this is where we get into the true natives of the plane, the most destructive of which are the masses of destruction known as oblivions, forming and hatching from egg-like structures, eager to slip into other planes to bring ruin.

Finally, we have the sceaduinar, the true children of the void. These crystalline bat-like creatures are born from great tree-like masses of compressed, crystalline nothingness, and hate both the living and the undead in equal measure. In truth, despite being classified as outsiders, these entities, as well as their cousins the sceazir, are not alive in the conventional sense, having no souls and no inkling of positive energy in them. It is as if they came to be from a process that is simultaneously like and unlike life.

This is appropriate, considering that according to the sceaduinar, they were robbed of the ability to truly create in the earliest days of the cosmos, perhaps by the formation of the Negative and Positive planes themselves. Whatever they might have been before that, the void-bats care not for the necessity of the Void’s creation in making the cosmos as we understand it possible. They only understand the pangs of their ancient loss, and that all other entities are responsible.

As for divinities, most have little interest in such an empty places as the Negative Energy Plane, and certainly none dwell there. At most, certain deities of undeath and entropy show an interest in the plane, sending their servants there, but that’s about it.

That will do for today, but it is interesting to see what lives in a place without life, particularly the strange ecology of the sceaduinar and the mystery of what their form of “creation” might have been like. Tune in tomorrow for a little exploration of the mysteries within!

[bestiarium]

The Gabriel Hounds [British/English folklore]

Northern English folktales tell of a mysterious, haunting howling or yelping sound that could sometimes be heard coming from the night sky. Supposedly, these otherworldly cries came from mysterious dog spirits called ‘Gabriel Hounds’, often called ‘Gabbles’ or also ‘Gabriel ratchets’ as ‘ratchet’ is an older term for dogs. The howling of a Gabble is an ill omen and hearing it means someone will die soon.

Stories of these creatures have been around since at least 1665, though the details and origin of these beings vary a lot. In 1866, ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ author J. Atkinson published an explanation where the hounds were the undead souls of a troupe of hunting dogs.

Their owner was so obsessed with the hunting sport that when the man was nearing the end of his life, he ordered his canine companions to be killed, so that they could all be buried with him. After he passed away, his dogs were indeed killed and laid to rest in the tomb of their owner. Even today, the hunter is still roaming the world in search of game, accompanied by his faithful dogs. 

A different story from Derbyshire tells of a squire who loved the hunting sport, and even organized hunts on Sundays, breaking a Catholic taboo. To put salt in the wound, he even chased game into a church one time, driving his troupe of hounds into the holy building. For this crime, he was unable to find rest after he died, instead being forced to wander the earth with his hunting dogs. Still another tale claims that the hounds are actually the ghosts of infants who died unbaptized.

At one point, and I am uncertain how old this tradition is, the Gabriel Hounds were most commonly depicted as dogs with a human face, or the face of a human child. Which is delightfully unsettling.

The name ‘Gabriel Hound’ was explained in a Derbyshire story where the yelping noises were really the cries of damned souls as they were being struck by the whip of the angel Gabriel, who was hunting the damned souls and urging them along. Alternatively, a simpler explanation is that the appellation ‘Gabriel Hound’ might be derived from ‘gabble’ which the noises kind of sound like. Indeed, the mysterious noises are often assumed to have been made by geese or other birds. In fact, there is also a version where the gabbles appear as spectral birds. These feathered fiends had unnaturally glowing eyes and made a shrieking sound, and those who heard it could expect the death of a close friend or family member in the near future.

Source: Simpson, S. and Roud, S., 2003, A Dictionary of English Folklore, Oxford University Press, 411 pp. The cited source in this work is Wright, J., 1898-1905, The English Dialect Dictionary. (image source: Bradz on Deviantart)

[ttrpg-smash-pass-vs]

Wait. This isn't supposed to be her. The main tournament entries got scrambled into the loser's bracket...fuck. Well I guess we're here now!

On the left is the Merrenoloth, the Charonadaemon, "The In-between." These are the yugoloth boatman of the River Styx! or any other river you need them for. 5 ft (1.5 m), can cause fear with a glance, and has magic for mind manipulation and wind/water control. So always a nice cooling breeze! They are cunning, can telepathically speak with anyone, are about as neutral of a fiend as you'll ever find, and have supernatural control over their boat! They don't fight unless forced, they don't want to talk, you make a deal and they fill it. Hey, sometimes that strict professionalism is exactly what you're after!

On the right is the Star Spawn Larva* Mage This is a warlock of eldritch power merging with a herald of the Far Realms. A magical person-sized sentient mass of star-stuff and unknown worms. It has magic to magically dominate minds and can create a floating spectral hand. This is an ALARMINGLY intelligent entity from beyond the stars largely composed of mysterious wriggling creatures. Yeah, it's stronger than an orc and can take hits better than most dragons, but you knew your answer to this the second it crossed your screen.

*Larva's original meaning was Ghost/Mask. Since the stas just say worms, the lore says they come from worm gods, and it's possessing a creature while wearing a mask, I believe the name was in reference to that. Or using wriggling bugs' names interchangeably. Not insect young. Up for interpretation there so I get it if it makes ya nervous, but I'm presuming this is adult like the creatures its possessing, insofar as an absurdly intelligent Lovecraftian creation can be held to our standards..