#we’ve got coming back from the dead we’ve got slicing and dicing into arms we’ve got attempted murder we’ve got insane doctors trying to

[ongreenergrasses]

it’s amazing how writing this behemoth of a work has just massively improved my mood

[depizan]

Forgotten Enemy

Jezari knew that Rogun the Butcher wanted her to pay for the loss of his cargo, even though it hadn’t been her fault. But it was hardly the first time she’d had a bounty on her head, and how important could one measly cargo be to such a powerful crime lord? She’d hoped he’d forgotten about her. She’d certainly forgotten about him.

(I’m probably not going to be this mean in “canon,” but Jezari and her crew will have to deal with Rogun at some point. And I’m of the mind that he matches his reputation, never mind what the game tries to pull at the end. Still, this is more of a “what if,” or at least a “what could.”)

##.##.1#, midday

Millport reminded Jezari a little of Raider’s Cove. A jumble of bland industrial buildings sprouting from a vibrant jungle, walls overshadowed by giant-leaved trees, the landing pads and docking bays ringed with sonic repellers to keep the jungle birds and other creatures away. Sometime back, one of the corps (probably Czerka) had found a rich source of some valuable ore in Bornuu’s jungles. They’d swooped in, built a quick mining city, torn a swath through the jungle, and left again when the seams played out.

The jungle had crept back and the underworld had crept in.

The smelters were rotting, half eaten by the jungle, but the quickthrow and presscrete city lived on—a thriving market place of illicit goods and secret meetings. That was what happened if you left a ready-to-use port close enough to a major tradespine to be useful, but far enough away that only the most desperate of legitimate travelers stopped in. That it was also far enough from Hutt Space to remain independent was a bonus. (Though there were rumors it was secretly run by the Exchange.)

Jezari finished off a skewer of spiced meat and flicked the wooden stick into an overflowing trashcan at another market stall. Bowdaar still had one of the skewers sticking out of the corner of his mouth like a Wookiee-sized toothpick. Risha had noted that you couldn’t be too sure what—or who—you were eating in a place like this, but even she’d bought one.

“Micro-coils, Razoroon Red, reddimeals.” Jezari gestured to Risha’s datapad. “What’s left?”

Her engineer and unofficial second in command consulted the list. “Ferite wire. Hm. The medkit could use a restock. I wouldn’t trust kolto here, but we might find antiseptic.” She glanced at her wrist chrono. “We’ve still got half an hour.”

They were due to meet back up with the rest of her crew then. Millport wasn’t dangerous, but Jezari was a firm believer in the buddy system. There were just too many ways to run into trouble planetside.

Risha had stopped to admire a bolt of iridescent shimmersilk when Corso’s panicked shout rose above the general clamor.

“Captain! Captain!” He dodged around a pair of Quarren, who glared at his passing, and skidded to a panting halt in front of them. “Captain. I’m sorry.” He wheezed. “I couldn’t.”

“Take a deep breath and slow down,” Risha said.

His face was red from exertion, but his green and white armor was unmarked and he didn’t appear to be hurt. He was, however, alone.

“Where’s Kyrian?”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Corso repeated. “They had a knife to his throat before I could do anything.” He took another deep breath. “They had darts. Like bounty hunters.”

Jezari’s blood went cold. “The Empire?”

He shook his head. “No. They were the… the…” He waved his hands in front of him, almost dropping the comm clutched in one, outlining a person about his size. “The gray wrinkly guys.”

“Weequay?” Risha suggested.

“Yeah. Them. Bounty hunters, I figure.”

“The Empire wouldn’t hire aliens. Not if they could help it.” Risha frowned. “I’m not sure they’d hire bounty hunters at all. Not in his case.”

“Dralick?” Jezari looked around frantically, as if she might spot the Sith lord. There was nothing around them but stalls and shoppers. A building with a couple of scantily dressed humans lounging in the doorway. A Gamorrean and a Twi’lek dicing in an alley.

“Don’t panic, Captain,” Risha said. “We’ll find him.”

The comm in Corso’s hand chimed. “Oh. Yeah. They threw this at me.”

Jezari took it and pressed the flashing button. A blue tinted holo of a Chagrian sprouted to life above the comm. He was tall enough that the top of his horns were out of pickup range, and his expression was almost disappointed.

Her jaw dropped. “Rogun?”

“Captain Solarin,” Rogun the Butcher said, “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me.

“Look, Rogun, whatever you want—”

“You know what I want. No one steals from me and lives.”

“I didn’t steal from you! That was Skavak!”

“It was,” Corso agreed. “She didn’t have nothin’ to do with it!”

“I’ve tried to settle this reasonably,” Rogun continued, “but you’ve been so hard on my men. No more running, no more tricks.”

“I can get the money,” Jezari said. “Pay you back for the weapons, for my fee, for everything. With interest even!”

“We’re long past that. You’ve made me look bad. Some puny nobody freighter pilot steals from me? Shoots my men? Jaunts all over the galaxy acting like she doesn’t have a care? Like a bounty from Rogun the Butcher means nothing to her? His voice rose, anger replacing all trace of the false disappointment. “No, Captain. I want you.”

“Rogun…”

The holo image blurred as someone moved the camera on the other end. It refocused on her missing crewmember. Kyrian had been stripped to the waist, his wrists fastened individually to a bar or pipe that ran above his head and out of camera range. He looked more wary than worried, and uninjured. So far.

Rogun stepped into view again, next to him. He had a knife in one hand. Kyrian glanced at the knife, then looked away, his expression unreadable.

“Rogun, he has nothing to do with this. Let him go. I’ll meet you. What ever you want. Just tell me.”

“I told you what I want. I want you to meet me. In the back room of the Lucky Stake. Alone.” He pointed the knife at the holocam. “No weapons. No tricks. In the meantime,” he turned back to Kyrian, “I’ll be counting down the time with your friend. Minute by minute.” Almost casually, he set the tip of the knife against Kyrian’s collarbone and drew it slowly downward, cutting a diagonal line across his chest.

Kyrian flinched, but didn’t cry out.

“No!” Jezari yelped. “Wait, I’m coming!”

“I know you will, Captain,” Rogun said. “That’s the point. You come here. The rest of your crew goes back to your ship.” He smiled. “To their ship. No funny business, now. And I wouldn’t take too long. Minutes add up quickly.” He sliced a second cut beside the first.

“Wait! No!”

The comm was dead.

“No! Damn it!” Jezari tried to reestablish the connection, but Rogun had called from a blocked frequency. “No.”

“We’ll think of something,” Risha said.

Bowdaar growled his agreement.

“There’s no time.” Jezari unbuckled her gun belt. “Go back to the ship. Figure out a plan. Call Savler. Get her help. Get her as back up.” She shoved her belt and blasters into Risha’s arms. “Just… hurry.”

“You can’t go. Captain. Jezari.” Risha caught her wrist. “He won’t let him go. You know that. He’ll torture you both to death. That’s what he wants.”

Jezari pulled her hand free. “I don’t have a choice.”

“Captain, she’s right,” Corso said. “You can’t!”

“It’s the only way to stall him. Think of something.”

“It won’t make a difference. Damn it, Bowdaar, stop her,” Risha ordered. “You’re just giving him another victim! Kyrian can hold out for a little while.”

Jezari turned back. “If I don’t go, Rogun will do something worse. He might even kill him. He has to think he’s won.” She took a deep breath. “Make him think he’s won. Move the Luck. Come back. Save us. I’m counting on you.” She turned and walked into the crowd before they could argue.

“Captain!”

Jezari ran.

Tags: whumptober 2021, no. 4, taken hostage, swtor, fic, torture, knives, I write, Jezari Solarin, Kyrian Nessar

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

If There’s a Place I Could Be - Chapter Seventy Nine

If There’s a Place I Could Be Tag

February 6th, 1987

Remy woke up from his dream with a start, looking around. He was still in his bedroom, which was a promising sign. He couldn’t go to his parents with a scary dream, seeing as last time his mother sent him back to bed with a growl and a threat, but he wanted to make sure everyone was still alive.

He crept into his parents room, and saw the steady rise and fall of his mom and dad’s chests. He tip-toed across the hallway and peered into Vanessa’s room, confirming she was breathing as well. He slipped into Toby’s room, to find Toby reading a book by flashlight. “Hey,” Toby said softly. “Bad dreams?”

Remy reluctantly nodded. He pointed at the book. “Mom and Dad told you not to stay up all night reading.”

Toby shrugged. “Don’t tell them I did? If you don’t, I won’t tell them anything you say tonight. Want to talk about your dream?”

“A little,” Remy admitted.

Toby patted his bed and Remy climbed up on it, sitting at the foot of the bed as Toby patiently listened to him.

  January 5th, 2003

Remy felt the shift on the bed before he really registered anything else around him. Without thinking, he rolled over and wrapped an arm around Emile in bed, murmuring, “You okay, honey?”

He didn’t get a response, and that’s when he cracked an eye open, to find Emile struggling out from under Remy’s arm, crying. Remy retrieved his arm and pushed himself upright in bed. “Emile? Honey?”

Emile was still crying and whimpering, but his eyes were squeezed shut tight and he didn’t show any signs of being awake. Remy’s hand touched Emile’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze, and Emile bolted upright in bed with a gasp, shaking like a leaf. “Emile? Are you awake?”

Looking over to Remy, Emile paled and Remy blinked once, twice. Remy wasn’t getting any verbal responses, and his worry was only growing. “Emile,” Remy said softly. “Are you okay?” Remy reached a hand out and Emile flinched. Remy retreated like he had been burned. “...I’m gonna give you your space, honey, okay? Whenever you’re ready to talk, come get me.”

And with that, Remy left the room. He went to his old room, which Emile had been helping Remy turn into a mini-office until they could move somewhere bigger and Remy could get “a proper office” as Emile had put it.

He laid down on the bed in the corner of the room and stared at the ceiling. Obviously, Emile had a nightmare of some kind. Something involving Remy. Remy wanted to help, but he knew that if Emile had a nightmare with him in it, it might be counterintuitive to force Emile to hang around Remy until he felt better.

Remy was drifting off to sleep, worry about Emile swirling in his head when there was shuffling in the doorway. Remy cracked an eye open to find Emile standing there, pale as a ghost. “Mm?” Remy asked.

Emile opened his mouth, before shutting it again. He looked at the floor, then up at Remy, unshed tears in his eyes. “Promise me that you won’t drink or smoke.”

Remy blinked, uncomprehending for a second before he said, “Honey, I’ve never smoked and I haven’t drank in years, and I promise I would never do either of those things in excess. What brought this on?”

“...Had a bad dream,” Emile said reluctantly. “You got high and...wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“Oh,” Remy said, not really sure what else to say. “And you’re...worried I might do that in real life?”

“No, no. No, I don’t think you’d ever do that in real life, inebriated or otherwise,” Emile said, sitting down on Remy’s bed. “I just worry about what would happen if you did get drunk or high, and someone else didn’t have your standards of character.”

“Wait...” Remy said, frowning. “You have...a very vivid dream of me...doing that...to you, so vivid that you flinch away from me when you first wake up, and you worry about me being violated once you’re fully awake? You’re not...mad at me for it?”

“It was a dream, Rem, I’m not going to hold you accountable for a dream,” Emile said. “But...this is a college town. You’ve been to parties, so have I. And...it’s not like we’ve never had close calls.”

“Wait...what?” Remy asked, blood running cold. “We’ve had close calls?”

“Back when you still drank at parties. Like, drank enough to actually get depressed and not remember much. You were getting hit on by a junior back when you were still in college. I had to drag you back to the dorms with the promise of Halloweentown?”

“She was...she was trying to...?” Remy stammered.

“It looked that way. I thought I told you,” Emile said with a frown.

“Oh, my God. If you did, I forgot about it entirely,” Remy said. “I mean, I know I’m dumb when I’m drunk, but...”

“Hey, this is not a matter of smart or dumb. This could happen to anyone,” Emile said. “And I’m very thankful it didn’t happen to you. But I don’t ever want it to happen to you, or have a chance of happening to you, again. So I don’t want you drinking or smoking.”

“...Honestly, that’s such a good reason to stay sober,” Remy said. “Like, if you think I’m not going to drink champagne at our wedding, you’re dead wrong, but I’m not getting drunk off it.”

“And you wouldn’t...”

Remy shook his head. “Mio amore, let’s be honest here. I couldn’t afford a cigarette habit, let alone anything heavier. I’m safe, you’re safe, neither of us are going to get into trouble over that sort of thing.”

Emile blew out a breath. “Okay...okay. You’re right. I might have gone a little overboard in the fear department.”

Remy shook his head and leaned up to kiss Emile’s temple. “You had a vivid dream. It happens. And if it will help you sleep better, I’ll keep away from the alcohol except when cooking.”

“Yeah, I think that would help...” Emile took a breath. “I know it doesn’t exactly inconvenience you, but I’m still sorry that you would have to take those extra steps.”

“I’m not,” Remy said. “If it helps you feel better, I’ll do it happily. Besides, it’s probably better to not get in the habit of drinking whenever I feel like it anyway.”

“I mean, drinking a little is not a bad thing,” Emile sighed. “I admittedly feel a bit like I’m overreacting. But not enough to tell you to not take those extra steps.”

“And like I said, I don’t mind taking them if it helps you feel at ease,” Remy said, hugging Emile. “What say you to an early morning walk when virtually no one else is awake, just because?”

“Sounds like it would be chilly, I’m not sure...” Emile said.

“Hmm...then what about we make breakfast, together, just to spend some time together?” Remy proposed.

Emile smiled. “I can definitely get behind that.”

Remy grinned. “Excellent! Come on, let’s get to work!”

Dragging a laughing Emile to the kitchen, Remy grabbed the things they needed for a small breakfast. He didn’t want to do anything too huge, just enough to get both of their minds off of Emile’s nightmare. “What do you say to an egg sandwich?” Remy offered.

“Sounds perfect,” Emile said with a little smile.

Remy nodded and started to grease up a pan, while Emile got the bread slices toasting. “You want turkey on it, too?” Remy offered.

“Oh, that sounds great,” Emile said, rubbing his hands together.

Remy grabbed sliced turkey from the refrigerator and tossed it in the pan. As it sizzled and cooked, Remy looked over to Emile, who was staring at the toaster in consternation. “You okay?” he asked.

“Hm? Oh, yeah,” Emile said, shaking his head slightly. “I was just caught in my own thoughts. Dice said he was going to call me soon-ish.”

“Yeah?” Remy asked. Admittedly, he had forgotten that Dice was still looking for Toby. He had been swamped between working on research for Sleep Easy and still working at the other shops in the area.

“Yeah. He said that almost all his contacts had gotten back to him, and he would call me if he got something sooner than our arranged meeting, but I haven’t gotten a phone call or an email yet.”

“Ah,” Remy said, feeling a little disappointed. Dice had said they were “eighty percent done” for two months now. He didn’t know how long this whole thing would take, but he didn’t think it should be this long. Remy removed the turkey from the pan and put it on the waiting slices of toast before cracking open eggs. “Are you hopeful about the next meet-up?”

“Honestly? Yeah,” Emile said. “I mean, it’s been months. Something has to give eventually. And I really trust Dice. I don’t know why, but I do. He’s not just half-heartedly searching, I’ve asked him to go more in-depth about his searches with me and he has. He’s really looking, Rem. He’ll find Toby.”

“Yeah,” Remy sighed. “I just wish that it would happen sooner, rather than later.”

Emile offered Remy a small, sad smile. “I know. It’s not easy to wait for anything, but especially something like this.”

“Tell me about it,” Remy griped. “Like, I knew if Dice was any good, he’d take his time, but it’s been literal months and we haven’t gotten any further than ‘eighty percent close’ and it’s...enough to make me want to bang my head against a wall. I’m just...frustrated.”

“Yeah,” Emile said softly.

Remy sighed and ran a hand down his face before dishing up the eggs. “I don’t want to talk about this so in-depth. I don’t need that kind of stress in my life right now. Houses. Do we have an estimate on houses?”

“A couple,” Emile said, nodding. As Remy threw a bit of spices onto the sandwiches he said, “There’s a few townhouses for sale nearby. I say nearby, it’s like a fifteen minute drive. Forty five minute commute to college by car, we’ll have to coordinate a lot more when it comes to who gets the car when.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Remy said, passing a sandwich to Emile. “I think we could make it work, though. And, we wouldn’t have to deal with my mother coming around anymore.”

“True,” Emile said with a little grin. “Should I call the realtors? See if we can get something set up?”

“Definitely,” Remy agreed. “I want to see these townhouses for myself.” Emile grinned and Remy smiled back. “It’s weird being an adult. I thought adults have everything together, always. When in actuality you’re just flying by the seat of your pants with actual lives at stake.”

That earned a snort from Emile, and Remy laughed. “It’s true!” he defended.

“I never said it wasn’t,” Emile said. “That is...painfully accurate.”

Remy sighed and shook his head. “I’m...more stressed than usual recently. I didn’t want to say anything at first, but I think you ought to know. The new shop is amazing, but it adds an extra layer of work to everything I already need to do, and it’s stressful.”

“Should we get a computer?” Emile asked. “So you don’t have to go to the library to do research?”

Remy grimaced. “A computer is a lot of money, Emile.”

“So’s gas money when you have to research stuff at the library for your shop,” Emile said with a shrug. “In the long run, it might be cheaper.”

Remy shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “Maybe once the shop is doing comfortably.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Emile agreed. “I can’t wait for the day you open it up and there’s a line going out the door.”

Remy laughed. “Come on, Emile. My coffee’s good but it’s not that good.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Rem,” Emile warned.

“I don’t think I am, I’m just being honest,” Remy said. “Of course I’ll puff myself up in advertisements, but I know I’m not perfect, and I always have room to learn and improve. My coffee is good, yeah. The blends I make when the managers let me use leftover grounds are unique in a good way. But...this is going to be a lot of work, and there’s going to be a lot of room for self-doubt.”

Emile tutted. “Come on, Rem, you’ll do fine.”

“You say that now,” Remy laughed, somewhat hysterical.

Emile kissed Remy softly, and Remy melted into the kiss, letting all of his stress melt away if only for a brief moment. “I’m sure you’ll do amazing, Rem. This is you. You won’t let your business go under if you have any means of saving it. I doubt you’ll even need saving in the first place. I’ve heard people talking about your shop who I haven’t even talked to about it. All our friends are in your corner. You’ve got this.”

Remy smiled softly. “You really think so.”

“I do,” Emile said.

“Then what could possibly go wrong?” Remy asked with a grin. “I’ve got you and our friends on my side, this’ll be great!”

[winifredsandersonsbitch]

“Radio”

Spike x Summers!Reader

Warnings: S5 spoilers + cursing + violence

Description: You didn’t mean to become friends with a creature of the night. It just happened. But when a demon drives you off the road, the two of you have to develop more than a tentative friendship. You have to trust each other with your lives.

I’m trying to make these all linked, but also as fics that can be read alone? Kind of just can’t commit to doing it as a chaptered series oops

Sometimes, late at night, you and Spike go driving. You make sure to leave a note in case Buffy comes back from slaying early or Dawn wakes up, but you never mention who you’re with. Dawn and Spike get along okay, but Buffy is wary of him even though he’s helped out enough times to proved he’s changed. At least, he’s changed enough so that he’s not an immediate threat. And with all that’s happened, you find yourself so lonely that you almost don’t care that he’s a bloodsucking demon.

It started after your mom died. On the nights when you didn’t work, you would slip out of the house for some solitude and cruise around Sunnydale. Normally, that wouldn’t be the safest idea, especially with Glory around, but your car was stocked with slaying supplies and Willow had given you a charm that you hung from your front mirror, right next to your pair of lucky dice. It wouldn’t protect you from everything, but you figured that anything that wanted to hurt you could just as easily find you at home.

You had driven past the cemetery almost a month ago without any specific purpose in mind. Spike was sitting on top of one of the mausoleums that faced out to the gate, so you pulled into the parking lot. The two of you had been on good terms lately, though it was difficult to gauge how meaningful that really was. You had let him sleep at the house once while you were in class, but only last week he had tolerated the pain from his chip in order to knock the shit out of Xander. You guessed you preferred to live life on the edge.

He hopped down when he saw you coming through the front entrance, tossing the blood he had been drinking out into the bushes. A dribble streaked down his chin, spotting his shirt. Maybe that was why he always wore dark colors.

“To what do I owe the pleasant surprise?”

You couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. You tucked your hands in your pockets to keep yourself from fidgeting.

“I just wanted to say hi.”

Your pasted smile faltered as Spike stepped into your personal bubble.

“Hi.”

You tilted your head back. His face was shadowed, his pupils as wide and dark and gleaming as oilspots. You had the sudden urge to reach out and comb your fingers through his Billy Idol hair. You had always wondered if it was softened by the gel, despite the bleach. Sometimes he tugged on strands of yours teasingly when it was just the two of you, so it seemed fair to return the favor. But something kept your hands glued to your side.

“Hi.”

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way...” He leaned down, his nose almost-but-not-quite brushing yours. “What are you really here for?”

“Do you want to go for a drive?” you blurted. You dangled the keys in front of him. “I’m... bored. By myself. I’d like some company.”

He eyed you like he thought Buffy was going to burst from the shadows and clock him for even considering your offer, but then he shrugged and joined you in the passenger seat of your mud-splattered sedan. Since then, you had been passing by the cemetery more often and he had been throwing rocks at your window. Both of you, it seemed, were restless.

Sometimes you picked up Anya so she and Spike could talk about the good old days when they could kill people. Neither of them would initiate the friendship themselves and you didn’t exactly love the topic, but it was good for them. A kind of support group. Though God forbid that anyone found out that you thought of it like that. Or that Xander discovered how you had facilitated contact between his girlfriend and the person—vampire?—he hated most in the world.

Tonight when you walked outside to your car, Spike was waiting.

“Took you long enough,” he said, sliding into the passenger seat.

It was a cool night, but true to form you rolled your windows down for the ride. You turned the radio on, loud enough so that you could feel the music in your chest but quiet enough that the two of you could have a conversation. Not that you usually did. Sometimes he would ask about Dawn or school and you’d ask about poker and demon hunting, but mostly you drove in comfortable silence. 

When Foreigner came on the radio, you turned the volume up absentmindedly, humming along as the breeze tousled your hair. You loosened your hands on the wheel, tapping on the dashboard. Sometimes you sang along, although it made you a little embarrassed to have Spike watch since you were so off-key. This time he surprised you, matching Lou Gramm’s deep, smoky voice with his own. 

“I would climb any mountain.” You could barely hear him over the wind, which made you wonder if your mind was playing tricks on you. But his mouth was moving in time with the music, forming around the well-loved words. “Sail across the stormy sea.”

Your eyes flickered to the road and then back to him. He was watching you, his lips pulled back in a wicked grin, less brooding than you had ever seen him. He could have been any boy you’d known all your life, engaging in the time-honored tradition of late night carpool karaoke. It was all you could do to remind yourself how dangerous he could be if he ever got the chip out of his head, how bad of an idea it would be to let yourself get wrapped up in the fantasy. You could hang out with Spike, try to humanize him, but he would never stop craving the kill. When he got tired of these games with you—

“If that’s what it takes me, baby, to show how much you mean to me.”

Your heart stuttered. Focus on the road, you told yourself, but it was hard when Spike’s fingers began creeping across the barren land of cupholders in between you. 

“And I guess it’s just the woman in you, that brings out the man in me.”

He unbuckled the seatbelt that you always insisted he wear, despite the deadness, and his hand hovered over yours for a moment before abandoning it in search of another target.

The two of you were usually a little flirty, but this was something else entirely. This crossed a line that you worried couldn’t be redrawn.

“Spike—”

“I know I can’t help myself,” he breathed, brushing a strand of your wind-blown hair behind your ear. He missed a line as he peeled your right hand off the wheel, threading your fingers with his. He placed your clasped hands over his heart almost playfully, leaning close and whispering, knowing you’d shove him off in a second and taking full advantage anyway. If you glanced over, you’d see him smouldering at you in the way only vampires seemed able to perfect. “It feels like the first time.”

“Spike, sit— Oh, god!”

You threw your arm across his chest to keep him from hurtling through the windshield as you swerved to avoid a demon that had appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the road. It felt like your arm was going to be jerked out of its socket and he still hit his head hard on the dashboard, but he didn’t black out, which you were taking as a good sign. 

Spike slumped against the seat, dazed, as you pressed your foot down hard on the gas in an attempt to outrun whatever it was. The engine purred and you let yourself breathe a sigh of relief, but it cropped up again.

“I hope my insurance covers this,” you muttered, deciding to hit it head-on, but your car stopped mere feet before the creature. Everything except the radio shut down completely.

Well, at least my own personal horror movie has a great soundtrack, you thought. Then it grabbed at you through the window and you could barely hear the music over the sound of your own screaming.

I have waited a lifetime.

The yak-headed demon wrenched you from the car, slicing through your seatbelt and tossing you out onto the side of the road. You rolled, scraping every exposed piece of skin up on the tar. Before you could stand, it lifted you by the back of your shirt with one clawed hand, leaving you hanging helplessly in mid-air. Then it dropped you. You bent to your knees to soften the impact and then straightened. It caught your foot when you kicked out, twisting your ankle harshly. The bone gave a sickening pop! and you screeched into the night. You had spent the past few years training to be strong enough to help Buffy, but the Slayer strength was unfortunately not genetic, and you still weighed considerably less than a demon that was the size of a grizzly bear.

It yanked you off balance, dragging your body toward it by your ruined ankle as a deep, hoarse laughter bubbled from its throat. Its jaw unhinged, dropping to the ground, as it opened wide.

Spent my time so foolishly.

You didn’t see Spike drag himself from the car due to the crippling fear, but he got its attention when he clocked the demon on the side of the head. You scooted yourself backward in a weak imitation of the crab walks your gym teacher made you do in elementary to avoid being flattened.

If you could make it to the car, you could grab Buffy’s tools, but it was all the way on the other side of the road. You’d have to crawl. God knew you couldn’t stand, not right now. 

You cursed to yourself as you further scraped your tender skin, leaving it raw and bloody where it touched the ground. The demon almost tripped over you, but Spike hauled it off in another direction, trading blows that you could have sworn made the ground tremor. 

“Is that the best you can do, mate?” Spike taunted even as blood dripped down his chin. He flicked his tongue out and licked it up in a motion that could only be described as feral. “Her little sister can hit harder than—”

He was thrown backwards on his ass a second later. When you got out of this, you were going to let him have it for that one.

It feels like the first time.

It hurt like hell to put pressure on your ankle, but you hauled yourself up by gripping the car handle and opened the back door. You kept all of your supplies hidden behind your duffel bag of work clothes in case you got pulled over, in a case that you stashed under the passenger seat. You had a couple stakes, a butcher knife, pepper spray... But nothing big enough to hurt something like this.

“Could use a little help over here, love,” Spike gasped. He clawed against the demon’s grip on his throat, failing to even leave surface level scratches.

You tossed him your tire iron in a panic and he caught it with one hand, but he couldn’t get the strength for a hard blow in his position. As his face reddened, you rushed in from behind to crack the demon on the back on the skull with your industrial strength flashlight.

Most lower level demons had a short attention span, and this one was no exception. You got one more hit in before it sent Spike flying and whirled around to face you. With one swipe, it sent you careening into the car.

Your impact actually left a small dent in the side of the sedan. You could barely see straight, the demon doubling and then tripling in your vision, but now you were pissed. You stumbled to your feet, barely succeeding keeping your dinner from hours earlier down.

“Stay... away... from my baby,” you wheezed.

Spike leapt onto the demon’s back, cutting off its air with the tire iron pressed against its windpipe. “No concern for me? Not very nice, pet.”

The demon wheeled backward and tripped over its own enormous feet. It almost crushed Spike beneath it. His grip loosened for a moment, but then he reapplied pressure and didn’t stop until the demon had been lying stock still for two minutes.

It felt like a lifetime.

“Get this thing off me!” he grunted finally, and you found it in yourself to lumber over. You almost got a mouth full of the pavement because your balance was so shot, but together you eased the beast off him.

You collapsed next to them, the three of you lined up like victims of a very strange and supernaturally diverse massacre. The world was still spinning. You crawled off to be sick in the grass.

A moment later, there was a crunching noise and then he was holding back your hair for you, steadying you so that you wouldn’t fall over into your own sick.

“I think maybe I should drive you to the hospital,” Spike said when you had finished. You shook your head, wiping your mouth on what was left of your sleeve.

“We’ve got a social worker visit this week. I don’t want them seeing the records. Just get me to Willow and Tara.”

“Whatever you say.”

He loaded you into the car, buckling your seatbelt for you. You almost reminded him to clip himself in as well, but then you saw the tattered remnants of the driver’s side and closed your mouth.

He turned the keys in the ignition and the radio came back to life. Spike turned it up, ignoring your complaints that it hurt your head.

“We can’t have you falling asleep before we get you all magicked up,” he said, actually hushing you. There was a surprisingly tender expression on his bruised and bloody face. “I’ll sing again, if you want. If it’ll keep you awake.”

He was only teasing, but you could use something soft right about now.

“Please.”

Mötley Crüe was on. It was hard not to close your eyes to the slower, sweeter beginning. You focused on the sky outside your window instead, dark and deep and inviting. You watched it so you wouldn’t watch Spike’s hands wrapped around the steering wheel or his Adam’s apple bobbing as he sang.

Take me to your heart.

He was willing you to look at him. You could feel it. But if you did, his eyes were going to tell you something you didn’t want to hear.

Feel me in your bones.

It was only after he had pulled into the driveway and you were helping each other up the front steps that you allowed yourself a glance. He caught you in it; of course he did. His arm looped with yours, your fingers pressing against his ribs, tangled up in each other in a messy support system, which was how all of this had started anyway. For a moment, you saw yourself from his perspective. Your hair sticking to the bloody cut on your forehead, your complexion a little washed out, an unhealthy sheen to your skin. You wanted to turn your head to make him stop staring at you, but it came to you in a flash of certainty that he didn’t mind. He had never minded.

Just one more night and I’m comin’ off this long and winding road.

Your body drew closer to his without your own consent. You looked up through your eyelashes at him, breathing shallow but quickening.

You had thrown up not too long ago. You felt like you might throw up again. You couldn’t do this. It was— it was wrong. This went past late night drives. This—

He bent down, unwrapping himself from you for a brief second. You almost sunk down onto the stoop, but then he readjusted his grip.

I’m on my way.

“Summers,” he murmured. “Are you feeling all right?”

It was like having a heat flash. The embarrassment could have killed you.

“I— Let’s get inside.”

“Let’s not be hasty.”

The front porch lights snapped on. Neither of you noticed.

I’m on my way.

“Want me to kiss it better?”

Oh. Oh.

His lips sealed themselves to yours, as the hand that wasn’t keeping you from collapsing traced over the curve of your jaw. You ran your fingers through his hair. It was soft, just like you had thought it would be. When you tugged on it, he sighed into your mouth.

He separated himself from your lips to latch onto your neck. He was careful not to leave a hickey as he ghosted over your shoulder, sucked on your collarbones, bit down gently on your earlobe. He felt so warm and alive and human.

Then the door opened and he dropped you.

“Holy fuck.”

Your breath escaped in a low hiss. Your ankle bent underneath you, shooting with white hot pain. Willow burst from the house.

“(Y/n), is that— Oh, my God, you look terrible! What happened? Spike, what happened? Are you okay?”

Home sweet home.

[moonlightsolo]

bête noire

summary: After Kylo Ren and Rey defeat Snoke together, the Resistance retreated to a rebel outpost on a planet named, Crait. The First Order is close behind equipped with a cannon ready to blow open the entrance. Once the Resistance escapes, they find a survivor and they capture them for interrogation.

pairing: kylo ren x female reader

warnings: blood, war, major tlj spoilers, flashback!!

wc: 3.1k

note: this chapter goes along with chapter seven so u might wanna touch up on that one hope u like this different type of chapter :)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“Thirteen incoming light craft. Shall we hold until we clear them?” General Hux asks, turning around to talk to the Supreme Leader who is standing behind him.

“No. The Resistance is in that mine. Push through.” His onyx eyes focus as he stares out the shuttle's viewport.

He watches the fight begin as the tie fighters swoop down from the sky and pick off some of the rickety speeders. The AT-AT walkers push forward against the ground forces, targeting the trenches outside the base. The Resistance speeders start to separate from each other and branch off.

The cannon is aiming at the large vault that leads to the Resistance. Kylo takes notice of one of the speeders that got clipped by a blast and how it kicked up the red dirt as it tumbles across the surface.

The Millenium Falcon appears unexpectedly and drops in to take the attention off of the speeders. Tie fighters are being blown up left and right.

Anger grows in Kylo Ren’s chest as he stands up swiftly and points at the ship, “Blow that piece of junk... out of the sky!” He screams, veins popping out on his forehead.

Hux is taken aback by his voice, “All fighters!” He orders. Kylo breathes heavily, his nostrils flared as he paces the walls of the ship. He continues to pick his head up to watch the battle.

All the fighters begin to follow the Millenium Falcon, drawing them off of the speeders. The cannon lets down arms that anchor it into the ground as it begins to open.

“All firepower on those speeders,” Kylo ordered his body leaning between the pilots seats. “Concentrate all fire on the speeders!” Hux retaliates which causes Kylo to shoot him an incredulous glance. The rest of the speeders withdraw while one is targeting the mouth of the cannon. Alas, their suicidal plan is interrupted by another speeder crashing into it to stop it.

The cannon blows open the vault-like an egg, fire surrounds the area and kicks up the white surface to reveal the deep red color of the planet. The AT-AT walkers continue stomping as they push forward, Kylo doesn’t take his steady glare as he focuses on the entrance to the cave.

A cloaked man emerges from the flames, it’s him. “Stop!” He says sharply, the First Order barrage halts in its tracks.

Kylo moves forward from his spot, “I want every gun we have to fire on that man.” His voice is icy and calm, too calm. The pilots and Hux look at him like he’s insane, but he pays no mind to them. “Do it.”

The walkers begin to shoot at Luke Skywalker, kicking up the red salt as they continue to blast him repeatedly. “More!” Kylo clenches his fist and one of the pilots takes notice. “More!” He screams, his voice breaking slightly.

Hux moves towards Kylo Ren, his hands are clasped behind his back. “That’s enough...” He whispers to him but Ren ignores him as he stares at the cloud of red smoke.

“That’s enough!!” Hux screams the order at the Officers now, his voice raspy.

Kylo falls back into his seat, taking deep shaky breaths as his lips tremble. “Do you think you got him?” Hux scowls at him, “Now if we’re ready to get moving, we can finish this.” 

“Sir?” One of the Officers speaks as the smoke begins to clear. Kylo Ren stands and moves closer to the glass window.

He couldn’t believe it. 

Luke begins to step out of the red haze, moving towards the fleet then he stops. He glares up at the ship, facing Ren. He moves his hand up to mockingly brush his shoulder off.

Kylo is seething now as he trembles with anger, “Bring me down to him.” He orders, “Keep the door covered and don’t advance until I say.” He doesn’t take his dark eyes off of his former master.

Hux turns around, “Supreme Leader don’t get distracted, our goal-.” His voice is cut short as Kylo throws him aside with the Force. His yelp could be heard by the Officers, “Right away, sir.” One of them says as they lower the ship.

Kylo walks down the ramp of the ship, his boots crunch underneath the debris. His black cape billows out behind him, “Did you come back to say you forgive me? To save my soul?” He sarcastically asks.

“No.” Luke simply says to him then Ren’s black cape falls to the ground. He gets into a fighting stance as he ignites his lightsaber; Luke does the same.

Kylo twists his angry red blade in the air before he pounces forward and swings it at Luke. The older man ducks and dodges it completely. They stare each other down again then Kylo charges.

He swings his saber at Luke who bends backward, the blade is so close to his face. “I failed you, Ben. I’m sorry.” Luke sympathizes with his nephew.

“I’m sure you are!” Kylo bites back, “The Resistance is dead. The war is over, and when I kill you. I will have killed the last Jedi.” He spits out at Luke.

“Amazing. Every word of what you just said... was wrong.” Luke calmly speaks to the furious man, “The Rebellion is reborn today. The war is just beginning. And I will not be the last Jedi.”

Kylo gulps as he glares at Skywalker, “I'll destroy her, and you, and all of it.” He growls.

Luke’s lightsaber diminishes as he stands in front of Kylo completely vulnerable. “No. Strike me down in anger and I'll always be with you. Just like your father.” Kylo shifts forward slightly, evidently bothered by his words. 

He tightens his grip on his lightsaber hilt before sprinting towards Luke. He brings the red blade behind his shoulder then slices through Luke’s middle, it goes right through him. He slides to a stop then turns around as Luke faces him.

The look of surprise crosses the conflicted man's face when he sees Luke still standing in one piece.

Kylo points the tip of the saber at Luke’s chest and walks forward, watching how it goes through his body without harming him. His jaw clenches as he realizes Luke is just a manifestation through the Force, “No...” He breathes out defeatedly. 

“See ya around, kid.” Luke’s body fades into nothing before his eyes. Then he realizes it was all a ploy for the Resistance to escape, “No!” He screams, his whole body is shaking with anger.

Hux begins to exit the ship, ordering his troops to search the area. Kylo picks up his cape and fastens back to his shoulders, beginning to walk to the entrance of the base with the troops in tow. “There will be no survivors. Kill anyone that’s left.” He orders them.

Hux is upset with Ren’s actions because he let the Resistance escape. His past haunts him too much, it distracts him.

The white-armored troopers flood the base as Kylo Ren enters the control room that’s guarded by two troops. General Hux stands outside as he watches him crouch down and pick something up off the concrete floor.

Kylo feels Rey’s presence in the Force as he looks up and sees her, they hold eye contact for a moment before the connection is severed when she leaves.

The golden dice in his hand disappears just like Luke did. His fists clench where it once laid in his palm as he holds back his feelings. His thoughts are interrupted by the monotone voice of a trooper, “Sir, we’ve found a survivor.”

He instantly stands up, “Bring me to them.” The trooper nods and brings to lead him to another room. He stands at the doorway as he watches the General interact with the girl. A trail of blood leads up to the metal cot where she is laying in a pool of the red liquid.

“Execute her.” The General's voice says nonchalantly as one of the men next to him aims a blaster at her head. He watches her, taking notice of how her eyes close and she calmly accepts her fate.

A rush of panic emerges in his chest, “Wait.” Kylo Ren speaks out as he walks forward. Hux turns around with an annoyed look on his pale face. “Supreme Leader. I am just following your orders. You said that there will be no survivors.” Hux informs him but Kylo just puts his hand up to silence him.

“Forget what I said, Hux. They may have information on the whereabouts of the Resistance.” He steps forward into her line of view.

The injured girl's eyes open, making eye contact with him. All he sees is fear in her glassy eyes. She realizes who he is. She knows his backstory and what he’s done.

“Excuse me, Supreme Leader. She is badly injured. She will barely make it to our ship.” Hux huffs.

Kylo’s jaw clenches in anger, “Get our medics then. Bring her to my ship at once.” He barks out at the troopers who scurry away to follow his orders.

Hux’s mouth drops, his eyebrows furrowed in frustration. He goes to say something but Kylo’s hand reaches out towards the girl's face and she falls limp. “Go find out what’s taking so long,” Kylo grumbles at Hux.

The General turns on his heel to leave the room but he hides behind the doorway to watch Ren’s next actions.

His gloved hand hovers over the large laceration on her thigh, his eyes close as he focuses. He transfers his power into her and the bleeding stops almost instantly; The size of the cut has shrunk considerably.

Hux couldn’t believe his own eyes, he just watched him save the enemy. Fury runs through his veins as he storms away to find the troopers.

Kylo sucks in a sharp breath as his eyes reopen, he watches some color rush back to her pale cheeks. During this process, he saw her memories. It started when she was a child and continued until where she is now, practically on her death bed. He felt all of her emotions. When her parents left her to die in the village on Jakku, when she met Rey and eventually the Resistance. He shook his head to get rid of the thoughts. 

One of his arms hooks behind her knees and the other supports her back. He easily holds her weight as he walks out into the main part of the facility, meeting the medics halfway.

“Take her to my ship. You can work on her injuries there.” He hesitatingly hands her limp body over to them.

Something wanted him to hold on, to not let them take her and for him to care for her himself. He knew he couldn’t though. He could feel the General's eyes burning into his skin. 

The Supreme Leader follows close behind the medics as they wheel her to his ship, some work on her as they were moving. He hopes she can’t feel the pain from them digging in her fresh wounds.

As they walk up the ramp, Hux interrupts him. “Excuse me, sir. But what about the Resistance? Shouldn’t we go after them?” Hux clasps his hands behind his own back.

“No. The girl will have answers. We’ll start to search the galaxy for them. No planet will be left untouched by the First Order.” He snarls before turning on his heel to head up to the cockpit to prepare for takeoff.

-

Once the ship lands in the hangar, the medics are already ready to get her to the medical ward as quickly as possible.

Kylo watches as they wheel her away, his facial expressions blank. Something in his chest aches as she disappears around the corner. He feels connected to her somehow and he doesn’t like this feeling. He felt it with Rey and he was let down by her choice to hold onto the light.

Hux comes up behind Ren, standing next to him as they both watch the busy hangar. “When she awakes, you’re going to question her. I have other matters to attend to.” Ren’s deep voice speaks emotionlessly then he walks away.

He retreats to his quarters, walking up to his grandfather's smashed helmet. He takes off one of his gloves, his fingertips graze over the surface as he takes a deep breath. “I need guidance. I let the Resistance fall right through my fingers. I’m not sure if this girl I recovered will have answers for me.” He sighs and shakes his head.

He pulls away from the helmet and begins to walk away so he could gather his composure and attend the meeting he has planned.

-

When Kylo Ren walks into the conference room, he notices General Hux isn’t there with the rest of the high-ranked officials. He continues on with his meeting, some people give their opinions and they come up with a plan to send fleets of troopers out to planets to scout for the Resistance all over the galaxy.

As he goes to exit the room, Hux walks in. “May I talk to you in private?” He whispers through his teeth. Kylo could see fresh fingernail scratches on his pale cheek, it almost made him chuckle.

Kylo gave him a curt nod, “Follow me.” He begins to walk out of the room, making his way towards the medical ward with Hux and two troopers following. “I tried to get the girl to talk but she attacked me. They sedated her. I’m not sure when she will be awake for you to take over.” Kylo just put his hand up to dismiss him, the smaller man just stopped in his tracks in the middle of the hallway. Kylo hears him groan in annoyance.

The people walking down the hallway move out of Kylo’s way. His cape floats behind him as his long legs move swiftly through the long corridors until he made it to the medical ward.

Everyone’s eyes turned towards him as the mechanical door hisses open. He looks around for the girl but he doesn’t see anybody except nurses and doctors.

One of the staff members sees him standing there with the two troopers, she slowly walks up to him— obviously nervous. “Hello, sir. Is there anything I can help you with?” She asks. He looks down at the nurse and reads her name tag, “Yes. Bring me to the prisoner.”

The nurse's eyes widen as something clicks in her mind, “Yes, sir. Right, this way.” She turns around and leads him to the door. She opens it and the bed is empty, he can’t see where the girl is.

“There is someone here to visit.” The nurse's voice is shaky, she takes a step to the side to let Ren pass through. The troopers stand on both sides of the door to guard it.

The girl looks over him, her eyes travel from his feet up to his emotionless face. His eyes take in the scene in front of him. the droid is patching up her leg and her hospital gown is hiked up high on her thigh.

She notices him looking at her bandage and she pulls the gown back down. They both stay silent as the droid finishes its job working on her wrist, “Give us a moment, droid.” Kylo orders it then it floats out of the room.

The girl doesn’t pick her head up or try to make eye contact with him, it frustrates him because he can’t read her. He takes a few large steps towards her, his tall stature towers over her in the chair she’s sitting in. He can feel her uneasiness by how her fingers are playing with the hem of the gown she’s wearing, she still won’t pick up her head.

“You know why I’m here.” He tries to keep his voice gentle but still stern. He doesn’t want to frighten the girl even more. Her eyes slowly move to look at him through the locks of her hair hanging in her vision.

She picks her head up fully before she talks, “You’re here because General Hux couldn’t get anything out of me? Is that right? He sent you to do his dirty work?” She bit back, her voice was strong compared to her demeanor.

He took a step back as she got up out of her chair and wobbled on one leg to her bed, “I applaud you for standing up to General Hux.” His voice has humor in it.

The girl's eyes look up and squinted at him as she tries to figure him out, “Why thank you..” She grumbles. Her attitude makes him want to smirk. 

“The Resistance. You have to know where they are going next.” He directly asks her, moving closer to her body. “Just like I told your precious General. If I did know, I would never tell you where they went.” She snaps, looking at him with fiery eyes.

Kylo takes a chance by moving even closer, “You know, I can take whatever I want.” His voice is raspy as his eyes take over her face, taking notice to the little bit of collarbone that’s peeking out from the oversized gown. The hair on her body stands up as she gets goosebumps, it’s obvious she’s bothered by him being so close.

If she won’t talk, he’ll make her. His fist tightens as he begins to go through her memories again, “This will only hurt a little.” He can tell she’s in pain now by how she cries out and falls back onto the bed fully now. Tears are freely running down her cheeks but he barely notices.

This time he goes through every little detail, he feels how she’s pained by the Resistance leaving her to die, her own parents left her to die amongst her village, how afraid she is of him...

“The Resistance left you, your parents left you... The First Order destroyed your village on Jakku. Everyone, last one of them was murdered. You’re afraid of the First Order. So lonely. So weak. You felt that Leia Organa is like the mother who wouldn’t run away... But everyone left you. You’re alone.” He shakes his head as he sighs in pity.

The girl is still crying, her hands are tugging at fistfuls of her own hair. “Stop! Get out of my head!” She screeches. The bridge between their minds strengthened and Kylo stumbles back in shock. Did she push him out of her mind? 

“You...” He breathed out. He couldn’t hide his emotions. He knows she’s Force-sensitive.

Her wet eyes open to stare at him in shock but he turns around so she couldn’t see him in this weakened state. He took a deep breath as he gathered his thoughts before exiting the room, leaving her alone again.

He knows she has potential with the First Order. It will be easy to turn her. She has nowhere else to go. Nobody sees the untapped potential in her except him.

@officiallpeterparker @funnysadshit @ymariejp @attorneyl @fangirl570 @trinityrud20 @kylos-sassy-cousin @delicatelyherdreams @fizzywoohoo @savvy7392 @angelias134 @that-girl-named-alex @cas-backwards-tie @glimmering-darling-dolly @glitterypinkkitty @blxkstar @his-snow-white-queen @elsasshole @smiithys @nanocoool @deathbyarabbit @alex-skr @theholycakehole​  @averillian​  @crazynocturnalkiki​ @arcanebabe​ @tinydancer40​ @superduckypower​  @thomasscresswell​ @butterfly-writes​ @thatintrovertedbisexual​ @fangirlanotherjust​ @somekindofroger​  @nicci442​ @little-girl-who-dream-too-much​ @wildest-dream-​ @silverlambcaptain​

[mopeytropey]

What if I told you that I received so many lovely messages about fond apu memories and autumnal weather ... that I felt inspired to write some bonus content about our two, favorite beer nerds?

Well, you’re in luck. Because I did.

“Hey, babe!”

Clarke’s voice greets her from out of sight as Lexa toes off her running shoes without bothering to untie them. She deposits them neatly, beside a pair of Clarke’s shoes, against the wall of the entryway as the front door clicks shut. Frank, their recently adopted rescue, comes skittering across the tiled flooring in a bundle of excitement, panting and pushing his cold, black nose into Lexa’s calf muscle. Squatting to her haunches with a grin, she scratches the ringlets of white fur behind his lopsided ears.

When she rounds the open doorway into the kitchen, Clarke is stood at the island chopping fresh herbs. The air is fragrant and the kitchen is warm, awash in bright, morning sunlight that reflects off the harbor. Music plays softly and Clarke is radiant. Lexa smiles.

“Hey.”

“How was the run?” Clarke asks without looking up from the cutting board.

Lexa heads for the fridge to remove a canteen of water. “It was good. The temperature along the water is perfect today.”

“I miss summer,” Clarke sighs and nearly pouts.

“You love the fall.” Lexa takes small, measured sips then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “It’s your most preferred season. You haven’t stopped talking about the foliage along High Street for weeks.”

“Still, I miss summer. The boat. The beach.”

“Clarke, it was practically summer weather last weekend. We were on the boat for hours on Saturday.”

Clarke’s pout intensifies. “Bikinis.”

This produces an actual laugh, and Lexa shakes her head. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll parade around in swimsuits in the dead of winter. You keep it warm enough in here.”

Clarke’s face breaks into a bright smile as she looks up from her chopping. “Promise?”

Lexa smiles as she takes a longer sip of ice-cold water from her canteen. Clarke is dressed for the brunch they’ll be hosting shortly. Casual in her striped sleeveless top and fitted jeans, but nicer than her typical Sunday morning wardrobe of pajama shorts and baggy tee shirts. Nice enough for Lexa to take notice.

“It smells good in here,” she says, moving closer to where Clarke is stood chopping. A hand finds its way beneath the loose hem of Clarke shirt as Lexa’s mouth softly touches Clarke’s bare shoulder. “And, you look nice.”

“Oh my god—you’re so sweaty.” Clarke squirms from Lexa’s touch with a laugh, all the more incentive to move in closer, bodily pinning her against the edge of the island. “Lexa!”

Laughing, she finally steps away as Clarke turns from the counter with an expression that some might mistake for exasperation. Three years on, Lexa knows better. Still smiling, she takes another pull off the water bottle before using the hem of her shirt to wipe the perspiration from her face and neck.

“I’m going to shower.”

“Good, you stink,” Clarke laughs, poking a finger against Lexa’s bared abdomen just before her damp running shirt drops back into place. “And, your shirt is soaked. I love you, but I’m not changing my outfit just because all that adrenaline has made you handsy.”

Lexa heads for the stairs with a laugh. “Drenched in sweat from a long run used to do it for you, you know.”

She pulls her shirt over her head as she climbs, stopping at the landing to turn towards Clarke who has trailed behind her and paused at the base of the spiral staircase.

“Oh, I’m definitely still appreciating the view …  from afar.”

Lexa’s aim is impeccable. The damp shirt hits Clarke square in the face as she squeals in disgust, and Frank barks while dancing at her feet. Lexa laughs all the way to the shower.

:::

“Better?”

Clarke looks up from the big block cutting board with a smile as Lexa shuffles into the kitchen for a second time. She is now slicing strawberries and mangoes, and Lexa does a slow spin as if to show off her clean clothes and freshly blow-dried curls.

Clarke leans forward, wordlessly requesting a quick kiss, and then hums against Lexa’s mouth when she closes the distance. “Well, you definitely smell better,” she says as they separate.

“What can I do?” Lexa surveys Clarke’s array of prep stations along the island countertop—freshly diced fruit, ramekins of chopped herbs, and blocks of cheese, waiting to be grated. Aromas of ground coffee brewing and warm pastries baking have begun to fill the kitchen. “Do you need any help?”

She is still mostly relegated to making fried eggs and grilled cheese sandwiches for them to eat, but over the years Lexa has found her place in the kitchen. Clarke is as efficient as she is talented as a home chef, but she always appreciates Lexa’s company as she cooks. She often works alongside Clarke as an adequate sous chef.

“Grate that cheese for me, and I’ll do dirty things to you later.”

Lexa responds to Clarke’s titillating grin with an arched brow and smirk of her own. “Go on.”

“Honestly, after we survive this brunch, I fully plan to do dirty things with you either way.” Clarke widens her grin and bats her eyelashes. “But, the grating would still be very much appreciated.”

Lexa returns her smile while reaching for a wedge of cheese. “Okay, how much of these do you need?”

“I would do half a block of the gruyere and fontina, go heavy on the sharp cheddar.”

Lexa begins her task, dropping a few shreds of cheese to the floor where Frank sits expectantly, tail wagging against the wood floors like a miniature dry mop.

“I saw that.”

Lexa smiles over at Clarke, whose eyes remain on her knife as it deftly slices a strawberry. “Saw what?”

Moments of comforting silence pass, and then Clarke releases a long-suffering sigh. “Is it too early to start drinking?”

“What’s got you feeling so anxious?”

“I’m not anxious just … anticipatory.”

“Well, you’re certainly acting anxious,” Lexa counters. And then, her voice softens to gentle concern. “We’ve hosted brunch a hundred times, Clarke.”

“Okay, but you know this brunch, in particular, is going to be different. You don’t feel at all anxious?”

Poised to respond, Lexa sets down the cheese grater and opens her mouth just as Clarke continues to ramble on with her train of thought.

“Of course you don’t feel anxious—you’re the most even-keeled person I’ve ever met. How many times in your life have you been nervous about anything? Twice?”

Smiling warmly, Lexa shrugs. “At least three times.” Her eyes slide to the bowl of fruit that she knows Clarke has been marinating in a light but sugary glaze of orange liqueur. “How much of that fruit do you think we’d have to eat to feel a little drunk? Or, I could slip some amaretto into your coffee.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Clarke laughs. “You know that if Abby shows up to a social event and can tell that I’ve been drinking before any guests have arrived, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Lexa moves in closer, and this time, feels Clarke sink against her as arms coil around her waist. She kisses Clarke’s hairline, the skin of her shoulder. Tender endearments that she has expressed hundreds of times.  She inhales as Clarke exhales, a synthesis of their familiar proximity.

This feels different, Lexa thinks.

There is a subtle distinction that buzzes through her, warming her skin and causing her stomach to flutter. An embrace that could be almost perfunctory at this stage, is somehow much more. She wonders briefly if Clarke feels it too.

“I love you.”

“That helps,” Clarke mumbles, having nestled into the crook of Lexa’s neck and shoulder.

Lexa takes a quick breath, settling the nerves that she conceals too well. “And, Frank loves you too.”

She glances down to the floor, Clarke’s gaze quickly following, to see their fluffy companion bumping against their shins, not wanting to be left out of the affection.

“Oh, I love you too, Frank!” Clarke squats, cooing as she accepts sloppy kisses and scoops the small, eager pup into her arms, her anxieties momentarily forgotten.

:::

“Which one of you is pregnant?”

“Raven …”

Clarke is always scolding, exasperated, appalled, or any combination of all three, and Lexa doesn’t know why she still bothers. In all the years that she’s known her, Raven has never once been cowed to socially appropriate conversations no matter the reprimand.

“Don’t get mad at me—you’re the one who’s acting weird.” Raven sits across from them with a calculating stare, flanked by Lincoln and Anya and wielding her fork like a weapon. The tines point accusingly at she and Clarke as Raven says, “Something is up.”

Lexa’s gaze flicks to Anya for any hint of culpability. To no surprise, her face remains placid and untelling.

Clarke rolls her eyes. “I’m not pregnant!”

“Esquire?”

“No one is pregnant,” Clarke reiterates.

The oblong dining table is overflowing with food and drinks. Clarke’s mother, who sits beside Lexa, makes an appreciative sound as she takes a bite of quiche.

“This is wonderful, Clarke.”

Clarke offers a grateful smile for Abby’s efforts to redirect the conversation, but the end result is predictably futile. Raven’s lines of questioning are often like a speeding, unmanned freight train. Virtually unstoppable.

“The food really is excellent,” Lincoln echoes with his soft smile.

“Quiet, you,” Raven snaps playfully. “Come on, Griffin. Spill.”

Beneath the table, Lexa finds Clarke’s fingers.

“We wanted you all here to tell you that—“ Clarke exhales, squeezing Lexa’s fingers. “Lexa and I got married.”

The house falls quiet for three, tense seconds, and then Octavia speaks, her voice taking on a sharp tone of mistrust.

“You mean you’re getting married.”

“We were married last week,” Lexa corrects with an easy smile.

Octavia blinks slowly, her gaze calculating between the two of them. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” Clarke answers, the waver in her voice beginning to settle now that they’ve aired this secret to their closest friends. “In New York.”

Early autumn in her city. Lingering summer warmth but with a touch of color on all the trees in the parks. The promise of changing seasons ahead. Clarke stood in the courthouse in jeans and one of Lexa’s favorite tee shirts, wearing the brightest smile Lexa has ever seen. It was nothing she had ever planned for herself and somehow everything she had ever wanted in a ceremonial exchange of vows. That it was Clarke sat beside her, signing her name just below Lexa’s, no doubt made all the difference.

“You run away to New York,” Raven is saying, “exchange some secret nuptials, slink back into town as if nothing has changed—“

“Okay, you’re being a little dramatic. The plan wasn’t really that nefarious,” Clarke says.

“—and then wait an entire week to tell us?”

Lexa tries very hard not to be entertained by Raven’s exasperation, but she finds herself fighting a smile as Clarke’s best friend struggles to work out the new information.

“You were on that extended project at work,” Clarke reminds her.

“I was in Rhode Island, not orbiting in space.”

“To be fair,” Octavia chimes in, “you never check your phone when you’re locked into a project.”

“You could have texted me,” Raven argues.

“I wasn’t going to tell you that I got married over text!”

Lexa watches the pure shock and mild affront ebb from Raven’s features. “Oh my god, you’re married.”

“Yeah,” Clarke smiles, squeezing again to Lexa’s fingers.

“Hang on, why are you not more shocked by this?” Raven has turned her attention to Abby, who sits at Lexa’s right-hand side.

“Oh,” Clarke clears her throat after finishing a sip of her mimosa. “My mom was there.”

“Clarke asked for my discretion,” Abby responds calmly. “Of course I deferred to hers and Lexa’s wishes.”

“I can’t believe,” Raven says to Abby in dismay, shaking her head like an unforgiving betrayal, “after all these years, you’re still playing favorites with Clarke by keeping secrets from your other children.”

At this, Abby laughs and the atmosphere around the table decompresses. Lincoln extends his glass across the table towards Lexa.

“Cheers, buddy. Welcome to the club.”

“Thanks.” Lexa smiles, clinking their glasses together. Clarke’s hand is still in hers, and Lexa’s palm suddenly perspires.

“Yeah, took you two long enough.” Octavia’s grin is smaller, more resigned, but she too extends her glass to join Lexa’s and Lincoln’s.

“Can you estimate just how long you plan to sulk about this?” Clarke is saying to Raven as everyone else tucks into their food.

Raven clicks her tongue, though she is smiling as she says, “Ten, fifteen years tops.”

Anya has had her arm draped carelessly along the back of Raven’s chair since they sat down, and now briefly runs her fingers across Raven’s shoulder cap. “Relax, I got some pretty nice photos of the courthouse I can show you.”

Raven nearly flinches in surprise. “You were—ugh, of course you were there.” She huffs in defeat, rolling her eyes and reaching for her half-empty glass of champagne and orange juice (heavy on the champagne). “Okay, somebody needs to get me a refill because I need all the details and this mimosa is going to go down quickly.”

“It was simple and more-or-less unplanned,” Clarke explains with an easy sigh. “We drove down last weekend to visit Gus. My mom was already there on business, and … it just felt right.”

Lexa picks up the thread where Clarke leaves off. “We chose the courthouse where Gus signed the papers to make my adoption official.” She looks at Clarke, heart flapping wildly. “It was nice.”

Something softens in Raven’s features at Lexa’s words, and she exhales as Anya is refilling her glass. “Okay, that is some cute shit.”

“You sure you’re not mad at me?” Clarke frets.

“Of course I’m not mad at you, dumbass. You surprised the ever-loving hell out of me, but—I mean, jesus, you two have been grossing us out as a married couple for years.”

Clarke blows a kiss at her from across the table. “Next time I get married on a whim, I’ll text you.”

The humor drops from Raven’s face as she places a hand flat against the table. “I swear on my love of science, Clarke, if you ever soil this marriage with Esquire, I will seriously consider blocking your number indefinitely.”

Lexa grins, oddly comforted by Raven’s threatening tone. “Thanks, Reyes.”

“I’m obviously kidding!” Clarke leans over to kiss the line of Lexa’s jaw as if to underscore her joke.

“Okay, so let’s hear it. Tell me more,” Raven demands.

Lexa smiles, remembering the day. “Gus took us out for ramen afterwards.”

“Then I took them out for shots,” Anya says.

“It really was quite lovely,” Abby chimes in, understandably eager to finally have the freedom to speak of their nuptials. “The courthouse, I mean. And dinner. I’d rather not know about all the drinking that followed.”

“Aw come on, Mama Griffin. You know you’ve got some good kids,” Octavia says.

Abby agrees without hesitation. “The very best.”

Lexa feels her chest bloom with warmth to be included in the sentiment, and luckier still to have acquired such a profoundly superior family.

:::

Clarke, her mother, and their other guests have moved into the sitting room while Lexa tidies the kitchen. Still within earshot, she listens for the bright notes of Clarke’s laughter and curbs her own smile at the sound. Anya hands her items off the dining table while Lexa wraps the leftovers and loads the dishwasher. The routine between them is practiced and familiar, running through motions they have done together since childhood.  

“Keeping this little secret of yours is going to have me in the dog house. No offense, Frank.” Anya looks to the dog that has fallen asleep near their feet where she and Lexa are leaned against the island.

The kitchen now more-or-less spotless, Lexa pushes off the countertop and reaches into the fridge for two beers, popping their lids before offering one to her sister.

“My condolences,” she answers with a grin. “When do you go back?”

“Few days.”

Lexa sips her beer. “Plenty of time to reconcile then. Anyway, she doesn’t seem upset anymore.”

“At you and Clarke, no. At me?” Anya runs a hand through her hair with a long-suffering exhale that brings a smile to Lexa’s face.

She is easily amused by seeing Anya—so stoic, so stable, so disaffected by almost everything else in her life—navigate the delicate nuances of a sustained relationship. Particularly with Raven Reyes.

“What?” Anya scowls as she notices Lexa’s amusement.

Lexa shrugs, finishing another sip of beer. “Nothing. You’re just very domesticated these days.”

“Says the married one.”

Lexa’s stomach jumps as she thinks of Clarke sitting in the next room. “It’s not so bad. You should try it.”

“It’s been seven days, kid. Talk to me in seven years.”

“I will.”

Anya’s narrowed gaze moves from Lexa’s smug confidence to the floor. “Your dog is sleeping beside a Yankees emblem.”

Without turning around, Lexa knows she will find Frank curled around the offensive dog toy—a plush baseball with navy stitching, emblazoned with the infamous logo—that arrived to their house the day after the cursed New York baseball team made the playoffs. Her shoulders tense even as she rolls her eyes.

“It’s a situation that is being handled.”

“It looks like he’s fairly attached to it,” Anya prods.

“The dog’s sight is impaired, Anya. He cannot be held accountable for poor judgement.”

Frank, having lost an eye to irreparable damage before he was rescued, had immediately stolen Lexa’s heart. One look at him at the adoption event earlier that summer, and she knew he belonged with her and Clarke. They have been fairly inseparable ever since.

Anya very nearly smiles. “If you say so.”

“You’re involved in a serious, long-distance relationship with a devout supporter of the Yankees—is this really the fight you want to be having right now?”

A barely audible laugh—just loud enough for Lexa to hear it—and Anya concedes with a bowed head. “Clarke won’t let you throw it away, huh?”

Lexa takes another sip of beer then exhales in frustration, her eyes finally dragging over to Frank and that damn baseball. “No.”

:::

Brunch turns into beers and board games and more coffee, Abby excusing herself after a few hours to rest before her flight the following morning. She leaves them all with lingering hugs, motherly reminders to stay safe, and reiterated congratulations to Clarke and Lexa. By late afternoon, after another round of coffee for their guests, the house is finally empty and quiet, and Clarke collapses onto the sofa with a soft grunt of exhaustion.

Lexa sits at the opposite end, near her feet, and pulls Clarke’s legs into her lap. She begins to mindlessly rub her thumbs into Clarke’s calves as her head tips back and her eyes fall closed. They are peaceful for several minutes before Clarke’s voice scratches out softly.

“That went well.”

Lexa hums. “Raven’s outburst notwithstanding?”

“She was being really dramatic.”

“Have you met Raven before today?”

Clarke laughs, poking her foot into Lexa’s stomach. “Hush.”

At the sound of her laughter, Lexa’s head rolls to the side. She opens her eyes to find Clarke already looking at her with drowsy eyes. “You’re about to fall asleep.”

Clarke hums as Lexa’s hands continue to work against the tense muscles of her legs and feet.

“Is this impending nap just a precursor to you ravaging me later?”

“Mmm. Yes.” As Clarke smiles, her eyes fall closed again. “Need to restore energy.”

“Okay, I’m going to go read for a bit.”

Clarke pouts as Lexa shifts from under her legs and stands beside the couch to stretch her limbs.

“No. Stay and cuddle.”

Lexa bends to kiss Clarke’s protruding lip. “I’ll cuddle you later when we have less clothes on.”

“I feel objectified.” Still with her eyes closed, Clarke finds the crook of Lexa’s elbow, keeping her close with a loose grip.

“You’re welcome,” Lexa smiles, and kisses her again.

:::

It’s just under an hour later, the sky streaking in hues of burnt orange and fading pink, when Lexa glances up from her book to see Clarke shuffling towards her. She is still wrapped in a blanket that she must have grabbed from the sofa during her nap. Lexa smiles at her sleepy frown and places her book on the wide arm of the deck chair just before Clarke crawls onto her lap.

“Hi.”

“Aren’t you cold out here?”

“Much warmer now,” Lexa says, hugging Clarke closer as they shift against the wooden chair to find an optimal snuggling position. “How was the nap?”

“Mmm,” Clarke hums. “Productive.”

Her voice is that fraction of an octave lower, that sensational rasp that sends a tingling chill across Lexa’s shoulders.

“Productive?”

“Yeah, I had a nice dream about my wife.”

Lexa can’t help the small giggle that erupts as the tips of her ears go red. It will take some getting used to—having a wife, being someone’s wife—referring to Clarke as such and hearing the same in return. Thinking of herself in this way still feels a bit like walking around in shoes that are too big for her feet. A week on, and being Clarke’s wife has not yet lost its clumsy weight.

A nervous energy, not unlike the jittery uncertainties that new relationships breed, has been Lexa’s stasis for a solid week. She likens this new adjustment to the flurry of unrestrained feelings she experienced during those early weeks with Clarke. When she first reached for Lexa’s hand in public without warning, or the effort it took to calm her anxious breathing when they undressed each other for the first time. Lexa’s nerves are similarly frayed now, replaying this new epithet in her mind over and over.

My wife. 

She focuses instead on Clarke’s potentially filthy dream and clears her throat. “I’d like to hear more about that.”

In response, Clarke laughs against her neck and kisses just below her ear. “I bet you would.”

The next kiss, pressed against Lexa’s mouth, is even more languid, growing a ball of heat in the pit of her stomach. “So, about that dream.”

“Yeah—can we go inside now?” Clarke laughs against her lips, stealing another kiss as Lexa’s hands slip beneath the wooly throw blanket to find an excessive amount of bare skin. “I’m officially cold.”

“Clarke, you’re not wearing any pants.”

“You know I can’t fall asleep in jeans, babe.”

As she stands with a smile, nearly tipping Clarke out of her lap if not for a sure grip, Lexa thinks of all the other things she knows about the woman clinging to her shoulders.

Not just how she takes her coffee or her favorite movie, but the brand of dish soap she prefers and the way her voice shatters just before she cries. The slow rumble of her snores and the color of her eyes when they darken in a flash of anger.

That she is selfless to a fault, often putting her own wellness at risk for the sake of others. She knows the songs that Clarke refuses to listen to because they are such visceral reminders of Jake. Lexa knows when she needs space and the times she will want comfort, even if she is too scared to ask.

These and so many more—the myriad quirks that arise out of sustained intimacy.

Once indoors, Lexa deposits Clarke onto the bed before falling gracelessly beside her in a tangle of limbs.

“So, the big secret’s out. Everyone that matters knows that we’re married.” Lexa swallows. “How do you feel?”

Clarke rolls over with a sigh, her eyes scanning the ceiling above them. “Better. A lot better, actually.”

“Yeah? No turning back now. You’re officially stuck with me.”

Even as she jokes, her heart hammers a steady beat. The light teasing easily drags Clarke’s gaze back to her, and Lexa tempers her smile enough to accept a lingering press of Clarke’s mouth.

She answers as they slowly break apart, her hands latched at the back of Lexa’s neck. “I think we both know I was stuck with you a long time ago.”

:::

[artificialqueens]

Nostalgia, Part 3 (Rujubee) - Dartmouth420

nostalgia is a series that follows the re-ignition of raven/jujubee’s friendship (with benefits) while jujubee competes on all stars five and raven is working on set. there will be one chapter for every episode of AS5 where jujubee appears. drag names used with male pronouns.

summary: Jujubee’s coming off the thrill of the challenge win and the lip-sync battle. But jealousy is a double-edged sword… and bad habits are hard to break.

tw: smut, dom/sub dynamics, mild degrading language, mild jealousy

a/n: i’m enjoying the heck out of AS5 and i hope y'all are too.

Jujubee was very pleased with his performance in the challenge. Designing and presenting the hotel room had been surprisingly fun and despite his early misgivings, India and Alexis had been great to work with. Jujubee was confident, he’d been funny, coherent, and had delivered exactly as he’d intended. One hundred percent pure Laotian gold sheets indeed.

Raven hadn’t been around much and Jujubee hadn’t sought him out.

“Girl,” said Mariah, in that patient, knowing drawl of his as they painted their faces in the mirror in preparation for the runway and the judging, “I know what you’re doing.”

“Do you now?” responded Jujubee, carefully covering his mild panic. Not that there was anything to panic about but he had technically broken an important rule…

“Don’t you look at me like that, I ain’t a snitch!” laughed Mariah, “But I noticed that hickie. Maybe next time I’m feeling the stress of the competition I’ll go see for myself if darling Raven is around. I’ve got good memories of that mouth.”

“Since when?” responded Jujubee. He hadn’t realized the two of them had ever been involved, though hook-ups were certainly common among the community.

“We’ve both been around for a while,” said Mariah, with a knowing shrug, “We’ve both been getting around for a while.”

“Damn, who hasn’t he let fuck him?” joked Jujubee lightly, but slight jealousy was twisting in his stomach. He couldn’t deny Raven’s reputation. Though Jujubee had vaguely hoped he had the other man to himself, at least if their on-set shenanigans were going to continue.

“Out of the old generation? That list is short. From what I’ve heard he and Raja are working through the younger ones, too… just ask baby Naomi.”

Jujubee chuckled and he and Mariah returned to the task at hand. 

-

Jujubee won the fucking challenge! 

He couldn’t help letting a few tears escape his eyes as the pride and relief overflowed. It was a lot. And then the damn Untucked was a lot, too. Connecting with Mayhem and Blair was great, but emotional as hell. Nerves and anticipation were creeping up for what was to come next.

He spoke with everyone, changed into his leopard-print catsuit, picked out his damn lipstick and then before Jujubee knew it he was standing on the runway, and Ru was shouting “Ru-veal yourself!”

Jujubee turned, heart in his throat as he stared at the screen and the assassin contained behind it. Jujubee’s prediction from the other week in the bathroom with Raven returned to him, and his heart pounded in anticipation. Was it Raven behind that screen? Production would never be able to wrangle it, there was no way, but-

The screen rolled up and Jujubee saw soft orange velvet ankle-boots and while they were lovely shoes Raven would never wear something like that in a million years. As the screen rose Jujubee forced Raven to leave his mind as he focused on the task at hand, which was going to be beating Monét-motherfucking-X-Change in a lip-sync battle, to a Lizzo song.

All Stars Five was hard, damn it.

Monét gave an amazing performance, and Jujubee did his best but the emotion of the day left him a bit thrown off. Jujubee was disappointed with the loss, he could admit that. Somewhere in back of his mind he knew if he had been lip-syncing against Raven he could have beaten him, and felt ever-so-slightly cheated that his prediction hadn’t come true. Oh well, it was water under the bridge. 

Then there was the matter of sending Mariah home which was way more fucking tragic than anyone including Jujubee had been ready for. 

“Good luck, girl,” whispered Mariah in Jujubee’s ear as they hugged and he left the runway, “And have fun.”

-

When Jujubee finally, finally got back to the hotel after a very long day, he walked down the hall to his room and noticed a figure leaning against the wall next to his door, one arm tucked under the opposite elbow, eyes down on his phone.

It was of course, Raven, looking like a tall drink of… chaotic whore. But what else was new? Jujubee approached, quiet, waiting for Raven to notice him. 

“Hey bitch!” said Raven when he looked up, a grin his face, “I heard a rumour that you won the challenge today.”

“Mm-hmm,” replied Jujubee, self-satisfied, sliding his hotel key into the slot and then opening the door. The day had been an emotional roller coaster, full of highs and lows. He was dead tired on his feet. 

Raven followed him inside without needing to be asked and said, “Congratulations.”

“Thanks, fuck I needed a win.”

“I know, you deserve it. It’s been a long time coming.”

Jujubee tossed his day bag onto the chair, and laughed, “I thought it was gonna be you behind that screen. Bitch I was like ooh shit we just talked about it last week and now I’ve won? Hope he’s ready… ”

Raven put his phone down on the table, “I wasn’t lying to you when I said I’m not an assassin-”

“Jury’s still out on that, I can’t trust anyone.”

Raven laughed, and Jujubee gave him a suspicious side-eye that was mostly for show. Mostly.

“Monét destroyed you.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘destroyed’,” replied Jujubee, mildly insulted. He thought he’d held his own pretty well in the lip-sync, but the disappointment that it wasn’t Raven had thrown him off… 

“Kicked your ass, cut you to pieces, sliced and diced,” continued Raven, stepping closer to him.

“Shut up.”

“No, I live to give you a hard time,” said Raven, passing by Jujubee and making his way over to stand next to the end of the bed, “One more bitch down, huh?”

Jujubee took a moment. Raven was posed awkwardly, looking down at the bed with his arms crossed, avoiding eye contact. Jujubee cocked his head to one side, and considered his response. He was pretty damn tired tonight but elation and pride were still tingling under his skin. He had just won, after all. And curiosity was pulling at him.

“Did you get a chance to say goodbye to Mariah?” asked Jujubee, casually, reaching for the water bottle he’d left out on the table.

“Yeah, I saw him afterwards. You know how emotional the eliminations are. We, uh, talked,” said Raven quickly. Jujubee recalled his earlier conversation with Mariah, noted Raven’s avoidance of eye contact and presumed something must have happened. But it seemed odd that Raven wouldn’t brag about it.

“Did he say anything interesting?” asked Jujubee.

“Interesting?”

Jujubee shrugged and took a drink of water. All he could picture was Raven’s mouth around his cock the first week in the supply closet, how good it had felt and whether Raven had done the same thing for Mariah. Jujubee was certain that he had, but there was no rational reason to feel jealous. Both he and Raven were in serious, if open, relationships and fucked all kinds of people on tour and in the ins and outs of their lives. This wasn’t anything special. 

“Anyway,” said Jujubee, putting his water bottle down. He decided to be straightforward. “It’s been a long day girl, what do you want from me?

“Oh, well,” Raven practically purred, an absolutely salacious expression appearing on his face that caused a tight thrill to swoop in Jujubee’s stomach, “You won today. I’m here so you can claim your reward.”

Ah, of course. I’ll let you fuck me if you win. Jujubee had assumed Raven meant the crown, not just a main challenge. Perhaps Raven was using it as an excuse, and he was more interested in keeping this thing going between them than Jujubee had realized. What exactly were they to each other?

“I don’t have the energy to top you tonight, I’m exhausted,” said Jujubee, crossing his arms.

Raven’s mouth fell open for a second, and then he closed it, and he shifted, still standing by the bed.

“Okay, but like, I prepped and everything-”

“Wow. Someone’s entitled.”

“Fuck off.”

“I don’t think I will bitch, this is my room.”

Raven let out an annoyed sigh and rolled his eyes. Jujubee felt a kind of calculating power, because there was something so fun about fucking with Raven. It was easy. It was almost as much fun as actually fucking him.

“Sit down,” ordered Jujubee and there was an instant change in the air, and to Raven’s expression. But Raven didn’t obey immediately, he waited, drawing out the moment. And then Raven sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at Jujubee expectantly.

Jujubee approached him. There it was, the thrill of the power exchange that occurred so smoothly between them every time. 

“Keep your mouth shut,” said Jujubee. “I don’t want to hear your whining.”

Raven bit his lip and nodded.

“Take your pants off.”

Raven unbuckled his belt and undid his fly and lifted his hips, sliding his jeans to his ankles and taking them off his feet. Jujubee just stood and watched, and then brought his hand up and examined his nails, performing indifference. Raven huffed and removed his underwear as well. He was already hard. Well that was certainly fun, considered Jujubee, allowing an approving smile to appear on his face.

He approached, closing the distance between them and took Raven’s face in his hands. Tilting his head back and kissing him. Raven responded, hands going to Jujubee’s back. Jujubee broke the kiss and stepped back out of his reach. “Don’t touch." 

Raven looked disappointed but he didn’t say anything, doing as he was told. A jolt of excitement shot down Jujubee’s spine.

Jujubee decided he might as well cut to the chase.

"Open your legs.”

Raven obeyed. Jujubee stepped froward and dropped to his knees, hands on Raven’s overly-tanned thighs and regarded his cock for a moment. Raven was still, practically holding his breath.

Jujubee dipped his head and took Raven’s cock in his mouth and felt the other man practically shudder at the sensation. Jujubee went to work with his hand and his mouth, and while he didn’t fall over himself to suck cock at any given moment the way Raven did, he’d been doing this a pretty damn long time and he was pretty damn good at it too.

“Mm, fuck… ” murmured Raven.

Jujubee pulled back instantly, digging his nails into Raven’s inner thigh. Raven hissed at the pain, and Jujubee grabbed him by the chin with his opposite hand. 

“Did I say you could talk?”

Raven shook his head, a smirk growing on his face. Jujubee held eye contact until Raven looked away and pressed his lips together, pouting, submissive.

“Keep your mouth shut you little slut, and maybe I’ll let you finish.”

Jujubee wasn’t entirely sure where that had come from, because he really hadn’t been planning for things to get this intense. But Raven inhaled sharply, and his cock twitched and he obediently remained silent, so Jujubee returned to his task. 

They really shouldn’t let this become a habit, considered Jujubee as he sucked on the head of Raven’s cock and Raven let out a heavy breath. Warm nostalgia rose in Jujubee’s chest.

During All Stars One there had been part of the Untucked that had remained unaired, during the heavily staged Fuck, Marry, Kill conversation. Raven had just infamously and hungrily told Manila, “I would actually fuck you.” But what Raven had said next, in response to Jujubee’s name coming up had been to simply give him a wink and say, “Been there, done that. Marry.”

They hadn’t done anything yet, of course. Raven had been holding off on him since Season Two. It had only made the tension between them higher, much to Jujubee’s frustration. Jujubee’s response to Raven’s name had been, of course, “Fuck. Baby, I’ll make sure you can’t walk the next day.”

And he had.

Jujubee snapped back to the present, because it seemed like Raven was going to come soon. Raven had fallen back to his elbows, his breath shallow, and a flush was beginning to creep up his neck to his face. They really weren’t supposed to be doing this. The stakes were too high and Jujubee wasn’t exactly sure where Raven would fall under the ‘no conjugal visits’ rule, should anyone find out.

But anyway, Raven finished, staying obediently silent and keeping his hands off Jujubee as ordered. There was a certain satisfaction to it. Jujubee efficiently spat into a tissue and tossed it into the wastebasket in one swift movement. Raven lay back on the bed with a lazy hum, rolling onto his side. 

Jujubee didn’t have anything better to do so he flopped down next to him, propping himself up on his elbow. 

“You can talk now,” said Jujubee dryly.

“Mmm, permission received.”

There was silence for a moment. Jujubee considered whether he wanted to go to the effort of having Raven give him a handjob or something and then decided against it. He was dead tired. Sleep was looking attractive.

“You know you could be getting laid plenty this season, if you want it,” said Raven, seemingly out of the blue.

“What makes you say that?” asked Jujubee.

“That short bitch Cracker wants you, it’s obvious,” stated Raven with feigned nonchalance, rolling onto his back, tucking his arm under his head, “You going to fuck him?”

“Perhaps,” replied Jujubee, delicately touching his collarbone, giving Raven a smirk, “Are you jealous, bitch?”

“No,” said Raven, rolling his eyes, “You can do what and who you want, obviously.”

But Jujubee knew him well enough to read his body language, to see the set of Raven’s jaw and the tension in his shoulders. Raven was such a brat, and he was clearly feeling insecure about being left behind for someone younger and more fun. Oh, sweetie. 

“Well, now that I know such a great place to fuck people on set-” began Jujubee.

“Hey, no, that’s my spot!”

“Who else are you possibly fucking at work?” joked Jujubee, a vision of Mariah flashing before him.

“Eh, there was this twink PA I liked but he’s working somewhere else now, so-”

How intriguing. Ah, Jujubee could certainly pursue Cracker if he wanted to, the man wasn’t unattractive, but playing with Raven’s ridiculous emotions would probably be more fun. It wasn’t that Jujubee wanted to actually hurt him by any means, but Raven could be so dramatic and self-centred that there was a certain satisfaction to winding him up.

“So it’s just me?” teased Jujubee, pushing his luck.

“Do you think you’ll fuck Cracker?” responded Raven, dodging the question.

“Hmmm… I could.”

“But will you-”

“I don’t know yet, bitch!” laughed Jujubee, “I need to focus on winning. We probably shouldn’t even be doing this, it’s a distraction.”

“No it isn’t,” said Raven, a sly smile growing across his face, “This is what they call emotional support." 

The two of them laughed and Jujubee rolled his eyes, "You’re so stupid.”

“You like it.”

“To a point.”

Raven shrugged and then yawned, “Well I better go, I have to drive home.” He looked down at himself, amused, “Ha. I’m still naked.”

Jujubee admired Raven’s ass as he got up and pulled his underwear and jeans back on, heaving a deep sigh.

“Bye bitch,” called Jujubee, as Raven got his phone and left with a casual wave of his hand. The door shut behind him, and Jujubee blinked, the exhaustion of the day crashing back down on him. He got up and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. 

Tomorrow would be another challenge, and in all likelihood another twist. But whatever, Jujubee was ready. Bring it on, All Stars Five. 

[jolinar]

A Very Starwars Fictober, Day 13!

Prompt number: #13 “I’ve missed this”

Fandom: Star Wars 

Rating: Teen and up

Warnings/Tags: FinnRose, Stormflower, unrequited love 

Word Count: 1423

Summary: Rose and Finn catch up for the first time after Crait

Read it on Ao3

---

Rose had worked through lunch. Again. And then worked through dinner on top of it. She was exhausted and needed her bunk, but her stomach growled. She’d never fall asleep unless she ate something, and short of raiding one of her bunkmates’ stash, she'd be going to bed hungry. 

Like most of the Resistance’s makeshift base, the canteen was a series of tents set up against a small transport. Miraculously, there was still a light on in part of the tent. 

Standing at a countertop island in the middle of the tent was Finn. The very last person she wanted to see when she was tired and gross from a long day's work. He was working at a cutting board, a pile of vegetables on his right, and a bowl of neatly diced ones on his left. 

Rose was just about to let the tent flap fall again and scurry away when he looked up, he looked up, squinting over at her. 

“Hey, that you, Rose?” 

Rose froze. Busted. Face suddenly flushed, she took a step into the tent. 

“Yep! It’s me! I mean, obviously, it’s me, I’m standing right in front of you," oh goodness, she was babbling, she needed to rein this in. "What are you doing here?”

He gestured down at the cutting board and pile of vegetables beside him. “Duty rotation. I drew the short straw and ended up in the kitchen this week.”

“At,” she consulted her watch, “11 pm?”

Finn shrugged. “I got distracted earlier, so I got asked to help prep for tomorrow. What about you? What are you doing here so late?”

“Oh! I missed lunch and dinner. Just a lot of work. I was hoping to scavenge some food, but if it’s too late --”

“No, there’s probably something around here, hold on --”

He turned to start opening refrigerators and cabinets, trying to scrounge for her. She settled down at a seat across the long island from him, watching him.  

Though their time together had been short, it had been intense. They had schemed together, escaped the First Order together. She had saved his life, then...nothing. When she’d finally woken up, he’d been away with Poe. She wouldn’t admit even to herself that she waited for him, expecting some kind of message...but all during her recovery, whenever someone walked by she’d look up, hoping it was him. 

He produced a sandwich of unknown origin out of a fridge and placed it in on the island between them like a peace offering. She looked up at him and smiled as cheerfully as she could muster. She watched as he returned to cutting up the mound of produce in front of them. There had been so many things she’d wanted to say to him over the past month. But now she found she couldn’t find the words. Instead, she picked up the sandwich and started eating. 

“What have you been doing lately?” she managed after a few bites.

“When I’m not cutting up vegetables? I dunno,” he was slicing methodically, the knife sinking into the cutting board with dull thuds. “Been spending a lot of time with Poe.”

“And Rey?”

The knife paused. “Rey, she...she’s got her own stuff going on. I don’t understand a lot of it. Comes from being a Jedi, you know how it is. She's doing really important work for the Resistance, though, of course.” He said it over-confidently, and Rose wondered who he was trying to convince. He resumed chopping and continued: “Rey was my first friend outside the First Order, you know?”

“I wouldn't let Poe hear you say that.”

“I met Poe first, but he...Poe was a dream. My ticket out, then he was gone. I thought he was dead, remember? But me and Rey had each others' backs for longer. When I woke up after Starkiller I was so focused on making sure that Rey was safe. You know that better than anyone.” She nodded, remembering how he’d been willing to desert the entire Resistance rather than risk Rey returning to a doomed fleet. “The whole time on Canto Bight, all of that pushing was to make sure she had somewhere safe to come back to. And now that we’re all together again…” he abruptly stopped cutting and put down the knife. “Sometimes it feels like everyone around here is so driven and they’re all fighting to get something back, reclaim it from the First Order. But me? I’m fighting because that’s the only thing I know how to do. And lately, it hasn't been fighting." He stared down gloomily at the task in front of him. "Following orders, that’s all a stormtrooper is good for.”

Rose shook her head. “Finn, that’s not true at all. You’re not a stormtrooper.”

“I know that. But it’s what I was raised to be, it was all my training.”

“You can be more. I know it."

Rose wanted to reach out and squeeze his arm reassuringly, to try to transfer some of the confidence she felt for him. But after Crait, after all this time, to be talking like this again was such a gift. She didn’t want to break the spell by overreaching. So she settled for looking into his face, trying to transfer everything she couldn’t express by touch into her gaze. Now that you’re out, now that Rey is safe, what do you want to do?”

"Well...I've thought about it a lot, but haven't told anyone. I want to find the stormtrooper training camps. When I was little, they took me to this place. They conditioned us, raised us to fight, to work for them. I never questioned it until that night on Jakku, when Kylo Ren made us torch that village. And once I did start questioning it, it was like something unlocked in my brain.” he was talking more animatedly now, his eyes lighting up. “And I just thought, maybe there are others who would do the same? I know not every stormtrooper is good, but I want to give them back the choice."

“That's such a good idea!”

“You really think so?” Finn asked, incredulous. Then he brightened, a touch of his usual swagger coming back. “Yeah, I guess it’s not bad, right?”

“Yes! It would solve our problem of numbers for one thing!”

“But there could be some double agents mixed in --”

“ -- But if we vet everyone who comes in, keep their units siloed off we could help mitigate that.”

“So all we have to do is find them..." Finn deflated, shook his head. "And there's the dead-end.”

“You don’t remember where they took you?”

“It was all secret. And it was so long ago."

“Finn, the Resistance has the best spy network in the galaxy, how else do you think we’ve survived this long??”

“So if we get General Leia to let us leverage that network --”

“--then we can liberate these stormtrooper camps!”

“It’s not much --”

“But it’s the start of a plan and you know it.”

“It is.” Finn grinned. “I feel...better. Thanks, Rose. 

“What can I say, we make a good team,” Rose said, grinning back. He laughed and she felt suddenly bold. This time she did reach out across the island and gripped his hand. He looked down at her hand, brow furrowed and she pulled away again. 

“Oh, I didn't mean --!” She’d stepped in it now. She grimaced, trying to think of how to explain this without sounding like an idiot. He was still staring at her, perplexed, but not unkindly. “I didn't mean anything by it. Look, what happened on Crait, that was an impulse. And if you're not...then I’m not -- what I'm trying to say is, it's okay! That I'm not expecting anything. If you want, you don't have to talk to me anymore. But I hope that you do because...I missed this." Rose said, gesturing around, including herself and Finn and their surroundings. "I missed this so much."

“You missed...watching me chop vegetables in a cooking tent?” Finn deadpanned. Rose glared at him, then shook her head. So much for a serious conversation. She picked up what was left of her sandwich and hopped up, headed for the tent's entrance. Finn put out a hand to stop her. 

"Hey -- it’s okay. Look, Rose, there’s still a lot I’m trying to figure out. But, just so you know…” he looked over at her with such sincerity and openness that it made her heart skip, “I missed this, too." 

[the--blackdahlia]

This Life Chapter 14

Title: This Life Chapter 14

Summary:  Dean Winchester is the Vice President of the motorcycle club The Hunters. After almost 7 years in prison, he's free. But things have changed and Dean has to figure out how to put things back together.

Warnings: Language, violence

AN: Thank you my dear @sams-serialkiller-fetish. The song for this chapter is The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel.  Oh, and I only have the Dean and Jensen tags instead of the Jared and Sam tags, because everyone who is on the Sam and Jared tags also are on the Dean and Jensen, so I’m just like eh.

Sam was cold as he started to wake up. Wherever he was, it was freezing. And the house didn’t have air conditioning. Did he fall asleep with the window open and winter hit suddenly? He groaned as he started to wake. That’s when the pain in his arm hit him and he squeezed his eyes shut tighter. But the memory of watching John get shot in the chest made him open his eyes.

He wasn’t at home, not anymore.

The room he was in made him think of a police interrogation room that he had seen on TV numerous times. There was even a table, which he was handcuffed to. He pulled on the cuffs but they didn’t budge from the table. Sam looked at his right arm then and saw the clean, white bandage that was wrapped around where he had been shot.

He looked around the room, trying to get his bearings. He had no idea where he was and this room wasn’t giving him any clues. It was empty minus the table he he attached to and the chair he was sitting in. Which, he realized then, his ankles were attached to the chair legs.

“Son of a bitch.” He groaned, struggling to get free. After a bit, he gave up, his body tired after everything. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to fight back any tears that may be coming. He had just watched someone murder his dad. He was sure that he didn’t survive the gunshot to the chest. And no one knew that Sam was gone. As far as they knew, he was still out on that business run for John.

That’s when the sound of a lock being turned made him open his eyes. The door opened and Azazel walked in, a big smile on his face.

“Howdy Sam.” Azazel laughed. Sam glared him down. “I bet you’re wondering why you’re here.”

“Fuck off.” Sam told him. Azazel smirked.

“That language. You’re supposed to be a gentleman Sammy.” Sam pulled on his restraints.

“Don’t call me Sammy.” He hissed. Azazel pulled out another chair from under the table that Sam hadn’t been able to see. He set down across from him.

“I’m sorry you got shot. You weren’t my target.” Azazel told Sam.

“Thanks. That’s reassuring.” Sam said, rolling his eyes.

“But, now I’ve gotten the pleasure of killing both your parents.” Azazel said. That stopped Sam and made him look at the man in front of him. Azazel had that grin on his face that made Sam’s skin crawl. But it wasn’t near as bad as what Azazel had told him.

“What...what did you just say?” Sam asked.

“I killed your mom and your dad.” He said. “Your mommy in a fire, and your daddy was supposed to die the same way, but he is a stubborn bastard and wouldn’t die like he was supposed to. So I had to shoot him in the chest.”

“You bastard!” Sam said. He tried to stand up, to attack Azazel, but his restraints wouldn’t let him and it forced him to pull his arm, which made him cringe and sit back down.

“We cleaned that up real nice. I’ve got some very good doctors on my payroll. Don’t go pulling those stitches.” Azazel said. Sam set there, starting to feel defeated.

“Why are you doing this?” Sam asked. “What did my family ever do to you?”

“I killed sweet Mary because I couldn’t have her.” Azazel explained. Sam looked up at him. “A long time ago, her and I were in love. But then John Winchester came into the picture and stole her heart. They got married, had Dean and I was sure then that my chances were over with her. Until that fateful night in September.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked.

“Your mom and dad had a huge fight a few weeks, maybe a month prior, and were living in different places. Your mom and Dean stayed at the house while John stayed in an apartment. John took Dean with him to go fishing with Bobby and your mom came crying to me. A few glasses of wine and some of the greatest love ballads of the past twenty years, and we ended up in bed together.”

“Gross.” Sam said, cringing again.

“She ran back to John later, which pissed me off. But, just, oh, nine months later, she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Sam.” Azazel said. Sam froze.

“What are you saying?” Sam asked.

“I’m saying that the chances of me being your father are pretty great.” Azazel said, leaning back in his cheer, enjoying the horror in Sam’s eyes. “It’s so good to have you here son.”

“I’m not your son.” Sam said. Azazel laughed.

“We’ll see.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “I asked your mom to get you and run away with me.  But she wouldn’t. She loved your brother and John too much. So, I caught the house on fire. I thought it would kill all three of you, but only your mom. Your dad escaped the fire with Dean carrying you out.”

“So you killed my mom all because she wouldn’t leave my dad for you?” Sam asked. Azazel nodded. “And you killed my dad because he was married to my mom?”

“Among other things.” Azazel said with a shrug.

“So, are you going to kill me now?” Sam asked.

“Not yet.” Azazel said. “That would ruin our relationship if I just killed you right away.”

“We don’t have a relationship.” Sam spat out. Azazel smiled.

“It’s okay, you’ll learn soon son.” He stood up. “I’ll have Crowley or someone bring you some food. You’re going to be here for awhile.” Azazel stood up and went to the door, a smile on his face. “Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll let you say goodbye to Dean before I kill him.”

Azazel left and let the door slam shut to Sam’s screams. He made his way down the hallway and out into the clubhouse where Asmodeus, Alastair, and Ramiel were sitting with the girls. Their “little demons” as they called them, were out doing other things.

“How did that go?” Lilith asked Azazel as he sat down beside her.

“Perfect.” He laughed.

“What did you tell him?” Alastair asked, sharpening his favorite knife.

“The truth.” Azazel said. Alastair stopped and looked up at him. “What? I don’t lie all the time. Sometimes I tell the truth when I know it will hurt more.”

“Whatever.” Ramiel said, drinking a large mug of beer. “I just want to go fishing. So if we can wipe out the Hunters sooner than later, that’ll be great.”

“How dare we interrupt your fishing schedule.” Abbadon said, rolling her eyes. “You know, if you just made me a part of this men’s club, we could get rid of the Hunters, the Wayward Sons, and still have time for tea and biscuits.”

“The Wayward Sons have been taken care of.” Azazel said. “Their leader is dead. And their Vice President is locked up in our jail.”

“But what about the hunters?” Dagon asked. “They’ve shown they don’t break that easy.”

“We’ll take care of them.” Alastair said, smiling at the sharpness of his blade. “We’ve got leverage over them. And all I have to do is a little slicing and dicing…”

“Leave Sam alone.” Azazel said. “I have plans for him later.”

“We kill Dean Winchester and the club will crumble.” Asmodeus explained. “He was alive and in prison when we tried to kill John the first time. Him being alive gave them hope. We kill him, we take that hope away and they die.”

“I’ve been waiting for this for awhile.” Alastair laughed, throwing his knife at the dart board on the wall. “Bye bye Dean Winchester.”

Forever Tags: @anathewierdo @i-would-die-for-woodland-demars @dekahg @marvel-af @feelmyroarrrr @nanie5 @imboredsueme @gemini0410 @aiaranradnay @babypink224221 @mogaruke @xxwarhawk

Dean Winchester/Jensen Ackles Tags: @luciathewinchestergirl @sheris532 @bobasheebaby @flamencodiva @bella-ca

This Life Tags: @soulslaststand @jamielea81 @caplansteverogers @becs-bunker @supernaturalwincestsblog @colie87

Supernatural Tags: @bandobsession98 @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester @fangirlsencyclopaediaofweirdness @ilovetardis @missihart23 @cloudyskylines

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Logan (x-men) and 1, 5, or 9 from the Stabby Starters. I can't decide. :X also feel better!

5: You’re the one with a blade at my throat, so you’re obviously upset.

For this ask meme!  Also, will probably make more sense knowing that I wrote this!  Some general dialogue shamelessly borrowed from X-Men Evolution.

So the girl’s good.

Logan’s an adult.  He can admit that much.  She’s small, even by his standards, and–wiggly, and she dropped out of a tree with a shriek like a mountain lion right on top of him, a blade at his throat before he could do more than grab the nearest available limb.

“Hey, now,” Logan says.  One hand is clamped tight around her ankle–probably tight enough to hurt, although she seems unbothered–and the other is drawn back, clenched into a fist.  His claws are sheathed, though, and he’d like them to stay that way.  She’s too small to be an adult–he works with a lot of kids, and he’s guessing fourteen.  Maybe fifteen, at the outside.  He’s not in a rush to play slice-n-dice with someone younger than Kitty.  Besides, his mouth will taste like blood for a week if she really does slit his throat.  “What do you want?”

“You’re Weapon X,” she hisses.

The snarl that rips itself out of his throat is involuntary and sounds inhuman, his lips pulling back thoughtlessly as rage threatens to roll over him like a storm front.  “I am not.”

“You are.”  Her grip tightens, one hand tangled in the longest part of his hair to expose his jugular.  It’s not a great way to cut a throat without an extremely sharp blade, the important arteries hidden under layers of taut tissue, but his skin parts like wet paper under her weapon, sending blood in a steady trickle down his chest.  If it was Logan, he could go through all that protective tissue in a heartbeat.  He’s sure this girl can do the same.

She’s shaking, he realizes, as if she’s holding back her own storm front by a hair.  Every muscle is trembling, although her blade is steady.  A breath through his nose says blood-rage-fear to his brain, layered over a scent that just doesn’t seem to register right.  Everyone has their own distinct smell, except for this girl, who seems–off.

Christ, but this would be a great moment for Charles, or even Jean, to sense this scuffle and intervene.  Logan isn’t really a good candidate for whatever this is.  He’s too much of a linear thinker–A leads to B, where A is a problem and B is violence.

He takes a deep breath, as best he can without pushing the blade deeper into his throat, and tries to sound like he’s in control when he says, “How about we talk about this like people?”

“I’m not people.”

Well, okay then.  That’s a starting point, at least.  “Fair enough.  Me neither, ‘cording to some.  You want to tell me why you’re upset, at least?”  A profoundly terrible thought occurs to him.  “Listen, kid, if I did something to someone–”

“I’m not upset!”  Her voice is high and thin and ragged, like something feral, like she’s barely forming words rather than just screaming until there’s blood on her teeth.  Like he used to be, right after he stumbled out of the lab.

“I mean, you’re the one with the blade at my throat,” Logan says evenly.  “So you’re obviously upset about something.”

She flips over his shoulders, lands crouched on the ground in front of him, and–  Listen.

He can’t quite find it in himself to blame her for cutting his throat on the way down.

Pressing one hand to his throat and coughing up wet mouthfuls of blood, Logan gets a good look at his attacker for the first time.  He thinks he was right about her physical age, rounds up to fifteen for the way she moves–like she’s been trained for years, for decades, to fight and kill as gracefully as possible.  She’s a few shades darker than he is, in what skin he can see revealed by her black combat gear, and wears her hair loose around her face.  Confidence, not idiocy–she doesn’t have a scrap of body armor that he can see.  

One hand is still outstretched at her side, fist clenched, and two shining silver claws streaked with Logan’s blood extend almost a foot from her knuckles.

Her face is still soft with baby fat, her chin pointed and her hairline different, but now, looking at her as she snarls up at him, he understands why he was having trouble pinning down her smell.  

The thing is, in order for someone with enhanced senses to function, certain things get edited out.  Their own heartbeat, their own breathing, the feeling of clothing.  Their own scent.

Logan’s memory of his past is fragmented at best–he has clear moments, even years, as far back as the turn of the 20th century, and he’s fairly sure that he hasn’t aged much in that time.  But for a long while, he knew his face better from pictures than from the mirror, people who had everything from daguerreotypes to Polaroids of some strange drifter, ageless and impossibly healthy.  He knows that when he was younger, when he looked less angry and exhausted all the time–he knows what he looks like, not least because people keep telling him–he looked a lot like this girl.

“Who are you?” he demands.  The words are garbled, the wound at his through not totally closed over yet and blood bubbling out of his mouth when he speaks, but she seems to understand.  He spits out blood, swallows a few times to check that his throat is healing correctly, keeps talking now that his windpipe seems to be keeping air in and blood out again.  “What do you want?”

“It’s your fault,” the girl says–screams, really, and she throws herself at him in a storm of claws and rage.  She really is good, but Logan is old and has fought a lot of people in his time, and without surprise on her side, it’s a short fight.  He catches her wrists like manacles and she throws herself against the restraint, kicks out with a spike, another claw, and Logan mostly dodges.  He thinks she bruised a kidney, but that’ll heal up.  He manages to get behind her, pins her arms behind her back.

“They upgraded since my time,” he huffs as she hurls her weight backward, trying to knock him off his feet.  He takes the blow in the chest and doesn’t move.  She screams again, wordless and blind and furious, hanging from his grip like a dead thing except for the way her spine shakes with tension.  “Hey, kid,” he says, trying to sound soothing.  He thinks he lands somewhere in the neighborhood of frustrated.  “Kid, can you tell me your name?  Can you tell me who sent you?”

“I don’t have a name,” she says.  It’s ragged and tired and broken.  “I’m Version Twenty-Three.  Weapon X-23.”

Logan fucking drops her.  She lands in a pile on the forest floor, hands and knees, and before she can get up again, Logan crouches down beside her.

“Kid,” he says.  “What did they do to you?”

“They made me,” she says.  “Fight fire with fire.  The–”  Her lips twist a little, behind the curtain of her hair.  “The upgrade.”

“They–”  Logan has to take a minute on that one, crush down the nausea before he can speak.  “They cloned you from me.  Cloned a bunch of you, I guess.  Pumped you full of adamantium and trained you up and sent you out here to kill me.”

“They didn’t send me,” she says dully.  

The logic of the situation stutters to a halt.  Not that it was really that logical to start.  

“Okay,” Logan says.

“I was the only viable clone,” she says, like she’s parroting someone’s familiar words.  “The others never made it through the adamantium process.  They were going to–”  Her voice breaks and she lowers her head.  “They were going to make more,” she whispers.  Then she sets her shoulders and clenches her jaw and glares at him.  “So I destroyed their lab and killed everyone inside and I ran away.”

Fuck.

“Okay,” Logan says again, the rest of her plan–not complex, but certainly very direct, frankly it sounds like one of his plans–becoming clear to him.  “And you came to find me.  To make sure I never helped them, one way or another.”

She nods, a tiny fragile movement.  “Because it’s your fault,” she says, her voice still small but absolutely unshakable.  “They made us and tortured us and killed us because of you.”

Logan sits down on the leaves beside her.  “Yeah,” he says.  “Because they built their perfect weapon and then it got angry and ran.  So they built a bunch more weapons and figured that since they had you your whole lives, you’d never think twice about doing what they wanted.”  He pauses.  “You did real good, kid.  Plenty of people would’ve laid down and died, not tried to take them down.”

She stares at him like he’s speaking another language, white-walled eyes and something like terror on her face.  “What?”

“You did the right thing,” he says, pretending that he can’t see her face, letting her pretend that she’s not afraid.  “Trashing their lab.  I’m real proud of you.”

She tries to punch him, a blind strike as if trying to hit his words out of the air before she has to hear them.  Logan catches her wrist and she falls into him like all that adamantium is too heavy to lift, all of a sudden, like her muscles have all gone weak and she can’t bear it anymore, and she screams into his chest like she’s dying.  He lets her, holds onto her shaking shoulders while she screams and screams, lets her clutch at his arms with hands that would break someone else’s bones, and waits.

It’s dark out by the time the girl, X-23, his should-have-been killer, is still again.

“You okay?” Logan asks her.  She pulls away from him, angry again–embarrassed, he thinks.  “You have a plan, past killing me?”

“Not really,” she says with a shallow shrug.  “Didn’t really expect to live through it.”

“I don’t kill kids.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“You’re, what, maybe twelve years old.”

“I’m fifteen.”

“Like I said, I don’t kill kids.”  She scowls at him and he pretends he can’t see her.  “If you want,” he says, “you can come with me, back to the Institute.  Get some backup, a warm bed, three squares a day, all that.”  She shakes her head, fast and violent.  “All right,” he says without concern.  “You can stay here, if you want.  I’ll come back.”  That doesn’t get a response, and he takes it as an affirmative.  “We’ve got to get you a name though.  Can’t keep calling you kid all the time.”

“I don’t have a name.”

“Don’t really have one myself,” Logan says.  “We’ll get you one.”

[cutepresea]

9-14 Valkyries’ Summer: The Great Escape

Sorry again for the spam.

If you want to blacklist these, you can use either the tag #valkyries summer for  just this event, or #xdu event scripts or #xdu scripts

Reminder that these are copied straight  from XD Unlimited itself, so any grammatical weirdness, mistranslations,  and/or mischaracterizations are not my doing.

Chris Yukine: "This one's huge... Looks like this is going to be some fun."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "This will most likely be the final battle, I'd say."

Chris Yukine: "Your path led here, too?"

Maria: "Apparently, they all did."

Hibiki Tachibana: "A giant Karma Noise... and two Whales!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "It looks almost human..."

Kirika Akatsuki: "In that case... Let's call it a Big Daddy!"

Maria: "I don't know how I feel abut that... How does "Poseidon" sound? You know, like the sea god?"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Oooh, that's even better!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "We don't have time to be standing around chatting! The Whales are already summoning Noise!"

Chris Yukine: "Okay, then! Blitzkrieg it is!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "You read my mind! Let's do this!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "I'm right behind you!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Slice, dice, and slice some more!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Don't forget about me!"

Maria: "We're taking that last fragment back!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Even with such a huge target, it's hard to hit it with this endless wave of Noise in the way!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "They just keep coming!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "I can't... reach it!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Agh!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Guh!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Aaah!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Ugh! That... hurt!"

Chris Yukine: "Aaagh! Dammit!"

Maria: "Ngh!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "That thing isn't messing around!"

Maria: "We have a giant Poseidon Karma Noise, a Whale on each side, and  more Noise out in front of them..."

Maria: "It's like the Poseidon type is the conductor of an orchestra!"

Maria: "Unfortunately... We're sick of listening to your song!"

Chris Yukine: "It's about time we shut them up!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "But how do we get in close enough to attack it?!"

Maria; "For our attacks to reach, we need to clear out the regular Noise and stop those Whales from singing!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "In that case, you leave the smaller Noise to us!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "We don't have Swimsuit Gears, so we don't have enough power to fight the bigger ones."

Kirika Akatsuki: "It's the perfect job for us!"

Maria: "Are you sure?"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Allow me to take care of the Whale on the left."

Chris Yukine: "The one on the right is mine!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "So then, the Karma Noise in the middle--"

Maria: "Leave him to me!"

Chris Yukine: "I guess we can let you take all the glory, just this once."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Don't overdo it. Once I finish up over here, I'll be right over to back you up."

Maria: "Thanks. All right... Let's do this!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Before that... Could we get you to boost our morale a little, Maria?"

Maria: "Boost your morale?"

Chris Yukine: "Yeah. If you can hype us all up, I bet we'd be able to go all out in battle!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Oh, oh! Sing us one of your songs, Maria!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Yeah, I'd love to hear it."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Just belt one out for us!"

Maria: "...You got it. This is for you, girls!"

Maria: (Hehe... In spite of it all, this really has been a lot of fun. I think I might miss our time on this island.)

Maria: "Let's put our big summer adventure on hold for now!"

Maria: "This little number will make for one fantastic finale!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Get looost!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Slice, dice, and slice some more!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Almost... there!"

Chris Yukine: "That's the surrounding Noise taken care of! Now's our chance... Let's hit 'em with everything we've got!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "That sounds like a plan! At the end of the day, it's just one more Noise!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Maria-san's song pulled us through! The giant Karma Noise is all that's left!"

Maria: "Thanks, girls. I won't let you down!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Finish this, Maria!"

Chris Yukine: "Don't hold back!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "You can do this, Maria!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Yeah! Kill it, kill it dead!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Now's your chance! Gooo!"

Maria: "Yaaaaaah!"

Chris Yukine: "You did it!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "All Noise and Karma Noise have been eliminated!"

Maria: "Haah... Haah... Haah! Phew..."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Maria-san! Are you all right?!"

Maria: "Yeah, just... a little tired..."

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "She got the relic fragment, too!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Way to go, Maria!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Well, that solves the abnormality in this parallel world. Shall we report back to HQ?"

Chris Yukine: "Wait... Do you guys hear that?"

Hibiki Tachibana: "The ruins are shaking again!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Eeek! They're collapsing in on themselves!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "And sea water is flooding in!"

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Maria, lean on me! We're getting out of here!"

Maria: "O-Okay... thanks... But I can--"

Chris Yukine: "I'll hold her up on this side! We need to get out of here, and fast!"

Hibiki Tachibana: "Leave the Noise and the rubble to us! We'll clear a path!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "The water current is getting stronger! Hurry!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Kiri-chan, we can climb the sculpture on that altar to get a little higher!"

Maria: "......"

Maria: (I can't move, but I doubt they'd listen if I told them to leave me behind so they can escape.)

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Tsukuyomi! Tachibana! Can you see a way up?!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "The sculpture is too brittle! We can't climb it!"

Hibiki Tachibana:"I think it could handle one of us... I'll keep looking for another way out!"

Chris Yukine: "Right now we just need to focus on getting Maria out! Got any bright ideas?!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Umm, uhhh, maybe I could cut grooves into the pillars so we could climb up them like a ladder?!"

Maria: (Everyone's working so hard to get me back... I can't believe I ever thought of letting them leave me behind.)

Maria: (They're such a blessing... I'm so glad to have them here with me.)

Chris Yukine: "Hey, you all right?"

Maria: "Yeah... I am now. Kirika, cut down the pillars to redirect the water underground. That'll buy us some time."

Kirika Akatsuki: "You got it!"

Maria: "Hibiki, throw Shirabe into the air. Shirabe, immediately expand Shul Shagana into a shield, facing down."

Maria: "Chris, you're going to bombard the shield, lifting Shirabe up high enough to get out."

Hibiki Tachibana: "Okay, got it! Shirabe-chan, are you ready?!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Yes! Hit me with everything you have, I can handle it!"

Chris Yukine: "You got it! Brace yourself, though, we don't want you getting hurt!"

Maria: "Tsubasa, take down that pillar to make a bridge up to the altar. It'll be in range of Shirabe's Armed Gear."

Tsubasa Kazanari: "Leave it to me!"

Maria: "All right, everyone, let's get out of here--together!"

[darkelfshadow]

Session Summary - 36

AKA “Sins Of The Past”

Adventures in Taggeriell

Session 36 (Date: 2nd December 2017)

Players Present:

- Rob (Known as “Oloma”) Human Female.

- Bob (Known as “Sir Krondor”) Dwarf Male.

- Sean (Known as “Seanicus”) Elf Male.

- Phil (Known as “Nac”) Half-elf Male.

- Travis (Known as “Trenchant”) Human Male.

- Paul (Known as “Labarett”) Elf Male.

Absent Players

- Arthur (Known as “Gim”) Dwarf Male. <Played by Bob>

NPC

- (Known as “Naillae”) Elf Female. <Controlled by DM>

Summary

- Wealday, 10th of Kuthona in the year 814 (Second Era). Winter.

- The party begin this session, in one of the underground chambers under the warehouse hideout of the Jagged Blade Gang of Dwarves in the south dock district of the city of Earthcloak, having dispatched the last of the gang and their leader, Grussebella Bloodchin, last session.

- The party all eye off the enchanted battle axe of the now dead Grussebella, the metal blades of which had been glowing with a slight red light but have now stopped shinning light. The party can not decide as to what to do with the battle axe and instead decide to go about clearing up after the battle and will leave the matter of the battle axe to last.

- Nac begins the Prayer of Healing, with a slight assistance from Trenchant’s Bardic ways (Everyone recovers 16 Hit Points).

- Seanicus performs his Ritual of Detect Magic but the only thing of a magical nature in the room is Grussebella’s battle axe. The Warlock then begins the long ritual of Identification to work out the properties of the battle axe whilst Gim takes the time to repair the broken straps and buckle on the damage breast plate of Seanicus that was damaged during the last battle.

- Oloma begins to search the ground for lose items from the battle and the dead bodies of the Dwarves. She finds on the corpse of Grussebella an iron key and a silver key. As Oloma is searching Grussebella, Gim looks over and sees that she is wearing an elaborate and well made breastplate. Gim speaks, “Make sure you get that breastplate off her too. Unless I’m mistaken, that’s a set of master work Dwarven armour, rare and expensive stuff that. I wonder how a criminal like Grussebella got something like that?”

- Oloma begins to unstrap the Dwarven breastplate to remove it. Whilst she does so she finds a necklace with a silver pendant tucked under the armour, worn by Grussebella but obviously kept out of sight. The small circular pendant has a Dwarven face in a helmet in the centre and three helmets surrounding it. Oloma holds up the pendant, “Anyone know what this is?”

- Gim stops repairing Seanicus’s armour and moves closer, “That is the sigil of the Knights of The Kin Blood from the Dwarven Clan of Moribek. They’re a highly trained military force with strict codes of conduct. I’ve never seen them fight but I’ve heard they are ferocious in battle, yet trained to work as a unit.”

- As Oloma moves aside the long orange hair of Grussebella whilst removing her Dwarven armour, on the side of Grussebella’s neck is revealed a red scar. A symbol, of a circle with arrow heads coming out of it, has been burnt onto her neck.

- Both Gim and Sir Krondor see the mark and tell the party that is the Dwarvish mark of Kin Traitor. It is branded onto the skin of someone who brings dishonour onto their Clan and is mark of someone who has been banished from a Dwarven Clan Hold, to become Clan-less. The other bodies are searched again for any signs of the Knights Of The Kin Blood or the Kin Traitor mark but it is only Grussebella that has it. The party surmise that Grussebella must have once been a Knight from Moribek and had been banished, to end up the leader of a gang of Dwarves that she trained up.

- Some time passes whilst Gim finishes the repair to Seanicus’s armour and Seanicus too has finished the Identification on the battle axe. The battle axe is indeed enchanted (+1 weapon) but it has more properties. If someone who has Dwarvish blood and is also magically attuned to the weapon slices their hand upon the blade, the blood will energise the weapon causing it to glow for a short time and further increasing the power of the weapon (Can not fumble and damage dice are rolled with advantage).

- Now that the full power of the weapon is known there is a heated discussion as to who should wield it.

- Sir Krondor speaks, “I now longer have my silver war hammer as it broke and with my Dwarf blood I can wield the battle axe to its full potential. It should be mine!”

- Gim quickly speaks, “Hang on cousin not so quick, I too could wield the weapon and in case you’ve forgotten, I’ve got the same blood as you. I lay claim on it!”

- Nac speaks, “Me too! I want it!”

- Naillae speaks, “What? You’re not even a Dwarf? Don’t you already have an enchanted weapon Nac, your Talon long sword?”

- Nac speaks, “Don’t care. I still want it!”

- Labarett speaks, “Hang on, if non-Dwarves are going to claim then I could use that battle axe too, and so could Trenchant. We both have as much right to it as anyone else. Besides which Sir Krondor, you took possession of the Hero’s Heart recently. That is the most potent magical item we have.”

- Trenchant adds, “Yeah, there seems to be a bit of a unfair distribution of enchanted items lately.”

- And with that the discussion gets more heated with Sir Krondor mumbling loudly about not really wanting the Hero’s Heart as everyone else shouts their claim to the battle axe.

- Seanicus moves off to the side, near the entrance to the painting room, and sits down, “Well it’s no use to me. I just want my war hammer back.”

- Naillae and Oloma also move away from the discussion, Naillae sits near the stairs to the lower section and Oloma sits near the open door to Grussebella’s room.

- Meanwhile the discussion between Nac, Sir Krondor, Gim, Trenchant and Labarett has continued.

- Gim says in a loud voice, “I should have the battle axe. It’s for someone of Dwarf blood you fools!”

- Nac shouts, “You’re wearing the enchanted Dragon Scale Armour, you greedy sod!”

- Sir Krondor speaks, “Cousin you are a master of the Great Weapon. Your skill with heavy weapons is unmatched, even by me, but this battle axe is not a heavy weapon. You would not be able to use it fully. Would you really give up the advantage you have now in battle by not using your Great Axe?” (Gim’s Feat Great Weapon Master gives him extra attacks and extra damage which would not work with a battle axe)

- Gim bows his head and concedes that he would be better off with his Great Axe and gives up his claim to the battle axe.

- Sir Krondor presses his point, “And I am trained as a master in Fell weapons, which is what the battle axe is. In my hands, that weapon will sing and drink blood!” (Sir Krondor’s Fell Handed Feat would grant him an additional +1 and allow him to knock opponents prone or knock their shield aside).

- Sir Krondor, Labarett and Trenchant then come to an arrangement where Sir Krondor will give up the Hero’s Heart to Labarett who will concede his claim to battle axe. In turn, Labarett will give the Hero’s Heart to Trenchant and Trenchant will give his Elven Chain Shirt to Labarett, and in doing so Trenchant will also give up his claim to the battle axe.

- Nac speaks up, “What about me? I still lay a claim to the weapon!”

- Labarett speaks, “You willing to give up anything? Your enchanted sword or boots? It’s not like you could use two enchanted weapons anyway. We’ve all traded and come to an agreement. Besides, Sir Krondor’s right, no one in the party would get better use of that battle axe than him.”

- Nac replies, “I’m not giving up any of my stuff! Fine! Have the bloody battle axe Knight!”

- Sir Krondor walks over to the battle axe and picks it up with a grin.

- With that the party start to move off to the side room of Grussebella. Trenchant looks around, “Where’s Oloma? Wasn’t she sitting here?”

- As they enter they see Oloma bent over the chest, her skin is grey, she is coughing and her body is shaking. A small cut on her hand is visible and there is a small drop of blood on the chest.

- Sir Krondor points his hand at Oloma, “What are you doing in here? You were trying to open the chest by yourself!”

- Oloma can not talk, her mouth is closed in pain, as she slowly takes out a vial of anti-toxin to stop the effects of the poison flowing through her system.

- Sir Krondor shouts, “Thief! You were going to steal the contents of the chest for yourself.”

- Naillae moves towards Oloma, “I knew she was in here. I told you Oloma just to look and to not try to disable anything without me. I have been training Oloma in lock picking and how to locate traps.”

- Oloma, after drinking the vial, stands up. Her skin is returning to a healthy pink colour and she starts to flex her arms, “Yes, that’s right. I was just looking and Naillae knew I was here. I was trying to see between the gap of the lid for wires and I used a small lever to pry it up a bit. I must have triggered something by mistake.” (Failed Perception check for Search for traps that was low enough to trigger the trap).

- Sir Krondor presses on, “So Oloma, tell us what you would have taken had you opened the chest?”

- Oloma replies, “Nothing. I was just practising and you guys were taking ages.”

- Trenchant speaks in a calming voice, “Yes, yes. I think we can all move on. I’m sure Oloma was not up to anything.”

- Naillae now examines the chest and as she does so points things out to Oloma, “See here? Yes, those marks just there. That rear hinge has to be pressed to the side to deactivate and by-pass the poison needle trap when you turn the key in the lock.”

- Oloma uses the silver key to unlock the chest as Naillae presses in the hinge. With the chest now safely opened the contents of the chest are removed. There is a pouch with twenty gems; a small jewellery box with a gold ring set with jasper; a sack with many hundreds of copper coins; a sack with a few hundred silver coins; a pouch with some platinum coins; a red cloth wrapped around a gold statue of a Dwarf Knight and a pendant of the Knights of the Kin Blood.

- Lastly, in one large tied sack, is the Seanicus’s war hammer, Nedumlin. As the war hammer is removed by Seanicus and he holds it, the war hammer speaks in Dwarvish, “Well about time. It was lonely in there.”

- Oloma holds up the gold ring with the jasper stone and looks at it, “Hey what colour is this?”

- Naillae looks at it, “Opaque?”

- Gim laughs, “Opaque! That’s red!”

- Trenchant leans in, “No, it looks yellow to me.”

- Sir Krondor, “You must all be blind, it’s brown, no wait, it’s green. Yes, definitely green.”

- Nac snaps, “Would you shut up! Who cares what colour it is” and then as he walks past the ring in Oloma’s hand he adds, “But it’s definitely not blue.”

(Thank you Wikipedia for not actually telling me what colour jasper is, just what it isn’t)

- The rest of the room is searched by the party, except for Gim who has found a half eaten plate of food and half drunk mug of ale on the desk, and sits down to finish the meal off. On an alcove on one wall is found an ivory statue of a pair of lovers. In a drawer of the desk is located a notebook that lists the stolen goods that the gang has taken and the value of the items; there are coded letters next to each item but the party can not work out what they mean. Also within the drawer is a deed to the Warehouse, that has the name Torroc signed on it as the registered owner.

- The party remember that the Inn Keeper of the White Wolf Tavern which is near here was called Torroc.

- Before leaving this room they make sure that another exit door, leading to a set of descending stairs, is locked and has some furniture piled in front of it.

- The party make their way through the side room, walking past the dead bodies of the Dwarves, and start to make their way down a small set of stairs that lead to a lit room. Inside the room are barrels and boxes of supplies: flour, rice, water, cheeses and iron rations. On the floor is a lit lantern and a small jar of burning tar. The party take some of the goods in there. There are two exits here, an open archway on one side, where the faint sound of flowing water can be heard, and a closed door on the other side that has light coming from the door frame.

- Seanicus’s war hammer Nedumlin speaks in Dwarvish, “I can sense something I haven’t felt for an age. Old magic. Elvish Magic. Coming from the door.”

- The party spend some time searching around the area for secret doors but can not find any.

- The party decide to go via the open archway and find a room with many bed rolls that the Dwarves slept in. The room is searched but nothing apart from an unlit candle is found. There is a single exit that leads via a rough corridor to a fast flowing, and foul smelling sewer tunnel. This appears to be set up as a toilet for use by the gang. Gim looks over the corridor and believes that this corridor has been dug out recently to connect the older section of the lower sections to the newer sewer tunnel of the town (Successful Stone Cunning check).

- Returning back to the closed door, with light visible from the door frame, the party listen at door. Nac can hear the faint sound of two candles burning from the other side (Rolled 29 on his Perception check!).

- The door is not locked and after Naillae and Oloma check the door for traps, they open it to enter into a large room. Two large tables, each with a burning candle, are present. To one side is a large barrel, a weapon rack with battle axes and spears, and two shields. Directly opposite it appears that the wall has been broken into and smashed down. The rough stone opens into a dug out corridor that slopes down a series of natural steps that appears to lead into another lit area.

- Searching the room, Trenchant discovers that the large barrel is filled with ale. On the tables are plates, mugs and playing cards. Gim looks over the weapons and shields and declares they are of standard quality.

- Continuing onwards the party follow the natural passage down the slope to a large natural cavern, lit by two large metal braziers. Multiple passageways are visible and a massive skeleton is half exposed from the dirt floor. Nac looks over the skeleton, which is a series of large ribs and a half exposed skull, and declares that it is more than likely a dragon skeleton (Successful Nature check). Oloma moves over to examine the skull and sees that all the teeth have been removed and it appears the horn that is visible on this side looks like it was cut off at the base in one violent act.

- Oloma speaks up, “I read once about this area. The Moon Elves used to live here, before they all vanished, maybe this underground complex was theirs?”

- There are shovels and wheel barrows present and some of the rock faces appear that the gang has been digging out this cavern. In fact it would appear the gang has dug out this entire cavern. There are many new wooden support beams that have been placed around to support the cavern. Two sections of the cavern have new wooden barriers erected to stop access. Behind one the party see a chamber with a dozen small skeletons (Halfling size) and behind the other barrier appears a thin, winding corridor that has loose rock and rumble on the floor.

- Trenchant takes a shovel and starts to dig around the ribs of the Dragon looking for anything there.

- Seanicus asks his war hammer Nedumlin where he can sense the magic coming from but the Nedumlin replies in Dwarvish, “It is too strong, I can not tell the direction.”

- The party ask Seanicus to try to Detect Magic and the Warlock performs his ritual. At the end of which he looks up and says, “I can detect nothing.”

- Seanicus, Trenchant and Oloma enter the small chamber with the dozen Halfling skeletons behind one of the wooden barriers. As they search around the skeletons, which appear that they had suffered a death by the cave collapsing on them as their bones show signs of being crushed (Successful Investigation check), some of the roof and side walls start to crumble in and nearly hit Trenchant. The three decide to carefully back out of the chamber as it is not safe.

- Another of the passageways off the large cavern are followed by Labarett and Trenchant whom inform the party that it leads to a small storage room filled with mining gear, shovels, spare wooden support beams, wheel barrows, hammers, nails, and two large oil barrels. There is a wooden door that Oloma unlocks with the iron key that she has and it opens into a set of stairs going up to another door. Oloma quickly goes up and unlocks this second door but can’t open it as there is something blocking it from the other side and the party surmise that this must be the door that they blocked up with furniture in Grussebella’s room.

- Returning to the one last passageway that has not been checked, the thin winding one behind one of the wooden barriers, the party decide that only one or two should risk the unstable area. Seanicus and Naillae volunteer to go. On the way Seanicus accidentally bumps into the walls twice and causes two sections to collapse in and half block the passageway (Failed Dexterity checks). If another cave in occurs the pair will be trapped.

- Around a bend the pair find a green pool of shallow water. Seanicus goes ahead to check it out whilst Naillae remains behind to avoid risking any more caves in. Seanicus searches the water for a while but then turns around to yell back to Naillae, “There’s nothing in here. The water is really cold but I can’t find anything that is the source of the magic.”

- Just then Nedumlim speaks in Dwarvish. Naillae who doesn’t speak the language asks what it said.

- Seanicus replies, “It said that the magic could be the water. It’s not sure. I’ll take some in a ration pack.”

- The Warlock takes a sample of the water and then returns to Naillae. The pair slowly make their way back, moving slowly through the two half collapsed sections and managed to avoid any more cave ins (Successful Dexterity checks).

- With no other parts of the underground complex left to explore, the party decide to rest up for half the day in the underground complex, to recover and also to take some time to dig out some of the cavern with the dragon skeleton. They party decide to spend half a day here, with each of the party taking two half hour shifts to dig out some of the cavern.

- At the end of the resting period, with the party taking some time to dig out a section, they find a single ancient coin and a small carved ivory stick with Elvish script of a prayer to the moon. Both items are checked by Seanicus who declares that they are not magical.

- With nothing left to do the party decide it is time to leave as it could take months to dig out the rest of the cavern. They make their way through the many chambers until they exit into the ware house via the trap door. There is bright sunlight coming from the windows in the ground floor of the warehouse. They can see that it is now the next day, in fact it looks like early afternoon, as the party have slept most of the day after their midnight raid on the gang.

- Oathday, 11th of Kuthona in the year 814 (Second Era). Winter.

- The party leave, taking with them the framed paintings that they have wrapped in a bed sheet, and make their way over to the White Wolf Tavern, which is not too far away.

- The party enter the premises and once again see the busy Dwarf tavern. A dozen Dwarves are seated around drinking. The Inn Keeper, Torroc, recognises the party and waves them to the bar. The party inform Torroc they wish to speak to him in private and he leads them into a small side room with a single chair behind a table covered with books of inventory and a cupboard filled with various goods and items to run the bar.

- The party tell Torroc they have been over to the warehouse of the Jagged Blade Gang and the gang is now all dead. Torroc seems very relieved to hear this as the gang as been hassling and threatening him since they arrived in town. Torroc confirms that is his signature on the title deed for the warehouse but he didn’t know what the gang had forced him to sign. He informs the party that only law abiding citizens can own property in Earthcloak and the gang would have needed his name to sign the paperwork as they would not have been allowed to own property.

- Torroc pulls out a dusty wooden sign from behind the cupboard which has a gold hammer painted on it with “The Gold Hammer” written in Dwarvish. Torroc tells the party that was the name of this tavern before the gang moved in and forced him to change name to the White Wolf and demand free drinks all the time.

- The party try to get Torroc to buy the warehouse deed from them but he says he doesn’t need a warehouse. Oloma hands the deed to Torroc and tells him that it belongs to him so he can just have it and do what ever he wants with it. Torroc gives the party a free bottle of Dwarvish brandy and informs them they can have free drinks and meals whilst in town for his part of the exchange. He intends to sell the warehouse though it may take some time to do find a buyer. The party tell him not to go to the ware house for a few days as it will need to be cleared out first and also tell him about the ponies in the side shed that will need to be tended to, which he says he will take care of.

- Torroc goes outside and takes down the White Wolf sign, which he breaks in half, and puts up the sign with “The Gold Hammer”.

- The party ask Torroc for some directions and then split up to go about various tasks, making arrangements to meet up at the Sheriff’s office on the other side of town.

***

- Trenchant, Seanicus and Labarett go over to a shop called Billon’s Shop and do some shopping for various items. Oils, ball bearings, and other items are purchased. Labarett also buys a detailed map of Singbury.

***

- Gim and Sir Krondor go over to the blacksmith, Wilya’s Small Hammer, and speak to the solid male Dwarf, Wilya, that works there. The three Dwarves get on well, especially once he learns that Gim is a member of the Oglyth Mixnar, the Dwarven Smith Guild, and Sir Krondor complements Wilya on his work. They show him the master work Dwarven breast plate that the party took off Grussebella and he informs them that is a well made piece of armour.

- Wilya says, “Honestly, if I could afford it I would buy it from you. You don’t see quality like that too often. The Master Smiths of the Dwarven Clans do not normally sell their gear to uplanders so it is rare to see something like that, in fact I would normally expect to only see that worn by a high ranking Dwarven Knight. You could easily get 8000 gold coins for that, maybe more. You would be better to try selling it back to a Dwarven strong hold.”

- Sir Krondor asks, “Where is the closest Dwarven strong hold from here?”

- Wilya replies, “Moribek to the east in the Dwarvish mountains of Fanur or Dunfrun to the north on the northern trade route.”

***

- Oloma goes over to the Red Scale Transport yard and once again sees the Yard Manager, Teorin the Halfling, who is quite busy. He waves over the Wagon Master, Brumohn, and the solid looking Dwarf in armour comes over to speak to Oloma.

- Oloma can see there are a lot more wagons now, about fifteen, but Brumohn tells him there are still more to come. Oloma has another chat with Enom, a Halfling on one of the wagons, but learns nothing new.

***

- The party rejoin and make their way over to the Sheriff’s Office. Sir Krondor and Trenchant enter the building with the covered paintings. Once again Captain Kison, the small but solid looking Halfling in splint mail, meets with them. He takes them to his rear office and speaks to the pair. After learning of the down fall of the Jagged Blade Gang the pair also show him the paintings and the notebook from Grussebella, believing the paintings to be stolen. Captain Kison informs the pair that unless they know what the codes next to each entry are it would be impossible to track down the owners. He advised them to try to sell them. Captain Kison also tells the pair he will arrange for the entry into the underground complex to be blocked up again. Apparently this is a infrequent problem in Earthcloak, that occasionally someone will accidentally break into the ancient complex below the city. When ever this happens the city officials make sure to block up the access as there are many dangers and old powers hidden within the ancient complex.

- The party return to Rosee’s Inn and once again see Kirgrire, Harpshadow of the Harpers. She tells the party that she has finally received a messenger bird this morning from the Harper network. The note advised her to be on the look out for a group to arrive at Earthcloak soon, obviously referring to the party, who would be attempting to join the wagon train, as this group had been tasked to detect and follow Cult agents within the wagon train. The message told Kirgrire to give this group any aid required. The message also advised her that the Harpers had learnt that the Dragon Cult now had the White Dragon mask and was currently trying to recover the Green Dragon Mask. The Harpers have also learnt that the Cult is attacking settlements to the far west and capturing large numbers of prisoners and also buying large numbers of slaves from Asalea. They have conveyed these people to an unknown location but for what nefarious purpose is not unknown.

- The party manage to sell one of the paintings they recovered to Rosee, a landscape painting, that she hangs up in the common room of the Tavern.

- For the next two days the party rest up and go about various activities. Olomar manages to find buyers for the rest of the paintings and sells them at a very good price (total of 1125 gold coins) and some of the other party members do some late minute shopping. The Dwarven breastplate is sent for storage to Valthrun The Enchanter in Winterhaven via the Bag of Sharing. Olomar speaks again to the Templars but learns nothing new. The party again speak to Bruhohn and finally agree to join the Red Scale Transport wagon train as security. He advises the party that he will add an extra wagon and they will be in a rear of the train, as a security wagon, and his other crew will man the lead security wagon.

- Starday, 13th of Kuthona in the year 814 (Second Era). Winter.

- After waiting around Earthcloak for two more days, enjoying some down time, the party awake early and have a breakfast made by Rosee. The day is cloudy and very cold. All the party are thankful they have cold travel gear, as they will need it.

- Finally they leave Rosee’s Inn and say their farewells to Rosee, Geneegin and Kirgrire. They make their way over to the Red Scale Transport yard and meet Brumohn the Wagon Master and his head of security, Leda, a tall female warrior in good looking armour. There are now twenty three wagons lined up, ready for the long journey along the north trade route.

<And as the party now watch the wagon train being given a final check for the coming trip, they wonder what lies ahead as they prepare to leave Earthcloak, that is the end of the session.>

XP Allocation

Group - Combined (This is equally divided by the number of players who were involved)

Quests (Only quests that are completed or rendered undoable, during this session, are shown here)

- Recover The Hex War Hammer = 500 XP

- Give Peace to the Fallen, A Proper Burial = FAIL

- Seal The Sins of The Past = 1000 XP

Creatures Overcome

Nil

Individual (This is only given to that person and is not divided amongst all players)

Special Bonus (Outstanding Role Playing)

Nil

XP Levels and Player Allocations

Player : Start +  Received = Total  (Notes)

Phil : 27637 + 188 = 27825

Rob : 34435 + 188 = 34623

Arthur : 24011 + 141 = 24152

Bob : 23913 + 235 = 24148

Travis : 21703 + 188 = 21891

Paul : 19256 + 188 = 19444

Sean : 19093 + 188 = 19281

NPC (Naillae) : + (94)

[theresia]

when i first technically started my reread back in january i typed up summaries of each chapter as i went, making note of things i thought were particularly interesting.  gonna put them here under a cut and honestly probably continue takin notes, as it rlly helps to have something to go back and reread exactly what happened when LOL

BERSERK

CHAPTER BY CHAPTER NOTES

“1″: BEGIN BLACK SWORDSMAN

Guts is fucking a demon lady.  Demon lady moves to kill, but Guts blows her head off.  

The men of Koka Castle are harassing Puck, who’s tied up.  They’re throwing knives at him in a bar.  All the bar people are put off, but do nothing, because “nobody can touch the men of Koka Castle”

Guts thinks that’s BS and shoots them all up w his arrows.  He tells the lackies to tell the Koka Castle dude that the “Black Swordsman has come”.  He then proceeds to cut ppl the fuck up w Dragonslayer

HEAP OF RAW IRON STATEMENT 1

Puck follows Guts out, kinda peeved that Guts didn’t help him more.  Guts slaps him away, as per usual Guts

Guts is taken captive by a bunch of guards and is cut up in a dungeon for a lil while.  (He doesn’t make a sound.)  The Lord Mayor pauses the whipping.  He tells Guts that because he murdered the men the town will probably be fucking demolished.  “You have no idea how horrible the leader of those men is … no one can kill him… at least, not anyone human.”  Guts is like “ya so thats why u made a deal w him right?  thats why ur feeding him wagons of women and children?”  The Lord Mayor is like fuck u and has the big guy continue torturing him.

The Snakey Dude is informed of Guts.  He gets kinda excited

The Lord Mayor goes to beg forgiveness from the Snakey Dude.  It does Not go well.

Cut to Guts unable to move in the dungeon.  THERE’S DEMON FETUS!  Guts is freaked the fuck out and fetus cries and squiggles away.  Now it’s Puck’s turn.  He’s got the keys.  Guts has is usual rant about not wanting to be touched, but Puck convinces him and uses his fairy dust to heal Guts.

Fairies have a strong sense of duty and a lot of powers.  They can sense emotional energies.

Puck asks about Guts’s brand, which he does not take kindly to.  Guts is chill about being imprisoned tho - he’s ok with the castle dudes coming to kill him burning down the whole town.  He’s gonna kill Snakey Dude and as long as he does, that’s all he cares about.

Puck is rlly upset by Guts’s weaklings-should-die-perspective n leaves Guts in the cellar.  Guts self harms? He scratches his arm? And then his brand lets him know demons are on the way.  He freakily licks the blood off his own fingers.

Rampage of the Snakey Dude time!  He’s drinking blood straight from the child!  Guts pops out from under a pile of bodies and starts shootin up the swarm.

“To think that a mere mortal can oppose us isn’t anything but folly!!”

Guts gets bodyslammed by Snakey Dude’s tail.  Realistically Guts would die here

Guts blasts Snakey Dude’s head off and cleaves him in half.  Snakey Dude doesn’t know where the Godhand is so Guts leaves him to burn.

Puck watches Guts walk away through the burning city.

“2″

Puck finds Guts again with the help of a white bird.  Puck says he wants to join Guts on his journey because all the monsters and shit are interesting, but Guts has another one of his “weaklings should die” tangents.  Guts leaves Puck in the dust.

It’s raining and Guts is walking down the road.  That Old Guy and his Daughter roll up in their carriage and invite him aboard. He tells them its a bad idea but they’re like “We’ve got God so we’ll be ok” so he’s like “fine w/e”.  Puck is there

They talk about Guts’s sword and shit.  “I use it for my cooking” Guts says.

Talk about mercenaries and living by the sword.  Old Guy finds it distasteful and talks about his dead nephew.  Guts thinks that even though he’s dead, he died doing what he wanted, so he was probably happy.

Guts goes to sleep.  He has a dream about running through a corridor with high walls… the ground is watery… he’s being chased.  He’s balls nude.  He steps on a spike and empales his foot - and a huge Fetus child looms over him. He screams.

He awakes.  An incubus is giving him bad dreams and feeding off his energy.

His brand alerts him to the fact that there are definitely shittons of demons all over the fucking place.  The skeleton guys.  Colette gets stabbed bcause she cares for horses too much

While Guts is busy fucking up a bunch of skeletons, Colette’s body is possessed and she beheads her dad.  Guts is shocked by this young girl…’s body.  She stabs Guts.  Guts plays baseball with her torso.

Puck is very upset and cries while Guts fights the skellies until dawn.

They look at Colette’s body.  Puck tells Guts it’s not his fault, and Guts busts a gut.  Cue Guts being a dick

Voices start to speak to them… claiming ownership of Guts and his body… and his heart.  Guts shoots the air.

“This is the world Guts lives in…” Puck remarks to himself… and follows Guts.

“3″

opens with the beheading of a lady.  The Lord Mayor is trying to appease Slug Guy.  

Guts PICKS UP THE HEAD and looks at it wtf Guts??  The brother of the lady beheaded cries and makes a scene while guards harass him.  A guard asks Guts for the head and Guts spits in his face.  Guts throws the head at Slug Guy and he catches it.  The severed head has a brand on it.

Slug Guy takes this as a declaration of war and crushes the head. Guts wanders off but is pursued by soldiers who say some shit about heretics.  Guts slices n dices when they make a move at him.

Puck shows up again to help Guts out.  Just after, Lord Zondark threatens to bust up Guts’s sword with his war hammer but Guts has soo been through this shit before.  He busts Zondark’s helmet off, leaving his face pierced with all kinds of shrapnel.  Guts presses his face into the ground by stepping on his head. He kicks him in the face and wanders off, leaving the mutilated Zondark to cry “kill him!  Kill him!”

Guts follows the Ugly Old Guy into his cellar of wonders.  When the old guy asks him questions, Guts shoves him to the ground.  Guts asks the questions.  It comes to light that the nasty old man is missing a leg and like half his face…because apparently mr Sluggo ate them…  and also Old Man has a behelit in his cellar!

“4″

Guts starts to choke out the old fucker, but he’s like “it’s not my behelit!  I stole it from the count!”

The ugly fuck’s name is VARGAS.  He explains how the Count used to just be a rude fucker, but ever since he got the behelit 7 years ago he’s downright nasty - his inquisition of heretics is just an excuse to gather up more bodies to torture and fuck and eat.  he ate Vargas’s wife and sons, and also half his face.  Vargas took a drug to fake his own death and slipped out of the castle with the behelit.  

Guts explains what a behelit is!  “a key that opens a portal to another world that overlaps with their own… it summons demons from that world that have been manipulating the dark side of human history since ancient times.  The Godhand.”

Back to Lord Zondark, who’s losin his mind with his fucked up face.  Sluggo comes in and tells everyone to get lost and leave Zondark (who’s bashing his head against a pillar) and he alone.

Sluggo tongues his Daemon into Zondark.  Sluggo tells Zondark that it’s time for him to enact his revenge..

Cut to Puck who’s studying Vargas’s behelit.  Guts berates Puck for calling it art and tells him that it’s a living tool, but he doesn’t know how it works.

Guts asks where Sluggo got the behelit - apparently from travelling merchants years back who knew nothing about it themselves, but thought it came from the east.

Vargas tells Guts to take a secret entrance into the castle and avenge him, but he makes the mistake of touching Guts, which Guts SHITS over.  He says he looks like a monster etc etc, Puck gets mad - but Vargas says as long as Guts kills Count Sluggo, he doesn’t care.

Just then, Zondark busts in!!  Guts gets busted up too.  Guts immediately understands that he’s not human anymore.  He slices one of Zondark’s arms off… but it immediately starts to regrow.  Zondark starts to whip his axe around so fast it can’t be seen… but Guts still manages to block every blow.  Guts moves to strike and cuts off Zondark’s OTHER arm, and a large part of his head.

Sluggo’s Daemon crawls out of the skull hole.  He gives a little speech about how great Guts is, but he’s only mortal, so he’s fucked.  Then Slugdark gets crushed by rubble anyway.  Guts, Puck, and Vargas escape.  Guts demands the behelit and then just, leaves.

Puck feels bad and tells Vargas that it’s important to keep living.  He tells him that living for the future is more important than trying to avenge the past.

Puck leaves, and then an eely arm slithers out of some water and grabs Vargas.  Eyes in the darkness.

Puck is mad at Guts for being mean, as always.  Guts says allying with the maggoty creep would just lead to his own demise.  Same w Puck.

There’s word that there’s going to be another execution as a warning.  Puck flies off.  Guts thinks on how Vargas talked about how Sluggo took his eye… took his wife and sons… how he was nothing but a prisoner of fear.  Guts gets so emo he punches some bricks out of a wall.

Vargas is going to be executed.  Sluggo figures that Guts has the behelit.  Puck is trying to figure out how to stop the execution.  He sees Guts and gets excited!!  But Guts only came to watch him die.

They have a long dialogue about Guts and his motivations and why he’s such a horrible asshole.  Puck thinks Guts is actually just afraid, afraid of admitting he’s fighting a losing fight too, that he came for a better reason.  Guts threatens him and he flies off.

Guts questions whether or not he should feel compassion.

Puck tries to interrupt the execution himself.  He fails.  Vargas makes a call for the Black Swordsman to kill Sluggo and hold up his head before them all.  Vargas is beheaded.

Guts slips away, making sick sounds.  He sees… fetus child.  With Vargas’s “face”.  He is, of course, freaked the fuck out.  He thinks on Vargas’s dying words.

Sluggo is thinking on Guts’s absence.

Some dudes are out in the night tossing Vargas’s body on the corpse pile.  Guts shows up and kills both of them, telling Vargas’s lifeless head that he won’t fail like he did.

Being out at night at a corpse pile of those executed isn’t a good idea, as Guts learns.  He gets possessed by an angry spirit, because of course.  However, he steels himself and falls to the ground.  He refuses to have anything in common with deadass spirits, even revenge.  He’s gonna kill the Count Sluggo with his very own flesh and blood.

“5″

Puck is being held captive by Sluggo.  He’s crying about Vargas - he feels guilty that he couldn’t save him.  He imagines his fate where he’ll be put in a cake.  

Puck is presented to a mysterious pretty girl.  She’s Sluggo’s kid!  Puck is a gift to her, Theresia.  Sluggo tries to touch Theresia and she shudders and shrieks. Sluggo is very put off and in a horrible mood after his own kid recoils from him.

Slugdark slithers up to Guts.  He is back and more slug than ever.  Guts remarks on his beauty.  He pumps Slugdark full of arrows.  Slugdark whips his arms around a lot but Guts dodges.  Guts moves to strike and cuts Slugdark up.  He thinks he’s won - but Slugdark’s tendrils come back with a vengeance.  Slugdark makes some comment about how Guts can’t kill him unless he cuts off his head - and in the very next move, the head has been severed.

The half-head clings to Dragonslayer, trendril-ing its way up it towards Guts, attempting to feed off of him.  Guts flattens it between a brick wall and Dragonslayer.

The dying head whispers that the remainder, Sluggo, is waiting for Guts upstairs.  Guts is weak and weary from bloodloss - but he pledges to trudge on until he kills Sluggo.

Back to Puck and Theresia in the castle.  Theresia tells puck that she knows what it’s like to be caged and that Puck can come out.  She tells Puck how her mother died when she was but a baby, but that her father, Sluggo, told her it was a group of heretics that did it, sacrificing her alive.  She says that Sluggo may have been a tough ruler, but he was loved by all, even as a father… but then he got worse and started hunting down heretics like nothing else mattered - and now nothing else does matter, because it’s like he enjoys hurting people.  It’s like he’s not even a person.

Cut to Guts who has snuck into the castle.  The Lord Mayor is there with a ton of men who warn him that he’ll be killed if he moves any farther.  Guts tells them simply:  Move.

They try to shoot Guts up but he blocks with Dragonslayer.  They try to stop him and he cleaves em to bits.  Even Gerico, who’s supposed to be tougher than Zondark, gets DEAD.  Guts busts him right through a stone pillar.  Guts is left alone with the Lord Mayor.

Cut to Puck and Theresia, who are totally buddies now.  She asks Puck what it’s like to fly.  Puck can’t tell her because it’s a normal thing for him, nothing special. Theresia has apparently been locked up in that high room for seven years - Sluggo never lets her leave.  

There’s a commotion outside and Puck figures it’s Guts.  He tells Theresia he’s gotta go, she has a mini break down, and then regains her composure.  Puck says he’ll be back, and that next time, he’ll take her with!

Guts is in Sluggo’s chamber.  He approaches - and Sluggo’s actual body erupts from the ground.  He’s huge.

Puck doesn’t even know where Sluggo’s headquarters are, but finds out when rubble erupts away from a wall, revealing lots of Sluggo skin.  The simple act of becoming his true self is so powerful that the castle starts to crumble, allowing Theresia to slip outside her room.

Sluggo is fucking massive.  He’s doing all he can to crush Guts, but instead crushes the Lord Mayor, allowing Guts to get a hit off on him. He cuts off some eye stalks.

However, it’s a surface wound.  Sluggo goes on a mortality rant.  He grabs Guts and whips him around, hard enough to shatter stone.

When the chapter ends, Guts is like…. legit dead.

“6″

Chapter opens with Guts KO’d with Sluggo looming over him and Puck a ways off, shocked.  Puck swoops in and calls for Guts to get up, but Guts is OUT.

Sluggo mocks Guts for being a weak human, and Puck calls him out on the grounds that Sluggo himself was once a weak human, and that he’s just become a monster now to escape his own pain. Rats Theresia out.  A behelit falls on Puck’s head and he dashes off with it, to Sluggo’s great upsetness.  Sluggo takes Puck out with a rock, but before he can totally crush him, Theresia shows up.

Theresia is DISGUSTED by Sluggo.  She shrieks and cries and runs.  Sluggo also cries.  He is Very Upset.  His sadness is converted to anger almost immediately.  He’s gonna murder the fuck out of Puck.  

If not for Guts being somehow alive enough to combat Sluggo, Puck WOULD be dead!  But Guts is in fact still kicking.

Guts charges towards Sluggo, and Puck tells him not to be reckless and die, but Guts just smiles.

Guts takes more hits without death, somehow.  Before Sluggo can land a finishing blow, Guts grabs Theresia and shields himself with her.  He uses the momentary distraction to take a second to blast half of Sluggo’s face off.  His hand gets broken somehow?  So he just.  Wields Dragonslayer in his mouth.  Totally possible.  He beheads Sluggo like this.

Guts starts to cut up the severed head with a knife while Theresia watches.  

Theresia cries for Guts to stop.  Puck cries for Guts to stop.  Guts threatens Puck’s life if he tries to interfere.  He continues to mutilate Sluggo’s head as they watch, noting how he just won’t die.  Guts keeps going until he breaks the knife and Guts falls to the ground, spent.  

He sits himself up and laughs for a long while.

Sluggo’s bleeding out and pleas to not die… trigger the Behelit.  The group is sent to the hell-stairs dimension and the Godhand is there.

"7″

A vortex has opened over the castle in this town.  The Godhand is present.  Femto is jacked.

Guts is instantly triggered.  Femto mind-throws him to the ground.

Femto says some shit about Guts being pathetic.  He begins to turn away and Guts practically begs for his attention… but Femto does not spare it.  

The Godhand turns to Sluggo’s mutilated head.  He begs them to take Guts’s life in exchange for his own.  They tell him they can’t, because his desire is lacking any actual hatred for Guts.  He’s only afraid of death.  

Even though Guts has killed tons of apostles, it’s inconsequential to the Godhand.  They don’t give a shit about Guts.

Guts thinks this is just hilarious.  He gets up despite all his wounds (impressive to the Godhand) and has a go at Femto, who again says he’s nothing but a “squirming sacrificial offering”.

Guts can’t even get close to Femto.  The pain associated with his brand is way too strong, and he keels back over… but not before he swings his great sword.  Femto throws him across the room.  When Guts hits the wall, the rock crumbles.  Everyone assumes he’s dead.

However, the Godhand still won’t use Guts as Sluggo’s offering, because he’s already been offered, and Sluggo has no real ties to Guts.  Offerings must be someone very important.  Femto points to Theresia.

The Godhand exposes that Sluggo actually sacrificed his wife after discovering her in a Pagan orgy fucking a goat-headed god… after killing all of the people at the orgy.  He couldn’t kill his wife, however.  But he could sacrifice her when his despair activated the behelit.

POINT - those sacrificed… unable to take their lives by one’s own hand… the ones loved and hated the most… so that one can bury their fragile human heart.

The Godhand threatens to brand Theresia… and Guts asks Puck for him to heal his right arm.

"8″

opens with GRIFFTH pulling Guts out of a pile of bodies……

“Martyrdom for a merciless god.  What a waste.”

Griffith is giving Guts one of his token existential speeches.  Guts is like “… …”

Griffith tells Guts that he’s the first person he’s ever spoken to like this.  Guts thinks he’s beautiful.

Snap back to reality.  The Godhand is demanding Sluggo’s answer.  Guts continues to beckon Puck, who is torn.

The Godhand reminds Sluggo that even if he dies, he won’t rest in peace.  He’ll go straight to hell to disappear into the sea of other souls that get caught up with demonkind.

holy FUCK CONFIRMED that if Guts dies he goes to hell.  Puck looks at Guts and Guts is fearful of this realization.

The Godhand tells Sluggo that only two paths remain- hell or sacrifice.

Sluggo takes too long.  The dead and damned come for him… and Vargas is there to personally drag him down to hell.

Theresia cries and reaches out for her father, but it is in vain.  The dead grab at Guts, too.  Femto looks and turns away from him.  Guts manages to shoot his cannon arm at him.  Femto explodes the ball before it can reach him.  Guts watches as the Godhand departs.

Puck tries to go to Theresia, but she shrieks and cries.  Sluggo’s mutilated body is before her.  She wants to go back to her room.  She wishes she were dead.

Guts tells her to kill herself.

Puck slaps him.  Guts continues on, telling her that she’d probably go to heaven anyway, though both her parents are in hell.

Theresia considers slitting her wrist, but stone crumbles away beneath her before she can.  Guts offers his sword for her to grasp, and she does.  Her hands bleed.  Guts flings her back to safe ground.

Guts is emotionally impacted by his own actions.

Puck goes to heal Theresia’s wounds, but Theresia whips around to face Guts.  She projects all of her recent misfortune onto him.  She swears that one day, she will kill Guts.  Guts tells her he’s ready whenever she is and walks away… but really, he’s CRYING.  Iconic pepe look.

Puck sees he’s crying and Guts bats Puck away.

END BLACK SWORDSMAN ARC

[sunkentreasurecove]

Think love and think drugs and they're the same thing inside And we struggle or get enough but it's the same thing Burn holes in the Moleskine, bout it Been friends with a pen, gave trust to the page Turn in when the time's up earn that age know-how learned in spades They exist in the outros in the fade outs and in the background noise I wouldn't wish it on my rivals I got no enemies We all fall for the decoy Sometimes it slides right by while we're trying to decide Don't lie to yourself almost ain't good enough and there ain't no extra lives Leave em alone How we livin? Very own road and it's so, so driven In the freezing cold, y'all keep chillin We'll leave tracks you can follow in Bold, less fucks given Team The Best Team Doomtree citizen We care like it's cool still but we've risen from close to sting to post-everything How y'all livin? Very own road and it's so, so driven In the freezing cold y'all keep chillin So I do it for her and I do it for me and I do it for the word Kill it for the hunt of the beat Kill it for the hunger that will not sleep And you can stay miserable all your life but what kind of difference that make? What, you ain't had enough of that pay, ain't had enough of your way? Live from the Haunted North in the woods where the fire roars You fell for the Trojan horse Who want it more? It's already yours Live from the Haunted North in the woods where the fire roars You fell for the Trojan horse Who want it more; it's already yours Draw blood, paint life, sculpt that clay, build that bridge (suffer and pleasure) Got love, gotta write that way and filled that book from the gutter to forever But we're still gonna suffer we got burnt we met our match and struck first Suckers should have known better than to let us head our own search and destroy You would've been better centered at home Remember that road we'd take? I swear the devil's backbone would break We made it our home and it's great and it's good it's the same as it ever was We came, we saw, we came back We played em songs we made quick We went back home just to fill those pages to the edges, and it's aces It's all coming up roses Closes may come and we know this No risk, no fun, no way, nobody's gonna break my stride, no sir Those days look like these days except for maybe these grays But that's just my salt and pepper, my heart and soul won't live forever Whatever… It's gonna come some day, so come what may and I pray it comes We're still gonna run like strays, purr like kittens, and bang a gong We've sang our songs, we've seen the war, we're living that and more Knowing even the greatest dancers in the world are bound to leave the dance floor So shake, shakes, shoot it's like win, draw, lose cause dice kept cooped up just bring bad luck man is made to choose Yeah, mixed media: flesh, electricity, bone we rent, we visit, but we're never quite home cause the river can't know when the levy might go so, draw your arm and throw Bottled all in, battle with a broadsword rule with the iron cutter straight to the vital cord Lean on a land alive freed men in enterprise Does it mean you seen the sign? See what you wanna read eyes in the seams, not what it seems A better part of me will not let it be instead it seethes Does mean I believe a lie? Let it dead, let it crawl let it all count when you bet it all Say it like you mean it, just say it never better if you never even said it at all Head em off at the neck, set it off Ready for whatever with machete on the leather comrades with a letter on the wall steady head, heavy guts and a set of balls What I really gotta know, huh? How to rock a rhyme that's right in line? With the beat and ride wide to the feet, wise to the weak Why? Why we pray on the meek and pry in the speak of the “why's” and the “we's”? We don't know why why we speak with a slide of the cheek Hide Chopped in the seams Stride That's live and unique designed flight for seats, fly in the cleats Grind Lines in the sheet Slice that's all we live for Polish poison plot loss free and got a lost cause Holler if you hear me shooting Hollow Bodies High Cower salted, high exalted, colicky and alcoholic Call it when I see it all divide Hollowed head to follow tired feet disqualified Able of the cognoscente disabled from a solid mind Hollow Bodies High

Doom Tree, Team the best team

[ecotone99]

[SP] Rachel Ray: Soup Kitchen Queen

"Ray's in the kitchen, so you better watch out, because it's about to be bright, bitch," Rachel yelled at a short, mousey, high school volunteer clad with glasses and a bowl cut at Seven Servings Soup Kitchen by Girsh Park, a couple of blocks from UCSB.

The shiny outer appearance spoke to the affluence of the community, as well as Rachel Ray's distaste for brick buildings. After getting strong-armed into fulfilling her contractual obligation to volunteer in a soup kitchen, she was at least going to make sure it looked good. Besides, it cost less to build a new place than it did to demolish the old one. She didn't escape Glen Falls, New York to embrace red brick bullshit. She was new wave New York, so she might as well show these Santa Barbara how to do it right, with fashion AND food.

"Is she yelling at him?" one of the other high school volunteers asks the girl beside her.

"That's how celebrities talk. My uncle met Gordon Ramsey last week, and he said Ramsey talked about Soviet scientists for ten minutes straight." replied the girl who looked like she got tired of declining phone calls from Cover Girl. The two girls looked like Betty and Veronica from Archie; only the boy didn't fit. Plus the other girl looked more like the runner-up in a Nebraskan beauty pageant with her strawberry blonde hair and toothy grin than Betty. Veronica, on the other hand, had a raven-colored A-line and legs that required eye breaks when you viewed the full length.

Betty looked back over at Rachel.

"Hi Rachel, my name's Betty, can I help you set up?" she asked politely.

"I don't set up, that's what you do," Rachel growled as she pointed her finger at Betty and Veronica. "Just let me know when you're done. And hey, one of you go and get me water." She turned to walk out to the front, placing the mousey boy in her path. "Forget it, girls. You," She pointed at him. "You can go get me a Smart Water. My throat feels like a cat's tongue." The two girls traded glances. "NOW!" Rachel screamed at the unmoving boy. She started coughing. "Exactly my point," she gasped.

The mousey boy, Ethan, scurried out of the kitchen, leaving Rachel with Betty and Veronica.

"Ladies, if you don't mind." She pointed towards a stack of uncut vegetables on the counter. "Remember, slice, dice, and serve it nice- or else, Auntie Ray will make you pay." She walked outside to vape, leaving Betty and Veronica to themselves.

"What just happened?" Betty asked Veronica.

"Just the typical celebrity, egotistical song, and dance. Just keep your voice down. I heard she made Ethan run laps last time when she choked on her coffee." Veronica said, stealing a peek at the door.

"I know that she's a celebrity, but she shouldn't be able to treat us like this. It isn't, like, right." Betty fumed as she began to chop carrots into uneven pieces.

"First of all, the right decision would have been not to come here. Now, the best option is not to talk too loud and get us both in trouble." Veronica's frost blue eyes continued to shift between the door and Betty.

Both Betty and Veronica jump as they hear Rachel scream, "What the fuck is this?!" as she storms back into the kitchen, dragging Ethan by the ear as she holds up a bottle of water in the other one. "Do either of you know what this is?" Silence fills the room. "Well, do you?"

"...Water?" Betty squeaks.

"Not where I'm from! Cause this "Reanimate" Water isn't the Smart Water I asked for, is it Ethan?" her eyes flashed wild energy before she let his ear going. "This is your last chance, Ethan. I don't want you to end up like your friend Ryan." Betty looked at Veronica with shock. Veronica shrugged. Ethan's twin bed sized frame started to shake. Silent sobs went through his body. Rachel turned on him like a cat on exposed ankles. She looked him dead in the eyes, looking through him before she spoke. "Miss me with that weak shit," and moved over to the remaining stack of vegetables. "Time to shine, ladies. Let's go!" she gestured at the veggies.

Ethan finally got himself together and asked Rachel what he should do. She pointed at the door. "Go deal with the people. You don't need to fuck up my kitchen anymore." He sniffed and ducked into the other room.

"So! How's school going for you two?" Rachel asked as she watched them chop carrots and potatoes.

"I'm homeschooled," Veronica said, flicking her hair. "Daddy says it's too much trouble to deal with teachers if I'm going to keep flying to Paris and Milan for my photoshoots." she shrugged. Betty's eyes lit up with adoration and eight thousand questions.

"What about you?" Rachel asked Betty. "Do you go to school?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Betty said softly.

"Ma'am? Do I look like a Ma'am to you? Rachel's lips twitched.

"No, uh, I... didn't mean-" Betty's voice cracked.

"Ah!" Rachel cackled. "Just playing with you, sweetheart. You know I'm almost fifty, right? God damn, I've aged like a vintage Bordeaux. Smooth, sexy, and very, very expensive." She laughed. Veronica kept chopping, tuning Rachel and Betty out. "Seriously though, anything exciting happens in high schools these days? Uh-?" Rachel lifted a finger, questioning.

"Betty."

"Yes, Betty."

"Well... a boy asked me out yesterday" Betty blushed to match her hair.

"And what did you say?"

"I said yes, and um... kissed him." Her cheek's turning from strawberry to fire-engine red. Rachel looked up at Betty.

"You know I created 'Yum-O!' to help kids like you out, right?"

“Yes?" Doubt crept into Betty's voice.

"Well, 'Yum-O!' ain't for craftin' hoes!" Rachel said ratcheting up the volume.

"But Rachel! It was just a kiss!"

"Oh, that's how it all starts, Betty. Then, before you know it you've driven up to make out point in his dark opal, Buick Skylark with a case of Modelo’s and wallet condoms. Suddenly, you're married to an Italian-American lawyer who fronts a rock band on the weekends, when he should be weeding the flower beds with you, because he convinced you to use your television syndication funds to buy a McMansion in White Plains, but is too moral to use migrant workers for the lawn care!" She took a deep breath. "It shouldn't be possible, Betty, but it is. It's this fucked up nightmare where things happen, like you burning ice. How did you burn ice, Betty? It's just frozen water! How'd you do it, Betty? HOW DID YOU DO IT?!"

"I didn't!-" Betty raised her hands in defense.

"By kissing boys, Betty. By kissing boys!" Rachel's face was gazpacho red as she finished screaming. "Jesus, I need to go out and vape to get over what you just said." Rachel stalked out of the kitchen. A senior man approached her as she entered the main serving room.

"Do you know when the soup will be ready, Miss? We've been waiting for over an hour now." He said as his hands shook with arthritis.

"When it's finished, Leonard." She barked and flipped his hat off his head.

*** The soup ended up being rosemary-infused, red wine reduced lamb stew topped with a yogurt paste and sautéed leeks. The patrons were confused, but Rachel didn't care. Legend has it that the next month she slapped a man who asked for chicken noodle soup after she served a Hungarian Goulash.

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[asylum-miniatures]

Session 27, AGAIN, REALLY!

Part 1, YOU KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN

As we walk back, reality suddenly ripples and Vex was suddenly with us the entire time.  We finally make it back to the Kobold camp, the little guys looking in awe at Telon’s “dragon cannon”.  He’s walking, swagger in his step, smirk on his face.  I big up our profession, announcing to all that could see and hear “behold, we have brought back your god”, all in an effort to further ingratiate ourselves to the locals.  I am forced though, to get *shudder* draspher to translate for me (I had hoped the GM had forgotten that little detail).  

The chief is overjoyed at this news.  He announces that for his good deed in finding and helping us, Meepo has officially redeemed himself in his people’s eyes, and is welcome to re-join the tribe.  Telon then makes careful phrasing as he “passes the chief the dragon, just like he asked me too”.   Of course, the second he does this he’s not holding onto the scarf anymore and it turns back into cloth and the dragon is free.  Funny that, who could have seen that coming………..

The dragon starts hovering and hissing, getting ready for round two.  draspher responds immediately.  Which is to say he has a reasonable idea in hitting it with an adhesive spittle spell, and messing it up with a natural 1.  Needless to say, the chief doesn’t take GETTING GLUED TO THE FLOOR VERY WELL.  He tries bluffing, telling him “don’t worry, that armour should protect you” but he doesn’t buy it, pissed as hell at getting glued to the floor by the “heroes” he was just congratulating.  Ocelot is torn, OOC, between his desire to shoot the dragon to stop it or shoot draspher for what he did to appease the Kobolds.  As his team leader, I approve both of those options.

Meanwhile the rest of us get to work dealing with the dragon.  Yolan uses his lock gaze ability to force the dragons focus to him, while I turn invisible and get in place, grabbing something from my bag to deal with it.  draspher finally gets his act together and uses haste to speed us up, just in time for Vex to charge it and grab the dragon before it can try to fly away.  Ocelot runs in and grabs his head, aiming it away from anyone in case it starts trying to use its ice breath again, ‘coincidently’ aiming it in drasphers direction.

It might not have been too bad if it had gone off though.  The royal guards have gone after the double-crossing sorcerer that attacked their leader.  They both leap him, one of them getting a good grip, making the poor spellcaster flail in panic at the fact a dragon midget is wrapped around his head.  Seeing this I have a moral crisis like I’ve never had before.  On the one hand, I could throw the tanglefoot bag at the dragon while Vex is holding it keeping it in place.  On the other hand, draspher is right there, with another dragon on him.  This is my big chance to pay him back for the time he glued a psycho to my chest.

Yolan starts trying to defuse the situation.  He carefully makes his way to the chief and gestures that he wants to help.  He manages to cross the language barrier, and convince him he’s on the up and up.  He then uses his great strength to peel the chief off the floor.  Meanwhile the dragon has started blasting the floor with its icy breath, prompting me to pick stopping it before things get worse.  I reappear, dash over to vex and tell her to hold it still.  I then slather the dragon in the condense of the tanglefoot bag to stop it moving and keep its mouth closed.  I also coved its mouth and nostril, its starting to suffocate.  His lungs should have enough air to keep from dropping dead immediately, but we’re going to want to get him caged soon before the glue wears off.  

Ocelot grabs the dragon from Vex and charges out of the room, yelling at draspher to hurry up and fix the cage.  Draspher suddenly remember he has a dragon himself, and gets Mee to cast sleep on his hanger on, then dashes after Ocelot to use mending yelling apologies to the chief as he runs.  Vex quickly follows after, tripping over the two Kobolds on the floor, leaving me Yolan and Telon behind.  Telon starts gesturing to me to steal the key since I’m team rogue/ninja.  I, being the SMART ROGUE, sign back my reluctance to ruin things entirely with the only group we’ve ever met and genuinely helped, and tell him to wait until there’s no option of us getting it legitimately getting the key off them before stealing it as we leave rather than in front of a huge crowd keeping an eye on us.   He might have the rest of them fooled, BUT I KNOW WHAT HE WAS UP TOO.  DRASPHER MIGHT BE DUMB ENOUGH TO DO THIS, BUT TELON IS SNEAKY, HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING.  HE PLANNED ALL THIS, PROBABLY TO STEAL THAT KEY!  

During this the leader starts yelling at Yolan, using Mee’s telepathy as a translator.  I quickly go over, apologising for our idiot, not wait I mean….no wait idiot works fine.  The one Kobold guard starts getting up, clearly showing signs of a broken arm.  Yolan suddenly realises the other one isn’t moving at all, and realises Vex accidently killed him when she stepped on him.  With everyone’s focus on me he silently moves over and casts invisibility on the body so no-one will notice.

While I negotiate with the chief/keep an eye on Telon to stop him stealing the key.  This is what I’ve been reduced to, the rogue keeping the others on the straight and narrow.  YOU SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO ME TELON! DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO ME!  Despite this he still goes to the key, but a quick check shows that he’s still being watched.  I explain to the chief my predicament, that “I am intelligent man stuck babysitting fools, but I swear that just as we brought your god back, we will do right by you”.

Anyway, as I’m doing this the others deal with the dragon.  Ocelot manages to stick the dragon to the cage floor and use a dagger to cut the dragons nostrils free so it can breathe.  He then dives out of the cage before it can free itself and yells at draspher to fix it quick.  Vex charges into the cage to hold the dragon still, but trips over the bars and ends up falling into it, getting stuck to it.  Meepo runs in after her, desperate to do anything to help in his duty to guard the dragon.  This heroic charge leads head first into the pile, getting literally “stuck in”.

Part two, moving forward

10 minutes pass and the others manage to fix up the cage while I fix up our relations with the tribe.  For the record, draspher has managed to become the enemy of an entire culture with a single low level spell.  How is this THE SECOND TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED.  I swear at this point hes turning out to be the final boss of this campaign.

I negociate a future aligance with the Kobolds.  At some point we will need there help with something, and they will help us out.  We will also help them out in turn, and part of this is us dealing with the goblin problem for them once and for all.  In truth, it’s not that hard for us to deal with the goblins, and we needed to go further into there territory to find the other adventurers anyway, its win win.  First step to this is get draspher to collaps the unstable tunnel with a fireball.  We then get Vex to heal us up and the chief gives us a place to stay for a few hours to recharge.

Once we are fully rested we set off on the long way around.  We find a door, untrapped, but unable to be opened.  draspher manages to find runes on the door, reading “channel good to go through”.  This sparks one of our signature massive argument on whether a cure wounds spell would do it, or would it only work with a channel energy.  We finally get Yolan to try a cure light wounds spell, but it only has a mild effect, so we have to get vex to channel for us.  We decide to get her to keep two lay on hands in reserve to open the door on the way back, then start heading in.

Inside we find 5 sarcophagi, each with a noble, almost elf like human inscribed.  draspher is convinced its vampires, so he draws his crossbow.  He then immediately realises he’s terrible, so he puts it away immediately after.  Ocelot want to jury rig a torch with a light spell, a rock and a tube but I point out I have a bulleye lantern and give him that instead.  He now holds it up with his third arm to light up the room.

We go in order, first I go in checking for traps as I go.  Yolan follows after, then Vex.  She checks the door and realises that it’s slowly closing on us.  We have about 10 minutes before it closes fully, but it’s closing.  Annoyed at how slow Vex is in getting out of the way, he uses his boots to literally jump over her in the small gap in the doorframe.  She gets the hint and goes in the room, Telon and draspher head in the room.  Yolan gets straight to checking the door:

Yolan – looks clear Jaune – give it a try Yolan – do you want to come closer? Jaune – no, we’re good here

He gives it a try, and a blade slices down, dealing 19 damage to him.  See, this is why none of us got close Yolan.   Just then the door slams shut, knocking draspher aside for 2 damage.

Part three, difficulty spike

Ocleot checks out the room.  He finds a couple of items on a small table (a flask and a glass wistle) and goes to grab it.  The sarcophagi then burst open, Vex and I just manging to avoid the slabs flying across the room.  One goes to attack me and draspher summons three giant spiders in the holes.  Yolan gives a bless to the party, and Ocleot checks the vial but can’t figure it out, so he just opens fire at the one attacking me for 13 damage.

The skeletons then crawl out, cutting down the spiders in a single blow, not even slowed down by their presence.  The Gm points out that they didn’t even have to roll, there base attack bonus is such they could hit and kill them easily with there damage dice.  I use kage bonshin no jutsu, but I only manage to create a single copy.  A single clone that is immediately a critical hit by the skeleton attacking me, and gets two more hits on me for 18 damage, nearly half my health in a single round.  

This gets the group moving.  Telon tries to bulrush the one attacking me but fails to move him an inch, while Vex moves to hold off two before they can get out of there holes.  Yolan gets his destruction judgement and swings for 23 damage on the fifth one.  draspher finally gets to doing something useful and gets haste on everyone and Ocelot uses this speed to unload on the fourth one rolling 3d8+48, getting 68 damage.  The thing is that after that it’s still standing not looking that worse for wear.  This has us all worried.  What’s even worse is when the second one gets into flanking to attack me.

I step out of that flank to start one of my own.  I get into position with Yolan and get a full attack, two hits for 26 damage.  That is also the first time I’ve ever actually been in a flank to full attack in all the time I’ve been playing with these guys.  They all either die too fast or my teammates never set me up, so this is the first time I’ve been able to play to my strengths, *sniff* sorry I’m getting emotional.

The skeletons start their counterattack.  Yolan takes a graze for 5 damage.  draspher gets the idea to cast grease on the floor so it would trip one up, and the skeleton comes out on top of the patch, only to not be affected in the least.  Turns out the dc to beat is 14, but these guys have a reflex save of 12.  The GM is pulling out the big guns to give us a challenge.  That one moves to hit me but the GM finds out just how good my new Confounding blade ability giving me a temporary +10 to my AC until the next round.

Telon moves, taking hits from the first and second skeleton for 8 damage, and goes to attack the fifth zombie, getting a crit for 28 damage. Vex activate her weapon charge to get holy on her sword, hitting one for 17 damage.  draspher checks the glass whistle, thinking that it might be the key to getting rid of them.  It has nothing to do with anything as far as he can tell.  So instead he just casts enlarge person on Yolan.  My good position ends as Yolan ABANDONS ME to go attack the fifth skeleton for 30 damage.  Fortunately, Ocelot intercedes saving me from the fourth skeleton with one bullet reducing it to ash with 18 damage as he aims the other two shots at the first, hitting for 22 and 19.  One takes a swing at Vex while the first attacks Ocelot for 10 damage.

Seeing a chance, I move off and draw my bow, getting a shot at the fifth one for 20 damage.  Yolan gets raked by him with 2 claws for 18 damage, as Telon dodges an attack from the Third one.  Vex starts laying into the second one, getting two hits for 40 damage total, while draspher does the only thing he can do to help and enlarges Telon.  At the same time Mee tries opening the door, but without a channelled energy he can’t open it.  Telon tries to attack but misses, oddly managing to roll three 6’s.  

We start making headway, Yolan lays into the fifth one and hits three times, with 73 damage reducing them it into dust.  Ocelot steps back to reload, leaving draspher vulnerable.  The first skeleton moves to attack him, taking a couple of attacks for 20 damage from us as it moves to him.  I get a shot off on him for 27 damage, joining in the *shudder* rescue attempt.  

Despite their amazing stats, there is no accomidating for sheer bad luck.  Or in our case, the GM’s frankly terrible rolls.  Despite constant attacks, its only now one of them managed to get a hit on Vex for 8 damage, while the third one misses Yolan.  draspher retreats, taking a hit for 9 damage but the rest of us finally get this sorted.  Telon gets two hits on the second skeleton for 32 damage, killing it, while Ocleot does the same with the one attacking draspher with 67 damage.  Vex gets three hits and a crit for 61 damage or to be more accurate 2d8+12+3d6+12+4d6 damage.  Needless to say she kills it.

Part four, wrap up

With the skeleton’s dead, we finally have a chance to assess the situation.  draspher finally has a chance to examine the whistle, and figures it must be some kind of summoning whistle, but he can’t tell what kind.  I check around and while the bodies have nothing on them, the sarcophagi are filled with gems and platinum, which ocelot and I just pile into our respective bags of storage.  draspher looks around and realises that the candle on the wall is an ever burning one.  He suggests putting it in a candelabra until we point out Ocelot has a bull’s eye lantern and he replaces the light spell rock with it.  Ocelot also figures out the flask this all started with was just a potion of fire resistance.  We also leave the Kobold in the hall, and I find well aged “elf jerky” in the sarcophagi as well.

Now we’ve finished looting, we start trying to work out how to leave.  As I start trying to disable the trap Ocelot starts feeling drowsy, noting something wrong with the air.  We realise the oxygen is running out in this air tight tomb.  I borrow drasphers amulet of adaptation so I can’t lose consciousness before getting the door open.  After ages I get the door untapped and unlocked, but it still won’t open.  The vacuum effect is keeping it closed.  All together we push and push, and it’s only after 10 minutes and Telon remembering his rage that we get the door open.

We finish there.  The gm admits he nerfed the zombies from there original, taking way their damage and magic resistances.  If we had done it right, then the reduction/good, and reduction/piercing would have meant only Vex and Telon could have hurt them, possible a celestial summon as well.

Embarrassments to the guild – 6, the bear, draspher getting mugged, draspher growing antlers in a magic school, meeting the king (2), falling down a pit, killing one of the guys we were supposed to find

Jaunes brave advances towards future victory – 11, when jess attacked in the night, the barn, the demons, the fear from Anubis and running from the dust jackal, the fight in the Whitewater compound both at the start and at the end (2), escaping the killer clockwork to talk down lady Ezrisha, at the end of the first training mission, going to get the guards rather than help with the poisoner, from the skeletons

Times draspher did good – 4, The enlarge person spell, taking out a dragon, mending train tracks, taking out a room of goblins with a single spell  

Times draspher did bad – 15, ghost sounds through the glass window he had previously been told was too thick, nearly giving away the groups connection to southwater to a complete stranger, the antlers, getting mugged, announcing he was mugged by kids, announcing he was going after kids to beat the crap out of them, nearly hitting me with adhesive spittle AGAIN, killing the guy we were supposed to find, wondering off (2), getting me with ghost sounds for no reason, costing us the element of surprise when faced with a dragon, getting a dragon in his trousers, greasing himself, sticking the kobold chief to the floor

Team members drilled over – 21, Vex getting shot in the back, Yolan getting a dragon dropped on him, draspher and Yolans spells backfiring, draspher getting mugged, Telon down a hole, I find a secret door filled with skeletons,  getting eaten by a slime, ocelot misfires (2), ocelots warning sending us into a shooting range, draspher dropping to the ground to get shot, Ocelot and the spear trap, dragon in trousers, dragon glued to chest, dragon and Yolan glued to chest, dragon and Yolan glued to chest and greased, Telon triggering Yolans alarm spells, dragon and Telon glued to chest, Yolan wondering into a room full of enemies by himself, draspher getting the blame for the dragon incident

Terms confused/forgotten – 4.5, the guild name, the fact we had papers (.5), the collages, the tournament name, mr Quinn link

Friends made – 1, Meepo (who has already proved himself more likeable, trustworthy and helpful than draspher ever will)