#we're playing out of the abyss so at first the no magic thing didn't super factor into things

[bijesperfahey]

Trying not to dwell on it but I'm still so fucking (petty) upset

Played DND with some coworkers last night and one of the girls not only showed up half an hour late but didn't actually prep her character like we were all told to

So her bard didn't have spells

And then when. 2 hours in she was like 'wait i should have spells' after I'd gone down THREE TIME she still didn't pick a fucking healing spell despite me saying 'oh yeah if you take that you could bring me or 'other coworker' back up'

My DM ended up ruling (since I was apparently the only healer) that if you rolled 3 successes you could come back up to 1 hp

I ended up going down 5 times during the fucking session and ended the session unconscious and am honestly probably not going back if next month goes the same way

[abronzeagegod]

ETS WIP Chapter 5: We're Going to Need More than Just Tech Support

[first]|[more]

Aeth's days off were nice. They had a good time at the beach, and temporarily forgot all about their bad dreams and the things that awaited them in their sleep.

They spent time with Lyta for most of the day, but the next day was Lyta's turn to go out into the field and returned to work.

When Aeth finally returned to work they had to go out in the field for their first day. They weren't super looking forward to it. Yet, it was part of the job, so it had to be done.

Everything was pretty standard, until Aeth received a call for tech support out in the Clutches.

The Clutches were the rich people district of the city, and that usually meant something very stupid and very expensive was broken.

Aeth had to mentally prepare themselves for what was coming. They could only imagine that it was pretty stupid, and that the client would treat them more like furniture than a person.

But the job was the job, and Aeth had to do it.

The job description wasn't super helpful, so Aeth dressed as neutrally as possible. Blue jumpsuit, hair up, two rings on each finger, one earring in each ear, and the standard kit bag.

When they approached the door of the mansion, they felt that this was going to be a mess of a job, something in their bones told them it was going to be a bad time.

The door was answered but someone that Aeth didn't expect: a sullen looking young man with the stubble of a man that hadn't shaved in a few days, deep bags under his eyes, and enough lip piercings to make Aeth wonder how he ate comfortably.

"Hey," he said with the disaffected tone of someone who had already considered their time on this plane as almost up. "Everything is in the basement."

"What seems to be the problem?" Aeth asked.

"You're not a cop, right?"

That was a terrible way to start the conversation. "I'm not," Aeth said, "but I'm not going to let anything terrible happen."

"Oh, no! Nothing like that! We're just making some drugs in this house we rented," the guy said.

This was getting worse and worse the more this guy talked.

Aeth slipped on two more rings. Now their thumb, pointer, and middle fingers on each hand had rings on them. Simple things with one stone each embedded in the different metal. They had a feeling like they might need it for some magic casting shortly. They also put their phone in their front pocket for easy access.

"Here," the guy said as he opened the door for Aeth, and instantly everything went right to shit.

The door opened, and they stepped inside. The room was large, some kind of entertainment space. Aeth's eyes were immediately pulled to the computer that was flashing a blue screen of death, but that's just because they always looked for the computer first.

So that's why it took them a minute to see the cage on the opposite wall.

It looked like a large plastic box that housed a demon, an orange skinned creature with the head and legs of a bird, the body of some kind of dog, and the skin texture of a reptile of some kind.

The bird demon watched Aeth and the guy walk into the room with large black eyes.

Aeth knew that this was bad, but the guy was talking and they weren't paying attention.

"Yeah so we were using Bill's computer to do some mapping of the Abyss to find the ingredients we'd need and then we were sending this summon that Garth called to go fetch the stuff for us, but the computer crapped out on us. See?" he walked over to the computer.

"DON'T!" Aeth tried to say, but the guy was too convinced of his own actions to be dissuaded and touched a couple of keys on the computer.

The computer, that was designed for playing some high fidelity video games and crafting high quality digital art images, was not remotely equipped to delve and dive into the Abyss, an act which was as dangerous as it was illegal.

But touching some buttons triggered something.

That something turned out to be a small little window into the black-purple writhing walls of the Abyss.

"Oh shit, man," the guy said, "I didn't know it could do that. That's wild."

The window was only a few inches tall and twice as wide. But a hole into another plane of existence, one as chaotic and inimical to life as the Abyss was bad.

Aeth swore and pushed the guy out of the way and sat at the computer.

The sudden heart-pounding panic made them think that the first step was to try and, very quickly, fix the computer to end whatever dumb techno-witchcraft they did to give it this capability and close the rift. Then Aeth could call the police.

They frantically tried to type away at the computer, to get it to do anything responsive and close the rift, but nothing worked.

The demon in the cage let out a noise that was almost a chattering growl. It sent shivers down Aeth's spine.

A moment before they turned to see what had caused the demon to become so concerned, they heard the plop-plop of something wet and heavy falling to the floor.

<script>character-POV-change</script>

Lyta was having an extremely boring day in the office. She was supposed to work the phones today. Which largely meant she was taking calls from random people to try and solve their problems over the phone, and occasionally assisting people out in the field with tasks that they couldn't do.

It had been mostly slow, which was not too bad, getting paid for doing not a whole lot.

But that kind of thing drove Lyta crazy since she wanted to be doing and not just sitting.

That's why she picked up the phone on the first ring.

"How can I help-" she started but was immediately cut off.

"IT'S AETH!" they yelled into the phone. Normally there were all sorts of checks and things, getting ID numbers, and checking on job codes. But this sounded bad. Aeth never did this. "I NEED YOU TO CALL THE EXTERMINATORS! FUCK!"

"Fuck me," Lyta said. Aeth never really swore, not like that. She slapped the red alarm button next to her phone.

The alarm sounded and bright lights started flashing all over the office. All non-job related tasks suddenly ground to an abrupt halt all around Lyta.

"Employee needs the Exterminators," she says into the second phone line that opened the second she pushed the button. "Employee 977 is on site at 311 North Vellaturine, in the Clutches."

"What is the nature of the emergency?" the cold voiced operator asked.

<script>meanwhile</script>

"What is the nature of the emergency?"

Aeth had their phone back in their front pocket of their coveralls. The voice came over the speaker, but Aeth was busy casting spells.

The rings on their fingers glowed as they moved them in complicated patterns to repeat the codes for the magic effect they desperately needed.

They stepped back as the bright green magic lit up as the sequence was completed and the thin barrier was established.

Aeth pushed the guy that let them in back and tried to get to a door, any door.

The computer and the desk were both long gone, consumed by a multi-headed discolored worm that had come through the rapidly widening void into the Plane of Chaos.

The demon's cage had broken open and the weird demon was fighting, hopefully it was fighting, the gross worm abominations that kept coming through.

The guy behind Aeth said, "Oh this seems bad man."

Through a door on the far side of the room, opposite where Aeth and the first guy were came in another man. This one had no shirt on and was preceded by a large waft of smoke from the room.

"Oh shit! Bill's gonna be so pissed!" he said.

"Garth man! This is bad!"

Garth, the high one, yelled, "I can fix this!"

Aeth, once again, tried their best, "Don't do anything! Just run!"

A worm, at least it kind of seemed worm like, with several "heads" that were nothing but empty space, slapped up against the barrier Aeth had made. It felt like their were trying to bite their way through it.

However, Garth was too high on his own supply to realize the true danger he was in and started casting another summoning spell.

The red flames of the hells started to form in the room as Garth channeled the energy, but one of the worms approached.

The sickly pink colored worm was much larger than the others that had come through so far, and had three heads, all empty of all features, just a matter-less hole that seemed to consume everything around it, even the light. It approached Garth quickly, who got a good look into the empty space, and stopped what he was doing. The spell was half completed as the worm did something to Garth.

Garth was entranced by the worm.

But the portal to hell was opened, and the spell wasn't finished which meant that the doorway was just left open for anything to walk through.

Through the open doorway to the hells, walked a large demon, with the works: claws, wings, horns, and red skin.

Both the worm and Garth turned to look at it.

Aeth couldn't see what happened next, but Garth moved and then the demon put their hand straight through his chest. The worm moved a second later and started biting at Garth's twitching legs, consuming him from the bottom up.

The demon snarled in it's language as it moved to fight the worm as they both tore through Garth's corpse. Aeth heard the language and it made their entire left side feel heavy.

"FUCKING SHIT!" Aeth yelled as they tried to push the guy back and out of the room, a worm still attacking the barrier. "THERE'S A HOLE TO THE ABYSS HERE! THERE'S WORMS WITH MULTIPLE HEADS AND THEY ARE FIGHTING AND CONSUMING EVERYTHING! FUCK! THERE'S ONE CASUALTY! SUMMONER! NEVER FINISHED SUMMONING DEMONS FROM HELL WHO ARE NOW POURING IN!"

Dimly, Aeth heard Lyta repeating the information.

The operator responded. "Understood. Class One Operation approved, Exterminators are en route to your location. Be advised, heavy weaponry has been approved, as has magic. Please inform anyone in the building to evacuate immediately. Police have been informed."

"Aeth!" they hear Lyta yell over the phone. "Aeth! The Exterminators are coming! Get out of there!"

For a moment, things seemed to be ok, because it was Lyta and Lyta's voice was always nice. But the panic and edge to it, smacked Aeth right back into the situation at hand.

They grabbed the guy by the shoulders and pushed him through the door.

"Garth! Bro, no!"

Aeth threw open the door and stepped through.

And right into a fractal hell.

The hallway they walked through was gone. Everything here was twisted, like someone had taken a picture of the hallway and distorted and shifted the entire thing and then made the messed up copy reality.

"Fuck!" Aeth yelled as they dropped several feet to the floor that looked like the wall. "This door led us to another dimension!"

"Oh... shit," Lyta said over the phone.

The Exterminator Operator broke their cold, passionless demeanor very briefly. "Oh fuck."

The Exterminators are the badasses of the tech world, fixing creatures and beings and banishing things that shouldn't be here. To hear that filled Aeth with a singularly potent cold dread.

"Be advised we have a level zero breach," the operator said. "Repeat, be advised we have a level zero breach."

Lyta was dimly aware of the fact that there was no movement, no sound at all in the call center. Everyone was listening in on the conversation without breathing or speaking.

"We are sending in the Knight of Doors," the operator said. "We're doing our best to get there as fast as possible. Do whatever you can to keep your people alive and safe."

my kofi where the next chapter is already up for supporters

[respitelocklyre]

Grwm post-swamp edition lmao 🤪 ⬇️

(The following update is posted in the form of a video)

[ID: A vertically-oriented video depicting a white tiefling with long-spiraling horns and silver hair. His bangs are pushed back by a headband, showing a face full of dark freckles and black marks that radiate from their eyes and fade to a gradient. They're wearing a black, silk bathrobe that's slipped off one shoulder. In front of them but mostly out of frame is a large selection of makeup and a personal mirror. Behind them is what looks to be a bedroom. Throughout the video, they are doing a makeup tutorial and showing off different products while they talk. The caption reads: "Grwm post-swamp edition lmao @FauntasticPartyTime #fyp #grwm #Strixhaven #Warlock #makeuptutorial #lgbtq #pepsihalftimeshow"]

Transcript:

Get ready with me for a celebratory dinner after I almost died in a swamp!

For those of you who don't know, I'm a freshman at a magic university. I try not to talk much about school because I know that's not why most of you follow me, but I thought I'd do a story time while I do my makeup since I've been on a bit of a hiatus from socials the past month. We just finished our first field exam in a lit-er-al swamp, so I am freshly showered and getting ready to go out with my party for a well-earned dinner.

[Cut to a makeup product being held aloft] First, I'm going in with some primer from Tasha's Cauldron- it's super moisturizing, I love it.

So, like, before I get into the story of how my exam went, I just want to address why I went on hiatus real quick. I had some personal issues with a friend group here at college and... I don't really know if I want to, or even can say too much, but it looked really bad for a while. All I'm gonna say is keep in mind that adventuring can be really dangerous, and this was, like, worst-case-scenario levels at first. Things have kind of settled down now and everyone is [they pause to make a face and gesture vaguely with their hands before shrugging]...fine. Yeah, everyone is fine now. But I'm sorry for just going MIA for a while and I know I have soooo many DMs and comments and stuff that I left unanswered. I'm trying to make my way through them, I prommie!

[Cut to a makeup product being held aloft] Concealer and Foundation are both from Marvelous Pigments in their shade Wight. It's seriously the only thing I've found that matches my skin. If they ever discontinue it, I'm gonna have to unalive myself for real.

Anyways, since things have settled we're all back in our classes and stuff now. I've been working over time to memorize the new cheer routines the squad ran through while I was gone. I'm working on class work too, I guess, but I think I might just find some nerd who's willing to help me with, um... private tutoring lessons, if you catch my drift [they wink].

Back to what I really wanna talk about, though, which is the practical exam we just had! There's this overgrown swamp outside of the school that I think the Witherbloom students use a lot- it's great for growing herbs and brewing potions and stuff, but it's soooo terrible for my hair and clothes. We get out there and I guess there's this spring of wild magic that's been messing up the ecosystem and bringing in all sorts of monsters from out of town. Our job was to basically help the professors cast a spell to close it off, and they graded us on how well we did.

[Cut to a makeup product being held aloft] For my eyes I usually just like to emphasize my natural features with some glitter or holo, so I'm going in with the color Abyssal from the Chromatic palette by Color Spray.

So we're in the swamp, we gather all the material components for the spell, and then we have to hunt down the spring itself. Luckily we didn't have to wade around in swamp water because a couple of my classmates can fly, including this cute owlin who plays on the team I cheer for [laughs, dismissive] I don't think he follows my socials, it's fine.

But when I tell you things got crazy so fast once we started up this ritual spell, oh my queen. Like, my party's already faced a lot of monsters but this was, like, a lot of monsters. There were these awful little bat-mosquito things that would stick their teeth in you and start sucking blood, it was super gross. And my friends told me there was also some kind of ghost or spirit or something that kept going inside them? Talk about invasive. Oh and not to mention the two giant scorpions, but we'll talk about those guys later.

[Continues talking while curling their eyelashes] The craziest of all was this big, blue...toad? It was like a bipedal toad with big fuck-off claws. My classmate Sersh kept screaming about how its claws can apparently turn you into one of them, too, if it hits you. Which, like, yuck. [Slightly sarcastic] What a loss to the entire world it would've been if I'd been turned into some ugly monster, y'know?

[Cut to a makeup product being held aloft] Eyeliner and mascara from Dark E.L.F., just tightlining my eyes today.

So, back to the giant scorpions- we for real would've been fucked if our friend Mire hadn't been able to charm them. But they're a druid, so this is kind of their whole thing and it worked great. Me, my other friend Willow, and Sersh got to focus on helping the teachers close the spring while the big toad guy and the scorpions had their beef. So fun to watch.

Willow's a bard, bee-tee-dubs, and you should definitely go check her shit out. She plays the cutest little pan pipes and is sooo funny and sweet. I'll drop her @ in the caption!

[Cut to a makeup product being held aloft] I'm finishing up with [making air quotations] "bronzer" in the shade Shadowfell and highlighter in the shade Lurue from Marvelous Pigments again.

I'm not gonna lie, it was looking pretty rough for a bit, but we managed to close off the portal without any of us dying! Or, like, passing out. Okay, well, that's not totally true. John- oh, the scorpions were named John and Charlotte by the way- did unfortunately die in battle, but Charlotte made it out. We gave John a little swamp burial to commemorate his sacrifice.

Once all the monsters were killed, Mettie and Puppet- that's his familiar; she's cheeky and we love her- even helped me clean up the caltrops I'd set as a trap (which totally failed, ugh, but whatever). I was gonna just leave 'em there but Mire seemed mad about it for some reason. Metal's technically biodegradable, isn't it? But Puppet liked picking them up 'cause they were shiny and she's a raven, so it was a win-win. I let her keep one.

[Cut to a makeup product being held aloft] And I'll be using a setting spray from Cleric's Formula to seal the look!

I'm excited we passed our first field exam, I can't believe how great school is going. I totally thought I'd be flunking but this shit is easy. Sure, I almost died...[counting on their fingers] four or five times? in the past few months and a bunch of my friends keep almost dying too, but otherwise I feel like we're killing it! I mean, I guess it's killing us, but you know.

Here's the finished look [pause] I gotta go, I'm late [video cuts off].