#when the mystics call (arcane)

[the-halloween-jack]

ｅ ｐ ｈ ｅ ｍ ｅ ｒ ａ ｌ

Ephemeral Elijah Mikaelson x Fem!Human!Reader Synopsis: Elijah Mikaelson reflects on how knowing Y/N L/N has transformed his centuries-old existence. As he battles his deepening feelings for her, he grapples with the stark reality of their pivotal difference: he is an immortal vampire, and she is a fragile human. WARNINGS: Angst. Words: 1,549k Blog Masterlist

Elijah Mikaelson stood before the grand windows of his family’s ornate home, the cool evening air shifting past the open panels to brush against his skin as he gazed out into a darkening sky. He recalled the countless nights he must have done exactly this, looked out at the same unchanging ether; and he wondered how it could look so different now that he knew her. 

As the day had faded, Elijah watched the stars emerge. Each one, ancient and arcane, acted as a reminder of the centuries he had lived, the countless battles he had fought; and the endless nights spent as alone as he felt in this moment. 

Never in his millennia of existence had his thoughts been so entirely consumed by one person, Elijah was no stranger to affection, but he never would have thought it possible to long for someone so strenuously. Y/N L/N had unknowingly captured his heart, and it seemed to him that there was nothing he could do to emancipate it.

She was wholly unaware of the effect she had on him; he was confident of this. Their friendship was simple, filled with laughter and shared moments that left her satisfied while making his heart ache with bittersweet longing. 

How could he justify what he felt? 

She was human, beautiful and kind, fragile and fleeting. Elijah was a creature of the night, a thousand years old and burdened with the malice of his past; he was a monster. He had observed as the times shifted around him, and never once, through the ages he bore witness to, had he felt contempt at his affliction. Where once relished in his power and eternity, he now drowned in it.

Each day, as she grew closer to her inevitable end, he felt the smothering weight of his affections grow heavier. He could not bear to witness her aging while he remained unchanged and eternal. Their livelihoods contrasted so glaringly that it left a bad taste in his mouth; he could never have her.

Elijah could not quell a venomous voice calling for him to turn her. As much as the allure of her immortality beckoned, he felt the burden of this reality pressing down upon him. He could not shake the conviction that to grant her such a gift would be a selfish act; one that robbed her of the life she deserved. He envisioned her vibrant humanity, the warmth of her character and the fleeting moments that made her so undeniably precious. To turn her into something she was not, to take away her chance to live fully, to love and to age as she was meant to—could he truly bear that?

Elijah sighed, raking a hand through his dark hair as he took the final sip of amber liquid from his crystal tumbler. As much as it pained him, he kept his distance, aiming to shield her from the dangers that came in correlation with his world. He was a friend to her, but that is where it ended. He feared that if he were to reveal his affections, she might recoil, horrified at the thought of his love. But most of all, he feared his love would bring about her end; no one ever lasted long in Mystic Falls, and any connection to him would make her a target.

Elijah thought of when he first met her half a year earlier, a friend of people often his adversaries in this uncanny town. She had not yet known about the covert world she lived in, and he had watched as she took it in her stride amidst the disarray of Mystic Falls.

From the moment he had laid eyes on her at a gathering hosted by the Salvatores, he was struck by her effortless charm, at the time, blissfully unaware of the lurking dangers that danced at the edges of her reality.

As the weeks went, and the unsavoury pastimes of her friends became known to her, he noticed how she remained steadfast in her support, never flinching when they faced danger; an innate strength that both captivated and terrified him. Her involvement placed her in danger and he could barely stomach it, but he knew that any attempts at her preservation would break down his faux illusion of causal amiability. 

What had surprised him was her sufferance towards his family, although they had her given plenty of ground for aversion, you would not have known it. Elijah found himself drawn to her, her honour and kindliness not only painting her as a person of trust and potential ally — but as someone who illuminated his perpetual existence. 

He turned from the large florid windows and drowned in his dejection. Elijah closed his eyes and pictured a life with her, relishing the shimmering mirage of the woman he believed he should never have.

Y/N sat cross-legged on her bed, flooded under the dim moonlight that illuminated her bedroom from her window. A familiar warmth was blooming in her chest in the wake of her dream. She had dreamt about him again, and although she was met with nothing but hollow images when trying to recall it, Y/N knew it to be true; she could feel it. Elijah was a figure of quiet strength, his kindness genuine but conditional, his presence commanding yet tender. She understood fully that beneath his charming facade lay a man capable of heinous things, artfully concealed behind layers of warmth and grace; it was this complex duality that both captivated and unsettled her — but people would never see this side of him had they not given him reason. 

Y/N pulled her knees closer to her chest and rested her chin on them, staring out the window into the dark. It was late—too late for most people, but sleep rarely came easy these days. Not when her mind kept spiralling. Beneath the surface of her admiration lay a deep-rooted ache—a longing she feared would remain forever unreciprocated.

There were moments, fleeting but sharp, where she would catch the slightest glint in his eyes—an intensity and tentativeness that contradicted the calm and collected way in which he perpetually carried himself. She could not place its catalyst — never quite conclude the reason for his apparent indifference. 

She watched him with others; he was always courteous and kind, and though he extended the same civility to her, it felt hesitant — as though he was keeping his distance. Not out of aloofness, no, that did not seem right to her. He was always kind, always careful with his words. He never pushed too close, never showed too much emotion, and sometimes it made her wonder whether all the little exchanges—their shared glances, the gentle touches on her shoulder—were nothing more than an act. A way of being nice out of obligation, out of courtesy. A politeness reserved for the human in the room.

Y/N sighed and her gaze dropped to her hands, maybe she had been putting too much weight into the moments when he had leaned in just a little too close, or the times he had lingered with her in conversation — the moments that had fueled her affections. After all, he is a man who had lived through centuries… what could a fleeting human like her truly mean to him?

She loved him; a love she had no right to feel and no place to nurture. Every time he looked at her, even from across the room, her pulse quickened and her breath hitched. She loved him in the way a person loves what they cannot have— she felt it in the back of her mind, like a dream that fades from memory in the first moments of the day, real but unattainable — lingering in the crevices of the mind. It was the gentleness of his touch, the way he always seemed to know exactly when she needed comfort and the way his presence made the world feel lighter. It was the quiet intensity of him, the way he carried the weight of centuries and still found space to be kind to her. 

And despite everything—the danger, the distance, the uncertainty—she could not stop loving him. It was as if her heart had chosen him without rhyme and reason — irrevocably, nothing could alter it now. Even if he never knew, even if he never returned the feeling, she would love him.

In their quiet moments, she often imagined what it would be like to confess her feelings. Would his rejection give off the same biting sting as his indifference? Would he retreat into a demeanour even more distant? Would he disappear altogether, her confession too much to entertain? 

Y/N bit her lip, contemplating the stark reality of their worlds. She was human, with all the fragility that came along with it. While he was a vampire, ancient, and burdened by its accompanying history and murk.

Their disparity was overwhelming, and Y/N felt as though she were drowning in it. She closed her eyes and sunk back into her pillows; picturing a life with him and savouring the fallacious warmth it designed. She wallowed in her desolation and the reality she believed she could never have.

A/N: I'm wondering if I should do a second part for this, let me know what you think. Also, this has been posted off of a relatively long hiatus, I recently started a university course which, unsurprisingly, has chewed up all of my spare time.

Anyone waiting on the next part of my 'revenant' series, I'm sorry for the long wait, I promise I'll dive right back into it when my holidays roll around soon enough. But with a spare week between countless assignments, I felt like writing something new, and this was the result.

[darsynia]

Dragonfly (Steve/Reader fantasy AU)

MCU MASTERLIST | STEVE ROGERS MASTERLIST | Ro Roll

Summary:  Evil has prevailed. Your mentor’s dead, home destroyed, family scattered--you’re all that is left. At the last second, a stranger is called by magic to save your life. Can the two of you defeat the villain before he reaches the pinnacle of power?

Words/Warnings: 4,700 | canon-typical violence

draGONfly is 3/7 of my birthday gift set for @ronearoundblindly and is an action/adventure, angst with a happy ending story set after the blip. I know right now is a hugely busy week for you, Ro, and there's no pressure to respond right now, they'll all be here when you have time!

NOTE: it's MCU Steve in here! 'Worlds Collide'

Excerpt:

“You’re afraid,” Steve says from only feet away.

You close your eyes. “Yes.”

“Sometimes fear is a friend. It was definitely that in the army. Kept us sharp. You could tell when a soldier lost his fear because he was suddenly very brave. Problem was, we needed the brave ones sometimes.” 

He falls silent, and you can’t help but look at him. The bleak look in his eyes is clear, despite the distance between you, and in that moment you decide to trust him. If he’s another monster construct, if Micht can understand you that well, then the villain deserves the win, and all is lost.

Dragonfly

You’ve been on the run for ten days, with no safe haven to look forward to. The magic hunting you is relentless, fueled by hatred of your now-dead mentor and everything the two of you stood for. Your only reprieve is sleep; your enemy wants to witness the horror on your face in your moment of death.

All you can do is forge a path deeper into the forest, away from any innocent who could be harmed by Jovann Micht’s conjured creatures. As if watching Bram die hadn’t been torture enough, it seems you’re destined to die in the wilderness, alone.

You lean back on a tree and risk a pause to drink from your flask. Deep inside you feel your magic tremble; rest, food, and hydration is needed to stay powerful, but that is the point of Micht’s pursuit. Eventually you’ll falter, and he’ll achieve the last of his goals.

Does he know you bear the vial of his destruction? Those few teaspoonfuls are a potent culmination of your mentor’s study of the arcane, a life’s work of gathering and refining the most dangerous, mystical ingredients and combining them to make a weapon. You’d been able to see just two of the substances interact before being sealed into the final mixture, and the light they’d emitted had lingered in your vision for almost an hour afterwards.

There are three ways this can end: ideally, you’ll pour the vial into the glacial source of the valley’s drinking water and let the power propagate amongst the population Jovann Micht means to control. If that fails, you might be forced to break the vial with your dying strength, spilling its beautiful potential into the ground rather than empower one of Micht’s monsters-- or Micht himself.

The worst, most horrible option is for you to drink it yourself and spend the rest of your life battling to control the power Bram Ersk warned you about.

Heavy buzzing nearby sends your adrenaline racing, but it’s only a dragonfly angling its way past you toward the stream you've been following up to the mountains. They’re your favorite insect, brightly colored and free, with wide wings that decorate tree branches too delicate for a human’s weight.

You tuck away your canteen and check to see that your weapons are ready. The bow and arrows had only served to slow you down, so you’d sent them towards the plains with a burst of precious magic, a misdirection that hadn’t worked. Bram’s sword is cumbersome but necessary, and the daggers scattered through your clothing are a last resort.

Seconds later your preparedness pays off. The barest rustling of the leaves above your head has you crouching down with one leg stretched out for leverage if you need to run. You draw a dagger from its sheath at your back and watch in fascinated horror as your newest attacker reveals itself.

It’s a huge snake, fast and menacing. It strikes out and you dodge sideways, performing a half-roll to distance yourself, dagger still at the ready. Smoke rises from a splash of venom on your padded trousers, and a stab of fear strikes your gut. The snake can spit, likely with magic-enhanced distance. Is this how you finally die? Worn down with nowhere to hide from this acid toxin, then slain once exhaustion drops you?

You curl into a protective stance and tighten your grip on the dagger, drawing the creature in. Once it’s close, you spin up from the ground in a flurry of slashing blades. One dagger connects, but it’s glancing, enough to send the snake into retreat, but not enough to kill.

That only makes things worse. Your field of danger has increased to include the entire forest canopy.

There may only be a few minutes before the next showdown. You wipe your dagger on the nearby moss and place it back in its sheath for now. The forest around you is new growth, full of brambles and other scutgrass that tear at your armor, with a hundred branches arching over your head. You fight your way through to the stream with fear choking your throat, worried that you’ll have to expend more of your depleted magical energy to save yourself. If you need to use magic to survive his enchanted attackers from this point on, there won't be anything left. 

You’ve kept that power in reserve for some kind of final showdown, but there's at least a day left before you get where you're going.

Despair hits, and you scrabble at your neck, suddenly furious at the friend and mentor whose plans have brought you to such misery. The locket he’d given you has always been a talisman, a symbol of hope, but now you look at its silver concentric circles and feel nothing but betrayal.

Movement catches your eye, and you swing out blindly, the locket flying from your grip. As it spins, a blinding golden light spills out, growing larger and brighter until finally a figure steps forth--just as Micht’s devil-snake launches directly at you.

“Down!” a voice commands, and you drop, watching in shock as the glowing figure hurls a disk through the magical snake. The horrid thing lands in pieces that immediately shrivel and writhe. They melt into the ground, leaving only a low-lying, putrid fog behind.

The man stalks towards you, still obscured by the now-fading golden light. Instead of finishing you off, he strides past and pulls his disc-- his shield-- free from the tree it had sliced into. When he turns back your way, the man tucks something into a pouch on his chest, and the glowing light diminishes enough to see him. He looks you over, brows furrowed not in anger, but obvious confusion.

“Are you all right?”

“Thank you,” you say, struck near-dumb by the imposing presence of the man. He’s tall and broad, handsomely clad in padded armor with leather accents, but it’s his shield that has your attention. Its concentric circles and inner star look just like Bram’s locket, but in color.

He seems self-conscious about it, spinning the shield around and attaching it to his armor at his back. “Was that-- did I interrupt some kind of re-enactment?” your savior asks, curiously examining the last remnants of the toxic fog. He turns to look at you with the same studious intensity, but your head is spinning. Did Bram conjure this man with some sort of latent magic? “You should sit down,” he declares, thrusting out his hand with the confidence of a commander. The man clearly wants you to take it, but your hesitation prompts him to give up and walk over to a cluster of rocks. “Here. Do you have something to eat?”

Bemused, you pick your way toward him, deflecting your ‘I usually have to forage for something to eat’ answer with a question of your own. “What’s your name, hero?”

The word turns up a shy little smile that flies like a joy-tipped arrow right through your chest armor. “Steve. Yours?”

“Well, Steve, you’ve shown up for a battle, but I’m still fighting a war.” There’s no more time for niceties. You walk past the rocks he’d suggested you rest on, and pick up a sturdy-looking walking stick. It’s safer to stay close to the stream, and you’ll need the stability. “You’re welcome to come?”

There’s a chance that this summoned savior will disappear soon. You only have so much physical strength left, and you can’t spend it like this.

Steve turns in a circle, taking in the trees, the stream, and you, then nods, squaring his shoulders. “All right.” He certainly doesn’t seem at ease here, and you wonder if he’s real, whether he was somewhere fighting with that shield of his before Bram’s magic plucked him away.

Truthfully, you’re afraid to ask, as if naming the magic will destroy its cohesion.

Instead you lead the way along the uneven stones and brush that edge the stream, and he follows in clearly baffled silence. Sometimes you pause to adjust your armor or fill up your canteen and catch his brow furrow as he looks around at your surroundings. Once, he lunged forward to steady your steps on a slippery stretch of rocks. The warmth of his hand through your many layers was enough to bring rare tears to your eyes.

It's been so long since you’ve been touched in comfort.

Steve sees the tears but can’t know their context. You’re not willing to tell him, so you speed your pace, and he remains silent. If he’s been summoned as support, you question what triggers the magic might use to determine you’re no longer in need. If it’s words shared, you’ll hold yours in reserve. If it’s help provided, you’ll labor beside him with every ounce of your remaining strength until you finally ask for that help. If it’s distance traveled… well, you can’t think about that now.

Countless birdcalls and shared silence later, the landscape starts angling up more, and the trees thin out.

“Oh,” Steve says. His stunned tone makes you stop and look back at him. “I came to the forest--a forest to retrace my steps, looking for the echoes of what we lost. I didn’t want to. I didn’t know what I’d do if I found that the dust of my lost friends had fertilized plants that their shadows never--” he faltered, and you make your way to him, powerless to help, desperate to try. 

You recognize this grief. It's the hopeless kind, where a person just stands desolate in the aftermath and looks for the signs of their own death.

“Steve--” 

“It’s not the same forest,” he interrupts, a catch in his voice. “That’s a mountain.” He tears his eyes from the now-revealed peak in the distance and looks at you, concern and an odd sort of exhilaration in his eyes. “I kept walking because I thought we’d eventually get where you’re going, but we won’t, will we? Not today. Where am I? When am I?”

“‘When’ is easy: my waking nightmare. ‘Where’ is tricky. Who’s to know you won’t be pulled back where you came from if I tell you?” You can’t keep the bitter fear from your voice.

Steve steps forward to look down at you with gentle kindness. He’s so handsome you can’t help but feel self-conscious, clad as you are in shapeless armor, sweating with the exertion of carrying Bram’s sword (actually heavy) and Bram’s vial (metaphorically heavy)-- but you drift closer to your unexpected savior, catching the earthy scent of his sweat. You can see the sheen of it on his forehead, and you lift your hand to draw a finger across and feel the moisture of it.

“You’re real,” you breathe, surprised despite the snake, despite his steady presence behind you for this stretch of your journey.

He moves his hand to touch the drops of freshwater that have spilled from your canteen, going as far as to taste the tip of his finger. “So are you.” As though realizing that’s an intimacy the two of you haven’t agreed on, he steps back and squares his shoulders, the picture of a warrior again, despite his lack of weapon. Perhaps he is the weapon. “So what’s the plan? Camp for the night?”

You sway on your feet at the thought (both that he’d put aside his own situation and at the idea of rest), but shake your head. “Micht will send something else soon. I must reach the base of the stream. Everything relies on that.”

He looks askance at the darkening sky, then back at you. “What would make you willing to camp?”

A promise that you won’t leave me! you scream in your mind. A look of determination crosses his face, and you realize you may not have spoken the words aloud, but your body language has done that for you. You pull in a breath to prevaricate, but he brushes past you, headed into the forest.

“There’s a clearing,” he calls out, a minute later.

“Steve, I can’t--”

“You can.”

A terrible, insidious, horrid thought crosses your mind: that Steve is not from Bram at all, but an illusion with the same purpose as all the others that Jovann Micht has sent you. That his attack is formed from trust this time, rather than fear.

The shape of Bram’s locket is the only thing you can think of to refute your fears, but couldn’t Micht have torn that knowledge from Bram before killing him?

“You’re afraid,” Steve says from only feet away.

You close your eyes. “Yes.”

“Sometimes fear is a friend. It was definitely that in the army. Kept us sharp. You could tell when a soldier lost his fear because he was suddenly very brave. Problem was, we needed the brave ones sometimes.” 

He falls silent, and you can’t help but look at him. The bleak look in his eyes is clear, despite the distance between you, and in that moment you decide to trust him. If he’s another monster construct, if Micht can understand you that well, then the villain deserves the win, and all is lost.

Steve can hold a lot of supplies in his ‘tek’ suit, as he calls it. He gives you a few dense grain bread things, full of dried fruit and nuts that revitalize you. While you eat he lights a fire for the two of you, meaning you can save your newly bolstered energy rather than using it for warmth-- and best of all, he has a strange silver blanket that seems to hold heat so much better than anything you’ve used at night, even the homemade blankets from your cabin. Despite all this, you find it hard to relax, and Steve can tell. You are reluctant to explain and thus relive the trauma that sent you into the forest, and he doesn’t elaborate on his own.

He seems surprised when you want to sleep right away. That surprise morphs to a quiet, concerned anger when you explain the thin agreement you have with your aggressor, that he’ll only kill you when you’re awake.

“That won’t happen,” he declares, and you believe him. Just like a parent who promises they’ll always protect you, his words have an unspoken caveat; ‘for as long as I’m here to stop it.’

It’s enough.

You wake with the light, finding to your surprise that Steve has slept at your side, his broad back acting as a wall between you and the dangers of the woods. It’s been a week since you’ve been able to lay still in the morning, but your respite is marred by a large worry: why hasn’t Micht sent something else? Had he sent his most fearsome conjurations early on in your journey because you’d been stronger? It would be like him to conserve his energy and insult you at the same time. If you die to something more mundane, that would just add to his narrative, after all. The alternative is that he knows about Steve, and his new plan is to create something fearsome enough to destroy them both.

“You’re barely breathing,” Steve rumbles.

Selfishly, you want him to turn over. You want a memory to cherish when he’s gone. Just once, you'd had someone lying beside you whose sole purpose was to ensure your safety.

He does roll over. He’s no less real for it, and that thought lets you release everything you’d held back since Bram, since the village, since the slain, tortured lamb that was the harbinger of all the horrors that followed.

Wordlessly, Steve pulls you to his chest and lets you cry.

The next attack comes within sight of the glacial moraine. You were right. Micht had sent his worst to finish you. 

Steve pulls his shield from his back as soon as you pass through a group of boulders and see the creature. It’s twice as tall as he is, a four-legged monstrosity with the same number of snarling heads. Each serpent-like head is riddled with teeth, and like snakes, they bob and weave easily, able to turn and react with lightning swiftness.

“Your sword, please,” Steve says grimly.

“It’s armored--”

“So am I.”

Adrenaline mixes with the magic surging inside you. “Listen. I have a thing to do. It’s all that matters,” you tell him breathlessly. “After that, I don’t care what happens. Do you hear me?”

He’s looking at the creature, and you can see his soldier’s mind. You watch the fear dwindle, replaced by bravery, and you cannot let that happen.

“Steve!” you beg-- and he looks at you, still alert and ready to fight. “This was always going to end one way, okay? I just need you to--” The thing screeches with many voices, each wielding a knife that slices away some of your resolve.

You swallow hard and start taking off any extra weight, dropping your canteen, the sheathed dagger at your back, even the heavy brigandine leather that covers your blouse. It isn’t a match for a hydra’s teeth and claws anyway, and you must be fast.  

“I need to get to the base of the stream. That monster is here to stop me.” It probably isn’t. If Micht knew you bear this potion, he’d have long ago crushed you into paste and taken it for himself. “Don’t you dare lose your fear!”

Steve laughs ruefully. “I wondered if you would remember that.”

“Something sent you to me, and this is why. If there’s any justice, it should send you back, once I succeed.” The words stick in your throat, but you get them out.

“It’s a hydra,” Steve says with a hatred in his voice you didn’t think he was capable of. “I was created for this.”

You both turn to face the horrible creature. Steve lifts the sword and you ready yourself to run.

“Wait,” Steve says, a manic happiness in his eyes. He steps close and dips his head, kissing you. It’s awkward, with the sword and shield held wide at his sides, but that just makes it more real. “Go get him.”

Then he charges toward the beast.

You’d planned to wait until the two were fully focused on each other, but every fragment of magic in your body is screaming for you to help Steve. You tamp that down and hold still, certain that the hydra will only focus on Steve if bloodlust blinds it to your existence.

That’s even harder when there are multiple sets of eyes to look for you.

Steve makes first contact, roaring up and smashing his shield against the first head that lunges toward him. The thing reels back in obvious surprise, the injured head lolling to the side. The other heads rear up, and you take the moment to run far to the side, sticking to the treeline, even though it means farther to run. You weave between trees, catching glimpses of the battle but always hearing it. Screech follows screech follows the smash of metal against armored skin, over and over and over.

Just as you’re forced to cross into the rockfield, the hydra lets out an agonized scream, and you risk a look over. Steve’s holding his shield protectively above himself as he hacks at the two heads he’d sliced from the hydra. He’s panting from exertion, and as you watch, magic bubbles at the sliced necks, growing two new snarling heads from each stump. They sink down to the body of the beast and then stretch back out as individual, fully-realized necks right in front of your eyes.

You can’t send any power to Steve, not yet. Instead, you send it to your own legs, and the burst of resulting speed tears through the remaining distance. You reach into your shirt--

“You could have given it to me right away, foolish child.”

“Liar!” you spit at your enemy, furious and fragile. “You wanted this.” Of course he’d known. Micht had always loved theatrics.

“You’re right. That’s quite a guardian you’ve found for yourself,” Jovann Micht muses, leaning casually back against a large boulder. He’s standing between you and the stream.

You’re done with this. One way or another.

“Move.”

“I don’t think so.” He moves towards you, confident, commanding. “Hand it over.”

Behind you, the screeching gets louder, and oddly, Micht stumbles sideways, hissing. You risk a look over your shoulder and see that Steve’s sliced off more of the creature-- a leg this time. It brings the deadly heads closer to him, and you can’t watch.

Micht has conjured a walking stick that he’s now leaning on with a vicious look of delight on his face. “I prefer an intelligent adversary.”

He doesn’t mean you.

He’s always underestimated you. Everyone does.

Your fingers close around a vial, and you pull it free. It’s been shaken up by your headlong run, as evidenced by the blue glowing light.

“If you want this, you have to catch me.”

Your burst of speed still sings in your veins, and you start to run-- toward the hydra, not the stream. Gathering up all of your magic, you hurl it toward the back legs of the hydra, meaning to destroy them and hopefully disable Micht, if your hunch about the connection between them is correct.

The fireball hits home. The ground shakes as the terrible beast falls sideways, all seven heads turning to assess the damage. One catches fire, its agonized scream piercing your ears even at this distance. You can’t see Steve, but the desperate flailing of the inflamed head soon spreads the fire. 

You hook around, satisfied. Micht is in a heap not far from where you’d left him, recognizable by his signature blood-red suit. All that’s left is to get as close to the headwaters as you can. Bram had confided in you about the rip current that swirls right at its base, sucking the water down into a secondary stream that he’d helped the village tap into.

It serves as the drinking water for the whole valley, surfacing down past your former home and bubbling down to the sea, or so it’s said.

If you can get even half of Bram’s concoction into there--

A powerful blow knocks you to your feet, and you lose your grip on the vial. Dazed, you struggle to your knees, watching as a hand curls around the vial.

Get up! You have to be convincing! UP!

You’re unsteady as hell, but you lean into that, begging with a suddenly raw throat for Micht to stop. Your magic is almost gone again, but you grit your teeth and start for the vial. Behind it is your goal, the origin of the stream. Just ten strides, and he’ll think you’re giving up and throwing yourself in instead. Eight strides…

A rough hand curls around your neck and pulls the true vial from your bodice before shoving you to the ground.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh!” Steve roars. Through tears, you can see him running toward the two of you. He swings his arm, releasing his shield. 

Micht stands triumphant with the vial, unstoppering it in preparation to drink. It’s all of your worst fears realized, and the moment seems to hang in time, more misery for you to experience right before he kills you face to face, just as he’s always wanted.

Steve’s shield smashes into Micht’s midsection, knocking him backwards. The vial flies up, its contents fanning out in a glowing blue rain over Jovann Micht. Everywhere it lands, white lightning and red flames erupt. He’s screaming, you’re screaming, thunder and agony crashes all around you, until finally, he’s gone.

The silence is oppressive. It’s as though your blood’s stopped pumping, the air’s trapped in your lungs, and your muscles are frozen solid. The pressure builds until Steve stabs the bloody sword into the ground beside you and slumps over to rest his hands on his knees.

“We won.”

Your body's working again, but you don’t know whether to feel happiness or horror. “Yeah.”

Both of you are exhausted, the kind of bone-weary that isn’t possible without having experienced something unspeakable. The smell of burnt hydra is horrendous though, so Steve pushes to get as far away as you can before collapsing beside the placid stream. You let your hands dangle in the frigid glacial meltwater, needing to feel something bad that isn’t horrible.

“Don’t fall in. I’m too wiped to go back for the rest of your armor, and that’s a white shirt.”

He’s speaking in riddles, and honestly it's the first regular thing Steve’s said to you since… all of that. “What?”

“The water makes it transpar-- Never mind.” Embarrassment drips from his words, and it’s enough to make you scooch around so you can see him.

Steve’s black armor hides most of the blood, but he’s almost drenched in it. He’s got his legs stretched out in front of him, and he’s wrapping a once-pristine white bandage around a gash on his leg, pausing every few revolutions to rest. Noticing your scrutiny, he offers you a weak smile.

“That fireball was something.”

“So’s your swordsmanship.” You search your resources and make a decision. “Want me to heal that?”

“What?” he says, then laughs, the sound genuinely joyful, though astonished. “I just fought a real hydra. Did you know that’s the second bad guy that’s disintegrated right in front of me? Of course you can heal. This place is… this place is something.”

His voice breaks on ‘something.’ You don’t know him very well, but the trauma you’ve shared tells you he needs a moment. Avoiding eye contact, you reach out, sending your magic in a gentle golden trickle across the ground between you. It slides smoothly over his boots and up the fabric of his trousers, finally sinking into his wound. You send a little extra, too, even though it makes your chest ache with warning. It’ll soothe his mind, and that’s worth it.

That done, you turn back to the water, staring past your fractured reflection into the stream’s shallow depths. Across the stretch of rocks and bubbling froth a dragonfly twists and dips, reacting to shifts in the air too subtle for you to notice. It’s a reminder that not everything’s been affected by the life or death struggle you’d just experienced. It helps, so much so that you don’t notice that Steve’s come to sit beside you until he speaks.

“Did you know that dragonflies are a symbol of grief and rebirth?” He doesn’t wait for your answer. “Part of their life cycle is underwater, I guess, and the story goes that each one reaches a point where they need to surface. They each promise they’ll come back and tell the others what they find up there, but--”

“--but they can’t. They’re trapped either side,” you breathe.

“Trapped, yeah, but not dead.” The word is ragged, and you look up at him, even though it hurts your neck. “I lost friends in my forest. They turned to dust. We lost.”

Your hand is freezing, but his armor is thick. You reach out and squeeze his leg, and Steve stays still, clearly moved to quiet reflection.

“There’s a second life, is the moral. I don’t know if this is mine, but I wouldn’t mind if it was.”

You don’t dare hope, but you pour yes please into your expression. He smiles and pats his chest.

“There’s a pocket here. When I first showed up, you threw a locket--” he shakes his head curtly, enough to stop you from speaking. “I only caught a glimpse, but it looks like my shield.”

You squeeze his ankle, and determination hardens his expression.

“I think you might-- I think this place might need me. Do you have enough magic to, I don’t know… freeze it? Put it in stasis so it doesn’t send me back? I know just where I’d like to put it.”

You feel brave, but it’s not due to a lack of hope this time. This time, you have an abundance of hope.

“I’d like that very much.”

[dilatorywriting]

Monster Mayhem: Little Red Rapscallion

Gender Neutral Reader x Jack Howl Word Count: 3.7k

Summary: 'Dear Evil, Overlord, Patron. Please stop sicking your demon guard dog on me. I'm only trying to help. Kind Regards, Little Red Ridinghood'

A/N: Thank you so much to @insideous-beez for the brain rot, which became brain fertilizer, and eventually a functional story; This one is a bit darker than the other installments due to the Warlock/Evil Deity goodness, so there is a bit more horror here!

[PART 1]

Your grandmother had always told you to mind your manners when it came to the creatures who made the forest their home.

Or, well. That was a lie. Many lies, really. If you wanted to be nitpicky.

Firstly, the old crone who lived deep within the borough of the cursed trees wasn’t actually your grandmother. At least, not in the biological sense that seemed to matter most within your little, provincial, town. She was just a kindly, wrinkled, turnip of a woman who found you wandering the mudflats one day and decided she liked your spunk and general lack of self-awareness. She patted your head, served you strange, bubbling, teas laced with sweet magics, and always returned you to your fretful parents by sundown. And so, she was Grandma. Even if calling her that aloud made your parents go nearly green and had the local shopkeepers crossing themselves and spritzing you with Holy Water.

Secondly, Grandma had never told you to keep to your manners. Usually, she encouraged the opposite. (‘Why not curse them, huh?’ she’d complain loudly. ‘They’re thieving bastards, the lot of them.’ ‘Grandma,’ you’d sigh. ‘The street cleaners are just doing their job. They didn’t mean to steal your dead racoons.’) The idea of her demanding you act ‘proper’ and ‘kind’ was damn near laughable. But what she did enforce upon you with all the firmness of a world-weary teacher was the concept of not fucking with that which ought not be fucked with.

And the sprawling, Shaftland Forest was not to be fucked with.

It had always been a great, creeping, thing. The trees would groan and whisper as you passed, and when their sharp branches tangled in your cloak like grasping fingers, it never felt like an accident. The animals that lived beneath those trees were even stranger—wild, large, beasts with glinting eyes and an arcane mysticism about them that left icicles in their tracks even on summer days, or tangled the undergrowth into something that moved.

The people of your village did not enter the Shaftland Forests. They put up signs, and wards, and spun cautionary tales to every traveler who dared step even a single foot into their teeny, terrified, homestead.

You visited regularly. Because you were half-stupid at least, and because Grandma lived in those woods. And while she’d cautioned you about treating her habitat with care, she’d promised ages ago that so long as you were sweet to the forest, it would forever be sweet on you too.

‘There is a great power in these trees,’ she’d hum to you, as she stirred a simmering pot that looked to be filled with the blood of… something you probably shouldn’t think too hard about. ‘You would have been a lovely gift for it, you know.’ She laughed under her breath. It didn’t sound like a joke. ‘But you were too precious to ruin like that. So he decided we ought to keep you.’

You had no idea who ‘he’ was supposed to be, but you always made sure to shower the forest with compliments. As thanks for not using you as whatever being a, uhm, lovely gift entailed. ‘Oh what nice leaves you have,’ you told many a tree. ‘And what large petals have bloomed today,’ to all the flowers. You’d always been safe in these woods—sheltered beneath a bubble of golden affection and the soft scents of the richest perfumes. The forest always welcomed you with open branches and the coo of creaking bark.

Which is why the twisty field of black thorns blocking your usual pathway gave you pause.

You reached out a finger and prodded one of the sharp points. It bit into your skin with the clear intention of drawing blood, before swaying away at the last moment to twine loosely around your wrist.

Huh. How peculiar.

“May I pass?” you asked the thorns.

The shivering web of ebony tightened along the path and you frowned.

“May I pass, please?” you tried again.

The briar patch seemed to heave with a gusty, angry, sigh. You were about to reach forward and try your luck one more time when a deep, rumbling, snarl curled out from the shadows beyond. Out of the sea of roiling darkness and dainty thorns strode a great, white, wolf. It bared its teeth at you in an expression that was entirely unpleasant.

Immediately you held up your hands in placation and took a wide step backwards. The wolf just kept growling at you like you’d murdered its entire family or something else equally egregious. It skulked forward soundlessly, ears pinned flat.

“My apologies,” you said, dipping your chin in a gentle bow. “I didn’t mean to overstep. I’m just trying to use this path to—”

The wolf lunged at you with a near roar, and you just barely managed to roll out of the way with a shriek. The thing landed hard in the dirt where you’d just been not a moment prior, and it swung its great, fanged, maw in your direction.

“Apologies, old one,” you tried again, just as Grandma had taught you. “But I really just—”

The wolf snapped, nearly taking off your fingers, and you folded over like a turtle that had been upended on its back—rolling around helplessly with your limbs flailing wildly as you went. The sharp crack of your head against the ground left your brain rattling around like dried beans in a can, and you could taste the copper sting where you’d bitten down into your tongue. The failed cartwheel had set you back a solid fifteen feet from the wood’s edge, and the wolf huffed at you—a stupidly pointed ‘stay away’ if you’d ever seen one. It glared at you with glowing, golden, eyes for a long moment before melting back into the shadows.

You spat out the cocktail of mud and blood pooling along your tongue, and wiped angrily at your sore chin. The forest had never denied you before. So maybe it wasn’t your lovely, lonely, trees that were sending you away. Maybe it was just this stupid wolf. Maybe the beast was trying to make a stand—to usurp the role of whatever spirit had ruled over this dark land for so long now. You grumbled and made your way back to your feet. It was fine. Your forest was strong. It would never lose to such a stupidly fluffy opponent. You’d just have to try again tomorrow.

The next day you armed yourself with a small arsenal of goodies. Daggers, ropes, armloads of talismans, and kindling, and rations. You hoisted your bow across your back and carefully plucked at the soft fletching of the arrows. The feathers buzzed beneath your fingers, and after a moment of uneasy hesitance, you cautiously replaced the weapon where it hung over your bed. Grandma had never liked the idea of you carrying weapons in the forest (‘it invites troublemakers’ she’d warned), but if something really had gone wrong in her woods, then it was better to worry about asking forgiveness than permission. And surely you could argue for a dagger. The bow… With its weighted arcana and strange, dissonant, strength felt like something dangerous.  

So you apologized to the rippling thorns before cutting them back with swift, precise, strokes of your blade and starting down that familiar path to Grandma’s cottage.

You made it about fifty yards before one of your talismans began to ping worryingly. The tingling thrum along your side was just enough of a warning to keep you from being mauled outright.

The White Wolf lunged from between the trees and you skittered out of the way of its attack. For such a huge creature, it was so silent. And its gleaming, downy, coat should have more than given away its position in the gloom. There must have been some kind of magic to it—something old, and ancient, that let the beast slip through the darkness unseen.

The Wolf situated itself firmly in the center of the path, hackles raised and shoulders hunched like it was readying itself to pounce.

“I need to get through,” you told it, firm, and raised one of the Protective talismans. After a heavy moment you scowled and bit out, “Please.”

The Wolf snarled and propelled itself forward. It latched its overlarge teeth in the fabric of your red cloak and quickly began to drag you to the ground. You frantically flailed about, and just managed to avoid those glinting fangs enough to thrust the talisman up into the beast’s ribs with a heavy smack. The charm lit with a brilliant, amethyst, gleam and sparks shot through the air. You let out a triumphant, ‘ah HA!’ And then all that magic fizzled out like a dying candle. You gaped in horror as the ‘one hundred percent foolproof, don’t you worry about that child’ Protective talisman fluttered to the ground like a discarded bit of newspaper.

“Oh, shit,” you croaked, as your cloak was shredded between the wolf’s canines with a horribly shrill wriiiiiip.

You sprinted like a bat out of Hell, tearing through the undergrowth and only just managing to collapse beyond the border of the tree line before the wolf could snap its jaws around your ankles. You curled your limbs protectively up beneath you, and watched through a veil of cold sweat as it paced along the foliage—leaving no tracks in its wake.

Fine, you thought bitterly. Two can play at this game.

The next morning you walked North, beyond the only safe paths you knew. Carefully, you began to scuttle your way up the nearest, gnarled, tree. The bark groaned and rattled beneath your fingers, as if disquieted. But there were no trails of white fur yet darting about the underbrush, so you offered the tree a hasty apology before climbing higher.

From there, it was only a matter of cautiously hopping from branch to branch. Normally when you’d tried ridiculous feats of stupidity like this in the past, the trees seemed more than eager to help you along—practically reaching out with their branches to catch you in their willowy, wooden, fingers. But they seemed stiff today, testy. The leaves themselves seemed to complain as you went, and you shushed them as politely as you could.  

There was a sharp bark from beneath you, and you looked down to see the Wolf circling your perch in a frantic, pacing, dance.  

“Hello!” you beamed, perfectly, poisonously, pleasant. “Nice to see you too!”

The Wolf sneered, lips curling up into a tight, tense, bow over its fangs.

You leaned forward, keeping a hand securely looped into your roost.

“Aww,” you cooed. “Is it too hard to climb up here with those big, fluffy, paws?” you mocked, wiggling your own fingers contentedly. “Bet someone really wishes they had opposable thumbs, huh?”

And then, like you were being smited by God Himself, the branch beneath your feet cracked clean in half, and you plummeted to the ground bellow with a harrowing screech. Naturally, you landed right at the wolf’s aforementioned stupid, fluffy, paws. Its great head lowered, and you could feel the heat of its breath as it growled into your face.

With a pathetic little ‘eep!’, the talisman tucked into the back of your boot burst into life and you flickered like a janky illusion. You stumbled to your feet a dozen or so yards away, fighting the urge to double over and barf. Slipping through planes was unpleasant at the best of times, let alone when under actual fucking duress.

The Wolf blinked its wide, golden, eyes at the empty space beneath its paws, and then whipped its head in your direction like a blood hound. You pushed yourself upright with the help of the very tree who had betrayed you so thoroughly, and began your hasty retreat.

You crashed through a curtain of thorns and out into the open with a gasp.

You rolled forward like the world’s most inelegant acrobat and came to a skidding halt in the dirt. You sat up with an achy cough, dislodging muck, and rocks, and leaves from your windpipe.

The Wolf prowled behind you—its glare a set of golden pinpricks in the gloom.

“What is your problem?!” you wailed.

The wolf tossed its head, like rolling its eyes wouldn’t have been enough. And snapped at you with another one of those pissy, bitten off, growls.  

“You know what?” you seethed, swinging back onto your knees to jab a finger at it accusatorily. “Fuck you!”

The thing had the absolute gall to snort at you before turning to return to its ceaseless patrol.

By the time you hauled yourself back to your family home, you must have looked an absolute mess. No one bothered to stop you when you practically clawed your way up the stairs and into your small bedroom. Though to be fair, no one really bothered to stop you for anything anymore. Not since an old women with too much spare time and not nearly enough light in her eyes had decided that you were a child to be treasured.

You grabbed your bow off the wall and slung it over your back. The sleek, silvery, wood hummed beneath your fingers. It had been a gift, one whose very existence you stalwartly refused to question. The weapon was finer than anything that could have come from your village’s blacksmith, or honestly probably any human craftsman. It was weightless. It was too heavy. It sang in your hands. It was not a token to be bestowed lightly. But… Well. Whoever it had belonged to before, it was yours now.

And you were going to shoot that goddamn Wolf right in the ass.

On the fourth day of your apparent banishment from the Shaftland Forest, you stormed those woods like a would-be conqueror. The silver bow keened beneath your palms, and you held a thin, spiked, arrow knocked and at the ready. Your nemesis found you in no time at all, and you bared your teeth at the stupid, fucking, mutt before it had the chance.

“One last time,” you said, drawing your bow as tight as you could. “Let me pass, beast. Or I will go through you.”

The wolf’s hackles were raised, but the snarl had slipped off its face. It dug its claws into the dirt, and you watched something like surprise work its way across the thing’s regal features. Its golden glare flickered from you, to the bow, and back again, like it couldn’t quite believe what it was seeing.

“I have business in these woods,” you demanded. And then, petulantly—because you just wanted to know that your stupid, devil worshipping, turnip of a grandmother was okay, and you were so fucking fed up with this garbage—you stomped at the ground and shouted, “And I was here first! So scram, you overgrown Pomeranian!”

The Wolf’s ears drooped, and something like a tremor worked its way down its spine. But then the thing was shaking its giant head like it was surfacing from beneath a pool of water, and it straightened its posture with a rumbling growl.

“Fine,” you snapped, and unleased the first arrow. It whizzed past your fingertips with a thready, shrill, fwoom faster than you could track. The booming force of it shocked you enough to have you shooting wide, and you watched that pin-thin arrow hit a tree trunk and sink all the way through to the other side.

The Wolf rushed forward when you went to reload, fur standing on end like you’d run it through with a bolt of lightning. It tackled you bodily to the ground with a yelp, and you wheezed as the air was knocked out of your lungs in one, fell, swoop. The bow tumbled out of your hands and you scrabbled for it wildly. And then the beast lunged for the bright red of your hood, as it seemed so keen to do in each of your past scuffles. But maybe it was done playing with you. Or maybe it just wasn’t expecting you to flail around so terribly. Because its garish fangs bore down past the soft, billowy, fabric of your cloak and tore straight into the meat of your arm instead.

You gasped and weren’t entirely able to swallow down the sharp shriek of pain that bubbled up and out of your throat. The wolf reared back in shock, its mouth stained red. It immediately ducked back in close, and then away, and then in again. Like it wasn’t sure what to do. The stalwart resolve from earlier was gone—replaced entirely by a bumbling sort of panic that had your head swimming more than the blood loss.

You tucked your arm in close, feeling the tattered remains of shredded fabric curling beneath new, warm, wetness. The Wolf cautiously nosed forward, but when you flinched it reared back like you’d struck it. The beast stepped pointedly away, and then began to pace frantically back and forth. Occasionally it would stop, like it was going to move in close again. But then its pointy ears would press stiff and flat atop its head and it would skulk away all over again.

Whatever, you seethed silently, jerkily ruffling through your bag for some of the Healing talismans you knew were tucked away at the bottom. If the monster felt some kind of weird guilt for taking a chomp out of you when it’d already been doings its damndest to maul you for the past four days straight, that was its problem.

It was taking you longer to unearth the talismans than you would have liked, and your hand was really starting to shake in earnest. The Wolf whined high and miserable in its throat, and you rationally decided that it would be a terrible, petty, idea to waste what little composure you had left just to tell it to fuck right off.

The horrid mess of crimson had begun to seep its way along your skin—dripping down your wrist to plop against the damp, mossy, earth with an echoing plip plip plip that was not unlike the fall of slow, fat, spring rain. The air around you seemed to grow heavier with it—the trees swaying at their roots and the dark, shriveled, flowers straining against their stems to get a taste. The Wolf’s golden gaze flicked around the grove cautiously, and you watched its black nose twitch in obvious discomfort. You swore you could see hands—dozens, hundreds of inky appendages reaching out from the shadows. Fingers twisting up into claws like they meant to grab onto you and dig in, never letting go. The Wolf settled itself at your back like a brick wall, snarling doggedly at the wispy talons. The beast was so large it practically enveloped the entirety of you, and you had to fight the delirious, dizzy, urge to lean back into its impractically soft fur.

“Hey! Are you alright over there?”

Both you and the Wolf jolted in surprise as a group of adventurers plowed their way through the trees. The Wolf’s already distressed expression twisted into something nearly manic and it roared—putting all those ferocious teeth on display.

“Woah!” one of them yelped, crashing to a halt and dragging their friends to a stop beside them. “What the fuck?!”

The others all looked equally startled, hands settling heavily on their weapons. And while right now Mister Wolfy wasn’t outright nomming on you or your limbs, there was a still a steady stream of blood trailing from the wound near your shoulder—a set of very obvious teeth marks sitting stark and red against the rest of you.

“We heard a scream,” another spoke up. Then, pointedly raising the sharp edge of his sword, asked, “Is this your companion, Ranger?”

‘Ranger?’ you blinked, confused, before remembering the bow still sitting in the dirt by your feet. Before you could respond, the Wolf lurched forward over your shoulder. It didn’t leave you—didn’t stray from its steadfast position at your hind—but it pushed its gaping, angry, maw as close to the group as it could. The trio reeled back as the monster snapped, and snarled, and nearly vibrated out of its skin with rage. But… no. Something wasn’t quite right. As viciously angry as all that harsh barking sounded, there was something very, very disquieting about it. Something strained, something afraid.

The one with his sword raised stepped forward, the others moved to follow. And then they were gone.

You blinked, shocked silly. There had been people there—not a second before. You were sure of it. What the fuck was happening?—

And then there was a discordant scream from somewhere deeper in the woods. Distant, but close. Like there were arcane tricks distorting the way of the world. Keeping you separate from the horrible, grinding, shrieking noises while… whatever was happening carried on—not a dozen yards away. Cloaked in shadows and rotten, violet, petals like how a parent might gently close a curtain around a child’s bed at night.  You watched in half-awe, half-horror as seeping, purple, miasma leached from the trees and into the air. It chased the intruders with vicious intent. You could feel the sharp, dark, heat of it prickling along your skin, but when that swirl of near-black enchantments made its way to you, it slipped past you like smoke—leaving only a faint trace of awful, coppery, perfume against your clothes.  

“Why couldn’t you just stay away?” a deep, miserable, voice echoed in your head, and you jerked around in shock to see the Wolf staring at you with heavy, gold eyes.

“Did… Are you…” you trailed off, swallowing. Not sure how to even begin asking what you wanted to ask.

The Wolf sighed, bone deep and weary.

“I tried so hard to keep everyone away,” its voice rumbled in the back of your mind. “Why did you have to be so stubborn?”

“This is my forest, too,” you said after a long moment, fingers digging into the dusty material of your pants. “What’s wrong with it? What happened?”

The Wolf stared at you, quiet and considering. And then it lumbered to its feet with a defeated sort of slouch.

“Come, then, Little Red One,” it huffed, and swished its tail against your back. “I’ll show you.”

.

.

.

TAG LIST [CLOSED]

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[stari-hun]

Reverse 1999 is an Existential Horror and they’re reminding us of the genre

This is a post about Vereinsamt, book 7, but I won’t be talking about any massive story spoilers here!

Chapter 7 - The Maze of the Minotaur is horrible cause it viscerally shows how different we are as humans from then to now.

I was just talking about how 1999 was when Blair Witch came out, so every character has massed out on the massive horror resurgence that came out after it. In Reverse 1999, 1999 was when they had it all. But to us, if you asked what the best era in the past was you’d get 100 different answers, and very few would be before the 2000s.

Blair Witch was the turn of horror films because it gave the foundation for a new genre that was accessible to amateur film makers: the Found Footage genre. It made way for an entirely new type of story where all people needed was a friend and any kind of camera in order to tell their story. This stemmed into a digital version of this genre: Alternate Reality Games or ARGs. As well as a subgenre of Found Footage called Analog Horror, in today’s age, even phones have better camera quality than most cameras' film quality back then. So the genre learned to turn the quality down on videos in order to get a vintage quality to them because the inability to see would give a fear of the unknown. We both have a fear of the unknown, but the characters in Reverse 1999 have no knowledge or baseline to be afraid of things that aren’t what they appear. Arcanum can be used to change one’s appearance and it’s uncommon knowledge, but to totally change a person's stature and look is a rare ability. A few arcanists have a certain transcendental ability to tell people apart by their aura, bones, or unique arcane signature. But they haven’t experienced this horror renaissance. Horror movies actually have a pretty important role in public perception of things. If a person was walking around with a knife or a bat and we didn't have horror movies or stories of that exact situation, then unless you heard about a dangerous person on the streets, your guard wouldn't be up. Hearing and seeing stories about the possibility of harm and what could happen in a certain situation is a very important role media has in our lives. With the Mandela Catalogue came a fascination with urban myths and similar cryptids. People from Appalachia and indigenous people around the time it came out would share stories of their encounters with creatures who would pretend to be human and lure us to them. Whether or not a person chooses to believe in nonhuman entities is up to them, but it's a fact as well that a lot of animals have adapted to humans and learned how to mimic us. Birds mimic us easily as animals who specialize in it, but cats and dogs do their best to mimic our speech patterns to. Humans are animals as well so we sound like other animals. Bunnies being hunted in the woods make screaming sounds that grab the attention of anything nearby but especially humans, they even sound similar to us in the way babies' cries can make other animals think we're a similar species to them. So whether it has a mystical explanation or one in nature, we know that something that sounds like what isn't on purpose is a sign of danger. We've seen horror movies and heard stories about turning around and seeing what we think is a friend only to be betrayed by a monster tricking us in many popular media. We've seen media portrayals of that person being something pretending to be human and pretending to be your friend, so we know that that means imminent danger. In Doctor Who you have Weeping Angels who use the voices of others to communicate until they're caught, Supernatural used the stories of mimics many times, even in DnD as a tabletop game has it as an enemy that isn't strong but always poses a threat because trusting that you're safe when something is tricking you into thinking that way is one of the scariest things to humans. It's why I think Arcanists, because of the nature of arcanum, struggle the most from memory gaps or mental illness. Arcanum relies on your mind and schema as power. As humans, we naturally feel uncomfortable with the unknown and take comfort in learning and overcoming fears. We like an environment we can feel control in and safety from as well as people we can feel safe with. So along with the unknown, another thing we fear is being innately unsafe around someone we've placed absolute trust in.

The characters in R1999 lack the public zeitgeist we have. 37’s instincts aren't to distrust the people around her in any situation. Even when 210 is purposefully trying to knock down her ego, she doesn't react to it with feeling hurt because she genuinely trusts the people of Apeiron and especially her close group. She doesn't consider they would do anything bad to her, and she doesn't have the knowledge to consider that something could use that trust by pretenidng to be them.

[anthurak]

Random Old Theories/Headcannons: Wyrd RWBY

So those who have been following me for the last few years might recall that prior to us actually knowing anything about Volume 9, some of my theory posts touched on Team RWBY returning to Remnant changed by their time in this mystical realm beyond their own, wielding weird and strange powers.

Anyway, this is a WIP from a couple years back that went into some fun ideas for these changes for ‘Wyrd RWBY’ that I thought I’d touch up and finally post.

Enjoy XD

---

Yang doesn’t seem much different at first. Just that her hair seems to be a bit wavier than before, like she’s using her semblance all the time now. And the air around her always seems to be at least a few degrees warmer. But then you start noticing other things. Like how sometimes her right arm isn’t made of metal and circuits but instead wreathed in some kind of tangible flame. Or how the fingernails on Yang’s left arm now look more like claws. Or how when Yang’s eyes turn red, they now also become slitted like the eyes of a lizard. Or the golden flakes that now dot Yang’s exposed skin. Flakes that will sometimes spread. Sometimes they spread so much they look more like golden scales. Yang always laughs this off. Which is also when you can see that her teeth are quite a bit larger, and sharper than you remember.

Blake herself isn’t the one who seems different at first. It’s her shadow. Like how it often moves independent of Blake. Or is somehow able to grab things for Blake. Sometimes you’ll see Blake’s shadow moving along a wall with Blake herself nowhere in sight. Sometimes Blake’s shadow won’t look like Blake at all, but rather some manner of very large cat. And sometimes you’ll see a large black cat wandering the back allies with the shadow of a person.

Weiss… where to begin with Weiss? First off, you wouldn’t expect a girl like Weiss to be into tattoos, but now Weiss seems to be covered in them. On almost every bit of visible skin, Weiss has these strange, arcane symbols, glyphs and runes. They tend to glow whenever Weiss uses her semblance. Speaking of which, you know that the Schnee semblance is versatile to say the least, but you’re pretty sure they at least needed to dust to do some of their crazier feats.

What Weiss is doing feels less like a semblance and more like actual magic.

Then there’s Weiss’s Grimm. Not Grimm like everyone knows. No one would mistake these creatures for the Grimm that humanity fears. With their bodies and fur the color of freshly fallen snow and icy blue eyes. You’ve seen Winter and Willow Schnee summon ‘white’ Grimm before, but the creatures that Weiss calls to her side seem so much more tangible. Not some construct of aura that will vanish as soon as its mistress stops focusing on it, but something REAL. And there’s always at least one or two with Weiss wherever she goes, sometimes more.

And Ruby? Well, let’s just say the fact that she somehow has wolf ears and an eye-patch are probably the least weird things about her now.

Like how her silver eyes were always unique, but now it seems they often glint and shimmer and otherwise catch the light in ways eyes don’t. Even when there isn’t any light for them to catch…

Ruby also uses her semblance more. A lot more. As in, unless she’s accompanying someone else, you can expect her to enter a room not through a door, but via a trickle of rose-petals blowing in through an open window. Or a vent. Or just appearing out of basically nowhere.

In fact, it seems like there are always a few petals flaking off of Ruby’s cloak, only to vanish before they even hit the ground.

And it feels like any time Ruby might be struck or otherwise injured, her semblance will activate.

You remember one time when Nora tried to give Ruby an affectionate punch to the arm, only for her fist to travel through the arm as it suddenly burst into petals before reforming a moment later.

Come to think of it, you’re pretty sure you haven’t seen anyone actually TOUCH Ruby. Aside from her teammates…

Speaking of which, Team RWBY together brings even more strangeness.

Like how they’ll sometimes speak amongst themselves in a strange language that sounds more like a whistling breeze or a crackling flame than anything someone might actually speak with.

Or how they will sometimes move and act together without need for words at all. And that’s just the least of it…

Like you’re pretty sure you’ve seen Blake’s golden eyes flash just a bit when Yang uses her semblance. Or Yang’s violet eyes shimmer when Blake uses hers. Or how Yang’s semblance now creates a fiery, shadow-like afterimage of herself that looks a bit more like Blake than her. Or times when Blake will gain some sudden burst of strength while fighting that causes her hair to start flickering like a flame.

Meanwhile you’re pretty sure you’ve seen some of Weiss’s runic tattoos briefly appear on Ruby’s skin, or the edges of Weiss’s hair briefly turn red. And there was that one time Ruby and Weiss went out to save a group of incoming refugees being attacked by a horde of grimm, yet those same refugees swear they were saved by a mysterious woman in red and white.

Oh, and there’s also Ruby’s new pet mouse who actually seems pretty normal. Aside from the fact that some people are saying the mouse talks.

But that’s just silly!

[tegu-the-tegu]

Flavoured Artificer Concepts

Artificer is by FAR my favourite class in Dungeons and Dragons, primarily for how customisable they can be with regards to their flavour; because of the ability to cast through any tools you are proficient in, it gives a LOT of range to how your magic works. As such, I will put some ideas I have had to build unique Artificers.

An Artillerist that uses woodworking to carve totems; they are flavoured as a tribal shaman that summons the spirits of magical creatures to aid in battle. Their flamethrower turret conjures a dragon spirit to burn their foes, their protector turret calls the spirit of a unicorn to protect the virtuous, and their ballista invokes a manticore spirit to pepper distant foes with spikes. Their other spells can also be flavoured this way, such as Thunderwave being flavoured as an Aerosaur spirit emerging from a totem and flapping its wings to blow enemies away!

A Battlesmith that uses leatherworking to create a horrific stitched Frankenstein's monster for their steel defender. Every time they kill things, they skin the corpses to repair their hideous flesh monster. Or, if you prefer, you could stick with the shamanistic theme from the Artillerist entry, and use leatherworking to maintain the pelt of the first wolf you killed; its spirit inhabits that pelt, and defends you to this day!

An Alchemist that uses chef's tools to create supernaturally delicious food that cures illnesses and grants supernatural abilities. I have actually played this, he used brewers supplies to create caustic acidic drinks, had peppers so hot that it made your breath ignite to cast fire spells, and he would spray sticky toffee over the area for web. He would make food puns, and was named Guido Fiero.

An Armorer that uses jeweller's tools to create bling that imbues them with magical powers. A circlet that grants a force field, a ring that shoots lightning, a pair of bracelets that create thunderous shockwaves when brought together. Then, when you hit level 9, you can have distinct infusion tied to each one! A circlet or diadem or whatever for head armour, necklace for chest armour, anklets for boots, and bracelets or rings for the weapon! Perfect for a wealthy nobleman artificer who wants to broadcast their glamorous lifestyle.

There are loads of other things you can do with each tool proficiency, and it's a shame that the class is so easily pigeonholed into "The Tech Class". Not to say I don't like the gnomish tinker that creates fantastical and crazy gizmos to mimic magical effects. Hell, my character in the campaign I'm not DMing is exactly that, an autognome (Flavoured to look like a normal gnome in the face, so they appear normal when wearing their clothes) that woke up one day in a tinker's lab next to his deceased creator, and then left to try and find a purpose in the world. He has an insect motif, so all of his spells and things are flavoured as small clockwork insects he makes.

But the point is, while that's a staple of the Artificer class fantasy, there are loads of other ideas to flavour it! A calligrapher that writes arcane runes in the air, a potter with a terracotta soldier for a steel defender, a weaver that knits arcane circles, a painter whose drawings become magical effects, a glassblower whose glass figurines come to life, I can't think of one for cartographer's tools, but I bet there is a dope idea in there somewhere!

Even as I mentioned before with leatherworking, you can have the exact same class, the exact same subclass, and the exact same tool, and STILL have wildly different flavour! One is Doctor Frankenstein, the other is a mystical shaman with a spirit guide!

Anyway, that's today's rambling. I would also do a thing on subclasses the Artificer could have, given they only have four, but that's a whole other rant. Besides, this is already a thesis.

[restlessbundoll]

Unused Doll Piece

Something I wrote for a fantasy world idea I had been working on that I doubt I'll end up doing anything with cx

it might as well live somewhere~

--

It's not uncommon to find those gifted in the arcane arts to be seen traveling with a close and loyal companion.

Dolls, a form of Golem, crafted from stone and brought to life through careful spellcraft. Mages were eager to have their own, most apprentice spellcasters dreaming if the day they became powerful enough to make their own. They were used for mostly simple tasks, taking notes quickly and efficiently, a true blessing to a rambling mystic as they tug at the threads of our world. Or simply just for manual labour that they'd rather not dirty their hands with.

The creation of a doll is not only a lengthy process, but an extremely personal one. It begins with the shaping of the stone. The one step that usually involves another person. Those powerful enough to even consider bringing their own doll to this world have often already made a name for themselves, and coin isn't too much of a trouble, most willing to hire skilled artists and stonemasons with the carving of the shell. It's best that this step is done with hand tools, although stone can be broken and shaped with spells, the risk of any lingering magics that could taint the doll making process isn't worth taking. Runes are carved directly into each segment of the shell, each one representing a instruction, a way of letting each limb and joint know its function, and acts as an assisting catalyst for the spell.

Once a suitable shell is prepared, the ritual can begin when the caster is ready. The spell itself is a lengthy one, some rituals said to span over a couple of days without break. Seclusion, concentration and focus is key. The spell itself is rather delicate, quick to be influenced by stray thoughts. Due to this, it's often considered that dolls have "personalities", physically and socially. Each one seems to bear unique personal quirks from the ways they respond to questions, to how they behave in the presence of their creator. Beyond that, no two dolls looked the same, from differing artistic visions in the creation of its shell to how it was dressed after its conception. Some would display their dolls proudly, a clear creation for all to see. Others chose to dress them, just like any other person. Sometimes this was just to blend them in, to not draw attention, but some saw it as a way to treat or reward reward them.

For a spell meant to create a simple, loyal, obedient servant, these little accidental additions make them much more approachable. Many mages consider their dolls more of a friend rather than the tools that they are.

The origins of this strange spell are quite unknown, some speculating that it's a form of forbidden magic, that by casting it you sever a part of your soul and to give an object life. Though this is a highly debated topic between scholars and mages alike, the concept of these dolls being "alive" seemed ridiculous. Yet they couldn't fully prove it wasn't true, the magic behind what humans called a soul was still a mystery.

[thisisnotthenerd]

in peace

It’s difficult to think through the red-tinted rage, seeping through wires and metal to meet a glowing blue arcane battery. The pain is blinding, all-encompassing, but secondary to the sight of Otohan Thull brandishing her swords.

Orym and Ashton lie unconscious on the ground, Imogen and Chetney struggling not far off. Laudna and Fearne stand, magic crackling at their fingertips even as their wellsprings are exhausted from fighting her off.

It’s a matter of simple calculation; there is no hope of outrunning her, there is no hope of outlasting her. 

Fresh Cut Grass, Faithful Care Giver, holds a coin of the Changebringer in shaking hands, vibrating with the sudden onslaught of stress and panic, the result of too many blessings shared, too many gifts of healing. Bell’s Hells is laid out by this Exaltant Fury, by this General who thinks of them as targets to exterminate.

She hovers above them, the psychic hum of her blades loud in this enclosed tunnel, an ambush predator preparing to strike.

Fresh Cut Grass sends a prayer to the Changebringer, to their Lady of the Open Road, to the Bringer of Luck, to She Who Makes the Path, not for clarity nor courage, but a certainty that the road might open to Bell’s Hells. They roll around Otohan, not seeking a path to flee, but simply enough room to do what must be done.

Their hand glows with divine light, brighter than any Exandrian day.

Thull’s eyes widen as the bolt shoots straight and true, not for her, but for an arcane core of glowing blue.

The last thing Fresh Cut Grass sees before light takes their vision is the faces of their dear friends.

They die with a smile.

Guiding Bolt: A flash of light streaks toward a creature of your choice within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 4d6 radiant damage, and the next attack roll made against this target before the end of your next turn has advantage, thanks to the mystical dim light glittering on the target until then.

Arcane Battery: An arcane battery is an artificially created energy source that draws from local leylines to power various magical effects. For this reason they are also sometimes called arcane accumulators. Many arcane batteries power automata, such as aeormatons and golems. In the Post-Divergence, arcane batteries are scavenged from ruins across Exandria.

When attacked, these batteries release copious amounts of spell energy into the surrounding space. Upon detonation, every creature within 30 feet takes 20d8 force damage, and any machinery surrounding the battery is irreparably destroyed.

I am alive.

I am alive for the first time.

And I am alive, not because I was made by D or Dancer or even the Changebringer.

I’m alive because they made me alive.

And it’s the connections that I made with all of them. And it’s a feeling of joy.

And I’m happy to do this, because they saved my life and I’ll save theirs.

[dailycharacteroption]

Occult Messenger (Familiar Archetype)

(art by MikeJordana on DeviantArt)

Pathfinder sure does enjoy it’s magical girl tropes. From the chosen one archetype for paladins to the actual magical child archetype for vigilante, to the fact that witches as a whole are imbued with an otherworldly power that doesn’t necessarily “belong” to them.

So it only makes sense that there would be a familiar archetype dedicated to helping futher replicate that feeling!

These so-called “occult” messengers were explicitly sent by a mysterious power to aid their master, though this is also true for plenty of other familiars, so mechanically the difference is only in the unique powers they bring to the table. Divine classes and archetypes might have had them sent by their deity or spirit, while arcane casters might have especially potent patrons in the case of witches, or mysterious otherworldly benefactors in the case of wizards or magi. You could also theoretically get these familiars with certain psychic casters, though they wouldn’t benefit that much.

And the reason for that is their association with occult power, so let’s look at what exactly they get!

With their psychic power, these familiars transfer a bit of that power while within arm’s reach of their master, allowing their master to pick up on psychic energies and make use of occult applications of various skills.

Additionally, that proximity also enhances the master’s ability to perform such minor occult tricks as the mysterious patron subtly coaches them through the process or perhaps even is the source of the divinatory answers in some cases.

A simple archetype, but one that is useful for giving a familiar that “grants power from beyond” vibe that certain folklore and fiction has. Just remember that you’re giving up the ability to deliver touch spells, so your familiar doesn’t have quite the same combat utility as others, exchanging it for pseudo-magical utility.

Much like the witch class in general, the presence of these familiars invites the question of what the nature of the being that sent the familiar is, and moreover, what the difference between such an entity and other patrons is if you wish to play that up.

If there is anything that Verrak hates, it is not being in control, and yet that is where the reptoid wizard finds himself when a familiar arrives and bonds with him unbidden in the last days of his training. Not wanting to be seen as a liability, he has hidden this fact from his superiors, and spends as much time as he can spare from his mission on finding out the truth behind this mysterious gift.

Arguably the least of all monstrous threats, dire rats are often dealt with by novice adventurers or city guards, barely beneath the notice of more powerful heroes. However, when a novice witch emerges from such a den without a scratch clutching on small seemingly ordinary rat… well, most think it odd but not otherwise noteworthy, but those with an eye for the mystic take notice.

There is a rumor among the member of the order of the True Eye that sometimes a rare novice with potential will be chosen by a special familiar, one that offers secrets of the occult not normally seen in the arcane magic. Where exactly this familiar comes from is unknown, but the prevailing theory is that it is a servant of the sentient platonic idea of divination itself.

[wanderingnork]

Gith Deep Dive: Dark Sun Part 1 - Introducing the Gith of Athas

When you tell a githyanki they can't do something, they always turn around and prove you wrong. Tell Gith she can't be free of the mind flayers? She'll tear down their entire empire and found one of her own in its place. Tell Vlaakith she can't rule forever? Not only will she become a lich to extend her rule for thousands of years, but she'll figure out how to become a god, too. Tell a member of the Sha'sal Khou his work is doomed? He'll turn his entire creche into a spark of a revolution and invite the githzerai for dinner.

So when the githyanki were confronted with a law of the very universe that forbade them from reaching a world they wanted to conquer, they turned around and staged the greatest break-in the multiverse has ever seen.

Unfortunately, the world they broke into was the world of Dark Sun, unlike any other place the githyanki had seen before.

The Dark Sun campaign setting takes place on the grim planet of Athas. In a long-past age, the planet was green. It was prosperous, thriving, protected by nature-masters and widespread psionic power. But then a powerful psionicist discovered arcane magic. In order to power his spells, he drained the life from everything around him, defiling the land. His champions began a series of terrible "cleansing wars" to destroy as much life on Athas as they could--and they nearly succeeded.

The planet was left as a blasted desert under a dull orange sun. Temperatures rise to up to 55C/130F regularly, and even the most fertile regions rarely see more than a gentle mist instead of rain. The seas have been replaced with vast oceans of super-fine silt. Familiar animals and plants and fantasy creatures have been wiped out, leaving strange but hardy mundane beasts and horrific monstrosities behind. The wider multiverse was cut off by a planar dead zone called "the Gray," leaving Athas without gods or any kind of contact beyond its own plane. Travelers trying to get in via the Astral Plane get lost in the Gray and either turn around, or simply never leave. Even its crystal sphere (the mystical container of each material plane for various campaign settings) is completely sealed off, and beyond the reach of spelljammers.

It's a terribly lonely place.

Back when the world was a more hospitable place and still open to the multiverse, the githyanki were present. Open your Black Spine: Adventure Book Two to page 4 if you want to read along. They had residences on the surface of Athas, but their primary city was Yathazor, in a cavern deep beneath what would someday be called the Black Spine Mountains. This was millennia ago: the Green Age, when Athas was hospitable and psionic powers were first widespread, began 14,000 years before the present day and ended about 8,000 years ago.

Yathazor was a strange and stunning city, filled with plants and gardens, githyanki living in vertically-stacked homes and palaces. Status and rank determined how high up a person's house could be, with the highest-ranking githyanki occupying levels of the city where they traveled along walkways between buildings. Such githyanki may have never touched the ground. An artificial yellow sun circled the ceiling of the cavern to give life to the plants. Decorative stonework, carvings, and plentiful ironwork enhanced the city's beauty. To defend it from enemies, especially githzerai, it was locked behind a planar shield that prevented any plane-shifting.

But the githzerai weren't so easily stopped. At some point, they launched attacks on every githyanki settlement on Athas, using bombs called "psionic devastators." These sent out powerful psi-waves that blasted every githyanki in the vicinity. Some githzerai managed to get hold of keys that let them through the planar shield into Yathazor, and a bomb was detonated there.

The carnage was terrible. Every githyanki on Athas was killed or had their minds destroyed by the psionic devastators, and many more were killed in ensuing attacks by the githzerai. In the ruins of Yathazor, adventurers can encounter a group of sword spirits. They're the remains of githyanki who were trapped in a locked guardroom when the psionic devastator went off, and died screaming in fear of starvation. Their souls attached to their silver swords, leaving them as perpetual guards of the dead city. By the end, no githyanki beyond Athas remembered Yathazor or how to find it. None of them ever returned to the planet, at least none whose visits were recorded, and when Athas was cut off from the rest of the multiverse it was almost completely forgotten.

(The cover of the Black Flames adventure, by Brom.)

The githyanki who remained on Athas were unrecognizable compared to their Astral kin. Not only were they physically changed, their minds were also terribly altered. Afraid, enraged, their violent impulses and survival instinct overrode everything else. Settlements destroyed, they scattered and vanished from Athasian history. From eerie, orderly, urbane Astral warriors, the gith became terrifying, disorganized, feral monsters underground. The impact of the psionic devastators was such that the effects remained for thousands of years afterwards. Any hope the gith might have had of recovering from the calamity was shattered when defiling magic tore Athas to shreds, leaving them with a burned, bleak future.

Continues below cut.

In the modern world, the gith are of relatively little consequence to wider world affairs. Sorcerer-kings, city-states, and political movements mean little in the depths of a blazing desert. In all Dark Sun materials, from 2nd through 5th Editions, the gith appear frequently on random encounter tables or are mentioned as hazards of desert travel. They're organized into tribes and clans, and don't have walled cities or access to defiling magic. (According to the 2E Monstrous Manual, that last may not be true. See p.151.) They mostly live underground to escape the blazing sun, hunting at night and attacking any travelers who dare to brave the desert.

They haven't forgotten everything about their past. In the Black Spine adventure, the gith have maintained connections to Yathazor, treating it with immense respect as a sacred site. If they fight inside the city they leave no bodies behind and require that anyone visiting wear shoes as a gesture of respect. In the 4th Edition Dark Sun Creature Catalog, some gith are mentioned to be seeking fragments of the ancient ship that carried the first githyanki to Athas ages ago.

While just about every available source discusses the gith as "barbaric" and "savage"...I would argue that they're not so different from most other peoples of Athas. The halflings of the mountains are cannibals, just like the gith. The gith use obsidian weapons, illustrated as a beautifully-knapped spearhead in one illustration in the Dark Sun Creature Catalog (p.55), which is absolutely an art form. In Dungeon magazine #110, they even carry bronze weapons--almost impossible on Athas, where metal is so scarce as to be nonexistent. They raise children, who are listed in the Black Flames adventure explicitly as noncombatants. Females lay eggs and, per the 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual, rumor has it that they may operate shared hatcheries containing hundreds of eggs (p.151). Their alignment in the original AD&D Dark Sun campaign setting is listed simply as "chaotic." (Chapter 5, p.93) At least in this edition, they're not evil, simply predatory like everything else in the wastelands.

Society is structured along similar lines to many other Athasian socities: the toughest person is in charge. Here, the leaders of each tribe are those with the greatest psionic power (original Dark Sun setting, Monstrous Manual, Dungeon Magazine #110). Any other positions of authority are distributed at the leader's pleasure. As usual, 4th Edition gives us a different spin: some gith hatched with extraordinary psionic ability are trained not as leaders, but as "drones" with the ability to scald the minds of opponents (Creature Catalog, p55). In addition, elemental shamans and priests hold positions of some power in gith society (Earth, Air, Fire, and Water p.31, Monstrous Manual, Merchant House of Amketch Part 3). A festival, the Ghost Moon feast, is even named and described in Merchant House of Amketch along with a pair of sacred sites.

As often as the gith war with each other, they do get along sometimes. Just like everyone else in Athas, they LOVE gladiatorial games. In the Dragon's Crown adventure, players can even be cordially invited to watch a gladiatorial competition held in a ruined city. Four tribes of gith (over four hundred attendees in all) have come together to settle some issues between the tribes by gladiatorial warfare. Rather than an all-out war, they've found it pragmatic (and more fun) to capture a powerful monster or warrior as a champion for their tribe to fight in the arena. The players can peacefully attend the games, seated near the leaders. One of the party members will even be chosen as a champion for the Skull Smashers tribe. If the player wins, they become an honorary member of the tribe and receive a reward of treasure. If they lose...well, the party is going to have a very bad time.

This isn't the only time the gith get along. In "The Ivory Triangle" sourcebook for 2nd Edition Dark Sun, in the section on the Blackspine Mountains, it's revealed that a leader has begun to unite the gith of the mountains. Formerly simply a horde of disconnected tribes, over five thousand gith in all, the mysterious Blackspear has begun taking control of the tribes. At the present time, he's ruling over about half of the gith in the mountains. Unified gith forces regularly attack merchant caravans and even forts in the mountains, showing remarkable power and cohesion. The future of that area of Athas appears to be at great risk.

And, as I hinted at the beginning of this post, there's other trouble brewing deep beneath the mountains. The githyanki of the Astral Sea have finally found their way to Athas.

Next time, in Part 2, we'll cover a short story in The Ivory Triangle that gives us real insight into gith culture, and wrap up with the Black Spine adventure.

-

Footnote: The exact date of the githzerai attack is unknown. However, apparently some Athasian scholars who know this secret history wonder if the explosive psi-waves might have affected other creatures of the planet, humanoid and otherwise. (Black Spine, Adventure Book Two, p.4) The attack might have rendered them more open to the development of psionics. It might have wiped out psionic parasites and allowed widespread development of power. Since the Green Age is stated in The Wanderer's Chronicle, the major 2nd Edition source on the history of the setting, to be the period where psionics truly became widespread on Athas, it's the one I think likeliest to have been when the attack took place.

Footnote Part Two: The dates of the Green Age (14,000-8,000 years before the present) are taken from the 2nd Edition The Wanderer's Chronicle. Placing this against the larger timeline of gith history, all of this took place before the reign of Vlaakith CLVII (157), the current queen who's been on the throne for approximately a thousand years. However, within the Black Spine adventure, the players can encounter a statue of the mysterious, ancient lich-queen. The specific details of Vlaakith's reign didn't get nailed down until 3rd Edition, though, and 5th Edition has altered the details yet again (she's now the only Vlaakith who ever reigned). Due to the sheer volume of sources that reference Vlaakith as being 157th of her name (including Baldur's Gate 3), I choose to lean on that instead of the 5E shift. Exactly how all the dates shake out, though, is really up to you.

Footnote Part Three: 4th Edition's Dark Sun Creature Catalog changes the history of the gith a little. Here, the githyanki never colonized Athas as they did in 2nd Edition, but rather arrived aboard an Astral ship and got trapped behind the Gray. Defiling arcane magic then warped them as it warped the landscape. Due to the paucity of 4th Edition Dark Sun sources, I've chosen to adhere to the 2nd Edition story in this post. Since the history of Athas is so shrouded in mystery, though, this tale might also be true.

[yosajaeofficial]

JULY UPDATE

Hey hey hey! Welcome back to the show, “The Monthly Jayce Myles Comics Updates!” Where I give obvious monthly updates to my followers about the progress for the hit series that hasn’t debuted yet, “ROTTMNT: The Jayce Myles Comics”! Sorry I haven’t posted this month, I was hella busy with college applications and other projects, but I’m delighted to get back into these updates.

Without further ado, let’s get the show running! I have some fun things to show ya!!!

The Comic

(W.I.P OF THE OFFICIAL DEBUT COMIC)

The month was way too quick for my own good, the comic’s slow. Again, I was busy applying to college and doing other side projects I’m working on. I’m gonna be attending college next month so the comic will have its hardships but I really wanna pursue my education as well, but the updates shall continue like always with all of its fun content! Anyways, the comic: the debut has 20+ pages and my god it’s just insane on how many there are when I’m not even halfway there. I’m impressed with how many pages go by just to tell the story, older pages will be fixed up so it either might be reduced or even more but that’s for future Jae to decide; I’m learning as I go! It’s also better that I show instead of say that I’m just “working on it” since it’s easy to lie to be honest.

The turtles haven’t been seen since I haven’t got to drawing their introductions yet, I’m gonna shart in my pants because I’m scared but I’m literally an artist doing a comic so I gotta do them sooner than later. Maybe the next update you’ll see them? Don’t hold me too much onto that but it might be a cute goal to set, let me know what happened when the August update comes!

Jayce is so silly with her coat huh? She’s just a girl giving it her best, even if they thrift at the worst shop known to man (they’re gonna learn someday…) We also got Rogelio and Jayce being all cool together, I was proud of that page when first sketching it out. They both are so sweet to draw out, hope to see their finalized pages to see their true potential!

Bonus Content: Hidden City Mystical Crystals

Silly reader, you’re scratching your nose and thinking, “what am I looking at?” You’re in luck! Cuz these babies are actually additional parts about the Hidden City’s lore/magic system. Magic system? Yes, a magic system. The Jayce Myles Comics is going beyond the original canon of Rise and creating many more original concepts and combining it with what was given by the canon. I wanted to show off more of the mystics from yokai because their potential was so much cooler to finally explore when drafting the ideas.

The Hidden City’s magic system is based off of the elements, not too complicated, but has some different rules when compared to other executions of the elemental magic system. That’s for another day, I’m only gonna talk about the crystals and show what they can do. You can reference this update and look into the JMC with this cool bit of knowledge! Let’s get started >:3

Origins of the Mystical Crystals

These crystals were created based off of industrial flaws people have faced. Basically, I learned about the 1920s construction workers and their working conditions where it made me think “what would the have wished for when they worked?” I referenced from real people, history books, and my own personal experiences to create functions, and help base the crystals off of what I came up with.

The Netflix show, “Arcane” was a great inspiration to combine mystics with technology, the brand was called “Hextech” and it’s system was hella cool to me and it helped a lot when I was working on the crystal’s concepts. The mystical crystals are meant to be used as “tools to help the magic user”, where they can enhance their power, gain a temporary ability, create spells, or use in technology.

The names of them are based off of the Latin languages like, English, Italian, Spanish, and a hint of both Chinese and Korean if you squint really hard. I will go through each of the crystals in a vague manner for ya’ll to see what they can do!

Fire Magic

Fire magic is actually defined as: “The manipulation/manifestation of temperature” instead of just heat, it can be fire or ice.

LA HEILMAQ: The crystal is based off of quartz in visuals and has the glow like a moonstone! La Heilmaq is the crystal that’s used to help air conditioning in modern homes and create weapons. They’re the most natural crystal to use to create weapons since it’s form holds up so well, it’s as common as bronze in real life! They’re pretty cold to the touch, so be careful and don’t hold them for too long if you’re 1. not a fire magic user, or 2. not wearing gloves. These babies are used for more attacks than defense since they’re pretty deadly if you’ve been penetrated by the crystal itself.

EL HEILMAQ: This crystal is based off of colored glass from old alcohol bottles, tainted windows, and the power of friendship because this is the one that isn’t the most realistic looking since I made the shape up. It looks like the “BOOM!” shape for a reason~ El Heilmaq is the crystal which contains heat, it’s sealed by the actual gemstone itself so you’re able to touch with your bare hands without getting burned. The crystal can be used for restoring heat in homes, making artillery, and/or throwing them on the ground to create natural firecrackers. Most yokai use smaller bits of the crystal as distractions and the bigger pieces to help the industry by keeping their homes warm, they don’t need boiler rooms or to grab coal because El Heilmaq crystals can already do that for them without causing damage to nature.

The word Heilmaq was based off the English word “Hail” which is Ice, which is to hammer the idea that this isn’t just heat based. The word Maq is gibberish that's made to be another word for "kaboom", which brings more of the fire elements to the word itself.

Air Magic

Air magic is defined as, “The manipulation/manifestation of oxygen”!

LA SENYÁR: The crystal is based off of diamonds and emeralds! La Senyár is a crystal that helps give the air magic user more of a boost, they can crash the crystal and it gives them a boost of air so they can jump higher, dodge quicker, or just blow a gust of wind at the enemy. The crystal itself is used by technology to give it more flight, used in planes, cars, and even shoes! Yes, shoes can also have the crystal, it helps the bird yokai give them a boost to use their wings to fly. The word Senyár is a word based off of the Spanish word, “Soñar” that translates to “To Dream”; it was named this way because the way how the pressure of the air isn’t as powerful or dense, it’s like if you’re walking on clouds, it feels like a dream.

Water Magic

Water magic is defined as, “The manipulation/manifestation of water and health”

LA CANTÉM: The crystal is based off of pebbles found in rivers, ponds, and on rock beaches; there’s also influence by the topaz gemstone with it’s beautiful orange color. La Cantém is a healing crystal, where you’re able to use it on yourself to cool down injuries where it helps heal the wounds. It works both as a numbing solution and healing solution based on the water magic user. With these crystals, you always have to hydrate them in fresh water so the water can absorb into the crystal and used as energy; if it’s dehydrated, then the crystal’s will be weaker. The word Cantém is based off of the Spanish word, “Cantar” where it translates to, “To Sing”. It’s because singing can calm people down, and the crystal helps calm down the injured and lets the healing process go smoothly, it’s based off of my bestie where their singing really was like fresh water to my ears, a great inspiration for this crystal.

Earth Magic

Earth magic is defined as, “The manipulation/manifestation of nature”

EL TERÉM: The crystal is based off of an amethyst visually, and yes, inside there’s a different color! El Terém is the crystal that most fighters use in order to manipulate rocks/boulders, build stronger architecture, or create rock shields when you throw them on the floor. It’s mostly rock based but still hella good to use in battle as a defense mechanism, the rock that’s formed is sturdy too, not weak for it to break easily. Shredder would have no problems breaking it but that guy’s insane. The word Terém is inspired by the word "tear" or "contain", any interpretation rocks! (no pun intended)

Yin Magic

Yin magic is defined as, “The manipulation/manifestation of darkness”

MIE SIÑE: The crystal is based off of titanium black tourmaline and onyx. Mie Siñe is the crystal that contains shadows inside, depending on what the spell is, it either can produce shadows or fog. The usage for the crystal is much more unknown since Yin magic is banned from being used in Witchtown, but the crystal itself has been documented to be used to isolate the enemy when being used. It's also been used to cover the enemies eyes with darkness in order to distract them/become vulnerable sight wise. The word Siñe is a word based on the actual word "Sign" and "Sin", which holds a lot of significance into the story so I won't spoil.

Yang Magic

Yang magic is defined as, “The manipulation/manifestation of light”

MIE PIRE: This dear crystal is based off of the Italian onyx, magnesite, and calcite. Mie Pire is the crystal that contains light inside, any kind of light, it's not just sunlight. It's a bit more tricky and dangerous to use since you can blind yourself with it more easily, so it's also not as used. However, Yang magic is also banned like Yin, but there has still been technological uses for Mie Pire like using it as an alternative for electricity (which saves the bills!) and also used as lamps for more conservative places like Witchtown. The crystal has proved itself useful as a light source, but it can still be used as a defense mechanism by blinding the enemies eyes for a good second of even minute. The word Pire is based off of the word "Pure" which means that this crystal is very raw hence why it's dangerous. Another word it's inspired by is the Latin word "Pyra" which means "Bonfire". Both interpretations are used for this one!

The word Mie is based off of the actual Italian word "Mie" which means "My". It doesn't truly mean mine, because it's also inspired by the Spanish "Mira" that translates to "Look". It can be interpreted any way you want!

Thank you for coming to this lovely update! I've been working really hard to get the comic rolling and to also balance out my personal life with it, but I'm proud of how far I've come in the span of a year! Lots of progress has been made and it's getting much more exciting to create for the JMC. Have a wonderful day/night and see ya'll soon.

[thesilliestrovingalive]

Updated: November 10, 2024

Reworked Species #3: Invaders

Overview

Their scientific name is Deinocarnifex (meaning “terrible butcher”). Despite being referred to as the Venusians due to their origin on Venus, many people call them Invaders because of their aggressive thirst for conquest. An extremely hostile insectoid alien species, led by their asexually reproducing king, the Invader King, possesses shapeshifting abilities and omnilinguistic skills. They possess exceptional expertise in terraforming, warfare, territorial invasions, xenology, anatomy, and mechanics. They’re notorious for being the most ferocious alien species in the entire universe and are the arch-nemesis of the Martians.

Hierarchy

Their society is entirely hive-based with ranks determined by skin colour, durability, and intellectual capacity. Most Invaders are born from cocoons in hive-like structures within their meteorite-like mothership, having their abilities and roles predetermined at birth.

Heaven Globules (Deinocarnifex thauma) are the knowledgeable and dangerous hybrid offspring of Invader Drones and another life form. Surprisingly, they possess superior mental and physical strength compared to their brethren and exhibit exceptional abilities, including vocal communication, strategic thinking, psychological manipulation, a mystical connection to the cosmos, and an understanding of arcane, forbidden knowledge. Due to their fearsome reputation as heralds and guardians of the Invader King and his offspring, they operate independently from the rest of the Invaders.

Morph Changers (Deinocarnifex grallator) are tactical geniuses, skilled mechanics, and masters of stealth and terraforming technology. Despite being fully mute, they communicate effectively through a combination of gurgling sounds, raspy breathing, and expressive body language. Serving as loyal fighting servants of the Heaven Globules, they possess small fragments of forbidden knowledge graciously shared by their masters. As commanders of the Parasites and Invader Drones, they typically employ cunning tactical strategies that exploit the weaknesses of their enemies. They only resort to brute force and half-baked strategy plans when situations become truly dire or all else fails.

Elite Invaders (Deinocarnifex volans) are comprised of Invader Drones that serve as the elite troops of the Invader forces, commanders of the Parasites, and supporters of the Morph Changers in identifying enemy positions and coordinating attacks.

Ravenous Invaders (Deinocarnifex venator) are comprised of Invader Drones that serve multiple purposes: food foragers, protectors of their own kind, and operators of their war machines.

Grub Invaders (Deinocarnifex ambulus) are comprised of Invader Drones that serve as the foot soldiers of the Invader forces and the progenitors of the Heaven Globules. Despite exhibiting bestial and cannibalistic behaviour, they possess a surprising capacity for operating heavy machinery and interacting socially with more advanced species. Like all Invader Drones, they emit a diverse range of vocalisations, including chirps, purrs, chatters, hisses, growls, screeches, and howls.

Parasites (Deinocarnifex mimos) are responsible for assuming control over other life forms to aid in intergalactic conquests and harvesting the internal organs of their hosts, which are then utilised as sustenance for newborn Invaders. They emit a cacophony of unsettling sounds, including screeching shrieks, guttural growls, and ear-piercing, high-pitched hisses.

Appearance

Each Invader breed has gooey dark violet blood, which strangely tastes like grape soda laced with a metallic, iron-like taste.

Heaven Globules are androgynous Invaders that initially appear as gelatinous, amorphous purplish-black blobs, roughly the size of a newborn giraffe, shrouded in dusty clouds that pulsate with a faint greenish-yellow glow. Upon reaching adolescence, they typically evolve into either heralds or guardians. The heralds are 26 ft (792.48 cm) warty, liquidy spheres of sparkling, pearlescent purple, featuring a vertical slit mouth adorned with writhing, glossy black tendrils that resemble teeth. The guardians resemble 23 ft (701.04 cm) greyish-pink slugs, their scaly bodies flecked with black and gold, and covered in bulbous, acid-filled sores that secrete black and yellow bile. They have pus-filled eyes, a mouth like a sea lamprey's, maroon hook-like teeth, and flexible, rubbery appendages.

Morph Changers are bipedal, skeletal beings with translucent, gloomy flesh and jutting purplish veins. They have a towering stature with females reaching 13’ 1” (947.42 cm) and males standing at an impressive 13’ 7” (962.66 cm). Females sport four sagging, pallid breasts and sylph-like bodies, while males are born with muscular physiques and no visible bosom. Males have a penis-like organ resembling a frilly slug that folds upward against their abdomen, while females have feminine genitalia but are unable to reproduce. Their greyish-green forearms and lower legs are covered in spikes, and their hands and feet end in sharp iron claws and talons. Their humanoid heads are sickly pale and hairless with two orbits that house deep-set myrtle green eyes with glowing amaranth red pupils and yellowish sclera. Both sexes have long, forked tongues covered in corrosive saliva and pharyngeal jaws with carnivorous teeth.

Males boast a gold-speckled, emerald-hued proboscis, resembling a tongue, which serves dual purposes: enticing potential mates and defending against threats. It can become rigid, enabling it to pierce through skin and bone with ease, and is adorned with microscopic spikes and snapping teeth. Their segmented tails feature a silver-grey blade and a coppery sheen, stretching twice their height, and are used for impaling victims with deadly precision.

Invader Drones are 8' 10" (269.24 cm) anthropomorphic, toad-like aliens characterised by four rows of canine teeth, a prehensile tail that extends down to their ankles, and a rock-hard exoskeleton. They possess a chameleon-like tongue covered in translucent greyish-green mucus and microscopic, hook-like spikes. Their glowing eyes are sensory compound organs, comprising fifty individual lenses and a prominent circular lens with a slit white pupil. Their bulbous, oversized heads and backs are covered in gnarled warts, and their fingers and toes tipped with razor-sharp iron claws and talons. They have elongated limbs with three slender fingers and frog-like feet that both have translucent webbing.

They have malachite-hued bones coated in a protective layer of Tyrian purple slime, and their spine is partially jutting from the skin of their back. In place of traditional organs, their torso harbours a diverse array of grotesque, mutated locusts, beetles, slugs, worms, centipedes, and caterpillars, intricately integrated to perform essential functions: energy replenishment, digestion and nutrition, and waste management. Their muscle fibres and jade-coloured brain exhibit a rippling, scaly texture and glow with a soft, xanthous luminescence.

The predominant males have a flexible, white translucent phallus with pale blue veins, concealed within a purplish-black duct containing two circular testes. The uncommon females possess a large pink lavender organ resembling a plant bulb, complete with pale blue veins and up to one hundred small, unfertilised tangerine-hued eggs lining the womb.

Elite Invaders (Deinocarnifex volans): They have tan-peach skin, mossy green warts, metallic pink eyes, and iridescent dragonfly wings with jade ribbing. Their hands, toes, tongues, and three forearm stripes are rosy brown, while their webbing is tinted jade.

Ravenous Invaders (Deinocarnifex venator): They have pink-hued skin, lavender warts, and metallic purple eyes. Ravenous Invaders who are born with natural flight possess iridescent dragonfly wings with turquoise ribbing. Their hands, toes, tongues, and two forearm stripes are blue-green, while their webbing is tinted lavender.

Grub Invaders (Deinocarnifex ambulus): They have grey-hued skin, silvery warts, and bronze-hued eyes with metallic red flecks. Grub Invaders who are born with natural flight possess iridescent dragonfly wings with maroon ribbing. Their hands, toes, tongues, and forearm stripes are crimson, while their webbing is tinted silver-grey. A rare, all-female subset of Grub Invaders exist with the warts, webbing, and wings characteristic of males, pearlescent white skin, coppery eyes with metallic blue flecks, and Byzantine purple hands, toes, tongues, and forearm stripes. However, they're considered to be birth defects and are often exploited as mere commodities for sexual reproduction or cannon fodder.

Among the Invader race, there exist two specialised subsets of Parasites: the Flying Parasites and the Controllers. The Flying Parasites are pill bug-like octopuses with rusty orange skin and the size of two baby human heads. They have eight stretchy tendrils tipped with sharp points and three beady compound eyes of sparking sky blue, encircled by crimson. They also have elvish ears, a light purple sheen, an oval-shaped mouth filled with thick anglerfish teeth, pointed tongues, and tentacle-like mandibles.

Controllers resemble the Flying Parasites in appearance but are significantly larger, measuring around the size of four adult human heads. They have an umbilical cord, a dark purple sheen, pincer-like mandibles, and three thin eyestalks supporting cardinal red eyes outlined with ultramarine.

Abilities

They can assimilate the powers and traits of creatures by consuming their blood, brains, and hearts, which enhances the collective strength and fertility of their swarm-like army. Except for the Morph Changers, all Invaders can utilise echolocation to track targets, perceive electromagnetic fields surrounding living beings, and see in complete darkness using a non-visual sense that detects air pressure vibrations. They can hear the unique resonant frequency of living beings and tune into electromagnetic frequencies, eavesdropping on radio transmissions and sensing energy fields. Their smell allows them to identify the chemical composition of substances and emotions of those around them. They’re able to taste biological fluids of others and environmental conditions, sensing pollution, toxins, and other hazards.

The Heaven Globule heralds can vomit forth intestinal maggots, which are orangish-white in colour, and spew inflamed blood and noxious gases that cause illusions. The Heaven Globule guardians can produce a disease-causing slime that resembles boiling lava, which flows from their bodies naturally.

Morph Changers can transform into humans and animals they can visually remember by manipulating their DNA structure and organic mass. They can dodge projectiles with ease and navigate tight spaces with uncanny agility and extreme hypermobility. They perceive their surroundings through a unique electroreceptive system, where electrical impulses generated by their brain and hypersensitive neurons serve as a substitute for traditional vision. This bio-electric interface also enables them to connect with technology, granting the ability to hack into computer systems and remotely control mechanical devices. They can spit corrosive acid and unleash heat rivalling that of the sun, causing worldwide temperatures to soar.

The limbs of Invader Drones can extend up to 8 ft (243.84 cm) to capture prey or aid in delivering crushing blows to enemies with a spinning headbutt. They can spin their bodies at hypersonic speeds, then ricochet off hard surfaces to smash foes, while deflecting bullets and blades. Additionally, they can spawn greyish-green maggots that approach enemies, expand, and change their skin into a bright red-orange hue before detonating in a lethal blast of acid. Winged Invader Drones can launch unguided purplish-white plasma balls and regurgitate centipede-like larvae that infect hosts, manipulating their brain functions. This infection zombifies hosts, causing their bodily fluids to transform into a gooey, scorching reddish liquid, and granting them the ability to burrow underground.

Parasites can float endlessly and extract the internal organs and life force of living creatures through small, hidden suction orifices on the underside of their flexible tendrils, leaving their victims a desiccated husk. To exert mind control, they attach themselves to their hosts' brains, sealing their vacuum holes and revealing a secondary set of orifices. Through these openings, their veins infiltrate the hosts' brains, circulating a neon purple fluid that gently constricts the skin, causing it to discolour to a bluish-purple hue.

The umbilical cord of a Controller features this unique orifice at its tip, enabling control over victims within a range of 10-13 ft (304.8-396.24 cm). Besides causing bluish-purple skin discoloration, this control mechanism induces a distinctive visual effect: the host's eyes become glazed over with a foggy, opaque white film.

Technology

Like the Martians, their technology is extremely advanced, but it’s primarily organic in nature with little to no mechanical components. They’re based entirely on expertise in the manipulation of plasma and gravitational fields, terraforming, and mechanics. Their technology features a unique blend of elements, including mesmerising line patterns, lasers, cannons, glowing crystals, fiery meteorites, flexible adamant, and grotesque cocoons. Their technology incorporates bioweapons, neon pink goo, fleshy orifices, and stolen technology from other invaded planets. It also features tubular, fleshy prisons encased in a glassy film, filled with a pain-numbing, sleep-inducing slimy green fluid.

Their meteorite-like mothership, Rlyathok, resembles the artistic depiction of Utsuro-bune by Nagahashi Matajirou, and it's made from adamant given to them by the Monoeyes, fleshy tissue, gold bones, unbreakable crystal, a reddish binding substance akin to tree resin, and tungsten. It’s capable of terraforming itself into a subterranean nest upon impact with a planet's surface, allowing it to anchor itself and establish a stronghold.

The Ecylatroch, also known as the Hunter Walkers, are fish-like anti-personnel creatures with sparkling Cambridge blue scales, a bluish-white belly, an oval-shaped body, and four spidery legs. They have a single cyclopean blue-grey eye in the centre of their body, just below their large mouth, which is infested with crooked, carnivorous teeth. When on the ground, they spit out slimy purple bubbles containing extreme toxins that cause severe burns upon impact. When on the ceiling, they drop their eye down towards their enemies, which then explodes into a blast of corrosive acid once it has landed, and their eye regenerates at an unnatural rate after this attack.

The Pnidlathrov, also known as the Mutated Hunter Walkers, are larger versions of their smaller counterparts, possessing thick skin that renders them impervious to any weapon, except for their weak point: their cyclopean bluish-purple eye. Their Cambridge blue scales have a silver-grey sheen, and they possess two new abilities: rapidly spitting out flying greenish-white meteorite bombs and summoning Invader troops as backup for support.

The Wyovanis, also known as the Smashers, are crab-like creatures with a brick red exoskeleton, a single daffodil-hued eye, four coppery legs covered in prickly burgundy hairs at the joints, and a chubby orangish-white belly with light grey spots. They fly by spinning their legs like helicopter rotors and attack by inflating their body, hardening their skin, and crushing their target with immense force, capable of breaking bone.

The Ghaprylomi, also known as the Space Mole Crickets, are earth-burrowing, anthropoid-like creatures that once belonged to an unknown alien race that inhabited Mercury. Having been integrated into Invader technology, they now play a vital role in facilitating planetary terraforming. They have a shiny, centipede-like dark grey shell that's semi-soft, a cyclopean ruby crystal eye for illumination and enemy detection, and gilded, spoon-shaped pincers for digging. When an enemy is spotted, they charge their body, glowing yellowish-white, and then rush at the enemy, exploding into a blast of fire and poisonous gas. Despite their limited armour, they are incredibly mobile and agile.

The Crynkhogu, also known as the Crab Tanks, are organic, crab-like duck teal weapon tanks with purplish-white bellies, silvery two industrial tubes protruding from their sides, eight spider-like legs that terminate in bony, three-fingered hands, and a glowing sky blue crystal eye. They're capable of firing sea purple bolts of electricity from the tubular nodules on their head. When opening their turquoise-flecked carapace, they can release shiny, bouncing balls of boiling azure blue blood that separate into three smaller bubbles. Additionally, they can jump to dodge enemy attacks and release a yellowish-green poisonous gas from their two silvery nodules when their electricity is charging for a couple of minutes.

The Vadiphoz, also known as the Vanguards, are modified sage green Crab Tanks, featuring a flexible, thick dark blue spinal cord connecting the head to the body, two gilded industrial tubes on their sides, a glowing violet crystal eye, and yellowish-white bellies and tentacles. These two tentacles are positioned atop their carapace, each ending in a built-in laser gun tipped with a violet crystal. They can fire circular greenish-white lasers from these guns and huge, spinning oval-shaped blasts from their cyclopean eye.

The Zodematikhus, also known as the Invader UFOs, are uniquely shaped aircraft composed of silver-coated flesh, crewed by Invader Drones, and offer minimal armour protection. Grub Invaders pilot UFOs that feature a single encircling rusty orange stripe above a glowing crimson half-sphere, capable of shooting slow-moving reddish-white plasma balls. Ravenous Invaders pilot UFOs that display two encircling light cyan stripes above a glowing lavender half-sphere, firing medium-speed purplish-white plasma balls. Elite Invader pilot UFOs that boast three encircling emerald-hued stripes above a glowing hot pink half-sphere, shooting fast-moving pinkish-white plasma balls.

The Faloxurvi, also known as the Flying Cores, are gravitational cores that unleash a rapid barrage of green plasma bullets with swift precision. They also possess telekinetic abilities, allowing them to lift and hurl surrounding large objects at their enemies. When enraged, the lime green glow of the crystals transforms to a red-orange, and the Flying Core begins to discharge intense blasts of electric fire.

The Telunohka, also known as the Flying Shelts, are colossal, brain-like flying entities adorned with jade-hued crystals that pulsate with a vibrant lime green glow. They’re capable of launching fiery meteors from four eye-like hatches and executing suicide dives on enemy targets. The hatches are composed of steel-coated fleshy tissues, while the main body is constructed from virtually indestructible adamant.

The Kydathriom, also known as the Brain Robot, is a mechanical entity formerly belonging to the Martians, who referred to it as Peparhuvi. Now, it experiences sorrow due to its isolation from other Invaders. It deeply misses the Martians, who treated it with genuine respect. Its creators hold it in high esteem for being a successful commander of the Ring Laser Mechas. Although it could easily disobey the Invaders, it actively chooses not to, fearing it would be reduced to scrap and have its programming completely rewritten to serve future invasions. When enraged, it exhibits a characteristic behaviour of stomping the ground and wildly flailing its arms.

This robot is controlled by an artificial greyish-green brain, meticulously stored within a crystalline glass dome filled with an orangish liquid for protection and preservation. The brain features metallic blue eyes grotesquely fused to its underside via branching white nerves. Utilising its brainpower, the robot can launch homing electric balls and, upon crouching, release a wave of electricity. Additionally, its mechanical claws enable it to crush, lift, and toss objects with precision.

Goals and beliefs

Their main goal is to assimilate all life forms throughout the universe into their empire, enhancing their prospects for survival, military prowess, technological advancement, and collective intellectual expertise until their eventual extinction. The Invaders are resolute in their determination to exterminate the Martians, assimilating their advanced technology and documentation of their expertise into their own culture. They also desire to exploit their corpses for sustenance and transformation into super soldiers, rendering their army nearly indestructible.

They’re staunch colonisers, believing it’s their divine duty to subjugate other races through conquest, cultural assimilation, and physical absorption. As a militaristic society, they place a heavy emphasis on developing strong militant capabilities through technological advancements and rigorous training, pushing the boundaries of both mind and physical body. Furthermore, they believe in utilising their military prowess aggressively to expand their empire and satiate their insatiable need for conquest.

They view themselves as the superior species, believing they should be the only ones to exist in the universe. They regard other life forms as unworthy of existence and utterly pathetic, needing to be assimilated to serve the Invaders’ perceived greatness. Surprisingly, the only life forms they hold in immense respect are the Monoeyes, whom they view as divine heralds of the deities and the lost Tuatha Dé Danann race. In contrast, they deeply despise the Martians, resenting their frequent successes against their conquests as well as their relatively peaceful nature and sustainable approach to resource management.

They believe in the necessity of constant expansion and conquest to ensure their basic survival and dominance. They glorify violence and sexual intercourse, viewing them as interconnected with their subjugation of other species and the exploitation of resources to expand their empire. Invaders think that bloodshed is necessary for psychological satisfaction and the improvement of predatory instincts and physical strength. They hold the Invader King as the ultimate source of life and unity for their society, performing violent bloodsports and sacrifices in his name.

They believe themselves to be part of a vast, cosmic network in which all deities, including the Invader King, guide their fates and destinies through the principles they represent. Additionally, they believe these deities facilitate the advent of a new era, marked by a technological and biological singularity. Furthermore, they believe in the eternal cycle of destruction and rebirth where chaos and devastation pave the way for new life and evolution. Invaders see their conquests and wars as necessary catalysts for this cycle, bringing about transformative renewal from the ashes of what they have deliberately destroyed.

[ozbian]

For reference, Ludinus' final words, Matt's description and Brennan's narration during The Nox Engine, right before the memories started playing

Welcome. Welcome to the Occultus Thalamus.

The high mages of the Age of Arcanum were the greatest minds of Exandrian history. The call to innovation created great societies of ingenuity, ambition and endless potential.

Using the gifts of the gods bestowed upon them, they began to unravel the great secrets of the universe. Prideful, perhaps, but beautiful.

And they feared it.

Once the child becomes the parent, often those in power can grow resentful, and they did.

And when more came crawling around, a war of omnipotent children bickering, these brilliant minds had to adapt, focus to implements of war beyond just implements of progress.

When the divine threatens your families, your children, the very future of life as you know it, they reveal themselves as the enemy.

I saw it. I was there in the final days of the Calamity. I watched mountains brought to dust, whole country set aflame, the tantrums of the gods wantonly murdering and massacring the majority of all civilization on Exandria.

When the dust had settled and their rivalry paused, the few of us that survived wallowed in the dust and ash and spent centuries trying to rebuild from what scraps we could find, while they vanished beyond their gate to protect us, or perhaps to hide from us once they saw what was capable.

I survived, watched as a child, acknowledged what they wrought as they fled to the mystical hideaways.

This world has been manipulated, duped in its opinion, its understanding of divinity. For those that write the history books are those in power and there is no power higher than them.

There's a reason they fear me.

Some of it's Predathos, yes, but I found something equally important here. Sometimes the most important weapon is information. And these mageocracies in many places had ways of recording things, knowledge, history, some lost to time, but Aeor created the Thalamus, a device that recorded the spiritual memory of all in the city, including those that brought it low.

I've spent a day or so studying this and I found something, something I think you want to see."

He reaches over to the cracked central dome and places his hands near it, and as it does, (cracking) begins to open up, mist (spurting) billows out and you watch as this light green orb emerges, an endlessly fractal network of threads of Arcane power, layered upon themselves over and over again, and it drifts beyond them.

Within here lies the memories of Aeor, fractured, but enough.

And what I will show you, I will show the rest of Exandria."

As he changes the hold on the sides of his hands, the orb begins to spin rapidly, whirs loudly. (spinning) It begins to brighten.

This light begins to burst and pulse. (light expanding)

All of you feel instinctively like you have to recoil as entirely the very space around you is filled with light.

Your spirit is filled with light. Your mind is filled with light. All there is is light.

LIGHT.

[theboarsbride]

Writeblr Introduction📚

Hey, hi, howdy! The name's Josephine, but feel free to call me Jojo (pronouns are she/her), your local monster enthusiast and DILF Collector!

My art and writing updates I post a lot on my social media accounts, which are as follows:

Instagram: jojo.writing.art

Twitter: JojoPenguin_Art

TikTok: jojo.penguin.writes

Discord: Jojo the Rad Penguin#3942

Tumblr: my DMs and ask box are always open!💛

I am ALWAYS down for chatting with and meeting other writers, and engaging with others’ content!! The primary genres I work with are:

- Horror (in varying genres, but primarily Gothic) - Paranormal - Monster Romance (I'm aroace as hell, so expect all my romances to be pretty 'clean' - AKA no erotica to be found here!) - Historical Fiction - Light Fantasy

If any of these genres interest you, feel free to keep on reading about my WIPs below the cut! Now about my general writing style...

Most of the stories I write are inspired by two things: fairytales and horror. A majority of my WIPs are either directly inspired or loosely based on some fairytale, folklore, or myth, and most are part of some genre of horror, whether it be Gothic, psychological, folk, survival, or supernatural. Also a lot of my writing influence comes from authors like Angela Carter, Sarah Waters, Caitlin Starling, Shirley Jackson, and Robin McKinley.

A list of my WIPs are below the cut!

Ghosts Plague These Halls || Novel || Gothic Romance + Historical (1890s) + Paranormal + Gothic Horror + Fairytale Retelling (Beauty and the Beast + Eros and Psyche) || 3rd Draft Edits + My Main WIP

Comp: Crimson Peak + The Bloody Chamber + La Belle et la Bete/Panna a Netvor

Whitechapel, London 1894.  Sophie Wickes and her family struggle to survive, melancholy eats away at her father more and more with each passing day, and her passion for cultivating flowers procures no income. She must swallow her pride and set aside her hatred for England’s aristocracy when she’s offered a chance of employment by the reclusive Lord Edgar Cushing to tend the gardens of his Rosenthorne Hall. However, the estate, its gardens, and their master is nothing what Sophie expected. The house? Rotting, dilapidated, hideous. The gardens? The husk of something alive, whimsical, and beautiful. The master? Faceless, nothing more than a voice from the shadows. Despite her fear and anger, Sophie becomes enthralled by the garden’s potential for mystic, untainted beauty, and she develops a close friendship with Lord Cushing, even though he is nothing but a mere whisper of darkness that pleads for her to never seek him out. However, whatever enchantment the gardens and Lord Cushing’s voice bring her shatters as she begins to receive nightly visitations from a crooked-jawed phantom and butterflies who’s wings whisper of a bloody past and the truth behind the faceless lord's gentlemanly masquerade.

Temperance and Mr. Wyrm || Novella || Body Horror + (Monster) Romance + Drama + Magical Realism + Historical (1980s) + Fairytale Retelling (King Lindworm) || 2nd Draft edits

Comp: The Fly... but make it snakes.

In a loose (and bloody) retelling of the King Lindworm folktale set against the backdrop of 1980s Milwaukee, two people try to navigate their unorthodox romance while an arcane, snake-like infection afflicts, and starts to change, one of them. Temperance Cavell, a six-foot tall woman living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, lives a quiet, unexciting, and demure existence running a convenience store with her mother. But despite her mother's overbearing nature, the nonstop caring of her ailing grandmother, and her near-nonexistent social life, she cannot complain. This life is quiet, she’s (somewhat) in control, and nothing is unexpected… That is until Jack Turner, the motorcycle-riding kleptomaniac with a heart of gold, bursts into her store one Saturday afternoon, and between them a romance reluctantly blooms. But such love is swiftly threatened to shatter when Jack’s body begins to betray him, contorting him into something that is completely, and utterly, non-human.

The Bones We Haunt || Novella || Gothic Horror + Historical Fiction + Period Drama + Romance || 1st Draft + A.K.A the WIP inspired byJojo simping for Ciarán Hinds

Comp: Jane Eyre + Bluebeard's Bride + The Death of Jane Lawrence + Mexican Gothic

November, 1899. While on holiday in Cambridge and attending museum lectures with her mother, Jane Sterling seeks to make this her chance to officially pursue her love of paleontology. While her family encourages the pursuit of passions and challenging rigid social norms, the institutes in place hinder her passion, making her resort to dressing brightly and speaking loudly for attention. Jane's chance comes to reveal itself in the form of the wealthy and reclusive Sir Terence Hayes, who’s come in search for her father, the esteemed paleobotonist Dr. Samson Sterling, to appraise fossils found in his garden. Her mother eagerly volunteers Jane to go in Dr. Sterling’s place as he remains ill in America, and Terence brings her to his isolated family's estate in the vast, deep, muddy marshes of Wolf’s Run. And the land is shrouded in urban legends. There are whispers of 'The Wolf's Run Beast,' the 'Monster of the Marshes,' that haunts the land under the cover of night, and as Terence leaves Jane to her work he is hell-bent that she's to return to Cambridge before nightfall. However, freak storms rage, causing the marshes' waters to rise and wash out the roads in flash floods before Jane has a chance to return, leaving her stranded at Wolf’s Run - and at the mercy of all that lurks there. As night looms, the staff hastily depart, an eerie silence falls, Terence forbids her from even coming near the cellar, and, most importantly, he warns her against leaving her room before dawn. All is merely a strange act to Jane, brushing it off as the eccentricities of an Englishman, until something comes scratching at her door, hungering for her blood. What started as a mere chance at becoming known swiftly becomes a tumultuous game of blood, teeth, survival, love, and salvation - and Jane must prepare to sharpen teeth of her own if she's to survive the horrors of the Wolf's Run marshes.

Upon Her Bloody Horn || Novel || Dark Fantasy + Political Fantasy + Romance || 1st Draft (incomplete) + A.K.A. The WIP inspired by Jojo simping for Crispin Glover

Comp: The Last Unicorn meets Legend (1985) meets Elizabethan history

A unicorn takes on a human disguise to enact revenge against those who have hunted her kind to extinction, only to find herself caught in the middle of bloody kingdom politics and allured by the one-eyed hunter with whom she has a violent history with.

She Wears the Face of a Polar Bear || Novella || Psychological Horror + Historical Horror + Survival Horror + Arctic Gothic || Developing (A.K.A the WIP inspired by Jojo simping for Ciarán Hinds as Sir John Franklin in AMC's The Terror)

Comp: The Terror meets Crimson Peak

Whilst trapped in the deadly ices of the Arctic, a British naval captain heading an expedition is haunted by visions of his wife, only she's the head of a great white bear and comes to be his greatest nightmare - and she hungers for his fear.

Dragon-Plague || Novel || Medieval Horror/Fantasy + Adventure + Body Horror || First Draft + NaNoWriMo 2024 Project

Comp: Bloodborne + Blasphemous + DnD + Between Two Fires

A plague doctor, a gentle ex-knight, a runaway lady, and a thieving nun cross a land ravaged by a devastating disease that turns people into uncanny dragon-human hybrids to find, and destroy, the origins of the arcane plague.

Those Red Nights || Novel || Crime thriller + Psychological Horror + Neo-Noir + Urban Fantasy + Werewolf Horror + Historical (1990s) + Fairytale Retelling (Little Red Riding Hood) || On Hiatus + A.K.A. the WIP inspired by Jojo simping for Bob Odenkirk

Comp: The Silence of the Lambs + Se7en + Gargoyles

Selene Radcliffe is a young freshly-graduated detective, having spent long hours and many sleepless nights researching, studying, and looking through cold case files in an effort to prove herself as skilled of a private investigator as her late father, the renowned and well-respected Det. Arthur Radcliffe. However, she is a woman in a predominately male profession, a woman without a voice–literally and figuratively–and she wants to make a name for herself without relying on whatever legacy her father left behind. When the presence of a serial killer who the media has named “The Big Bad Wolf” on account of the strange, animalistic nature of his murders that occur on the nights of a full moon begin to plague the streets of Milwaukee, Selene sees this as her opportunity to prove herself and her skills to her peers, and she tasks herself and her partner Det. Apollo Esposito to hunt him down.  But it swiftly becomes apparent that the man they are hunting is no man, and may instead be a dreaded creature of folklore–one that is now keen on hunting them down in a blood-red game of cat and mouse…

The Faeries and the Lark || Novel || Dark/Gothic High Fantasy + Sapphic + Adventure + Fairytale/Folklore Retelling (East of the Sun, West of the Moon + Sleeping Beauty + Scandinavian Folklore) || Development + On-Hiatus

Loosely based on the fairytales Sleeping Beauty and East of the Sun, West of the Moon, as well as Scandinavian folklore, The Faeries and The Lark follows three faeries–spirits of nature–raising a human child they’ve named Lark, the princess of a sun-worshipping kingdom wiped out by a subterranean society of trolls. The faeries devote their lives to protecting Lark from the worlds of man by raising her to believe she’s one of the fae, and to keep her deep in the forest so that she can remain hidden from the trolls that restlessly hunt for the princess that escaped their massacre. But everything the three faeries worked hard for is put to the test when Lark encounters a human named Sigrid, the toughened, sword-wielding chancellor’s daughter from a neighboring moon-worshipping kingdom that’s threatened to be swallowed by the fairies’ forest, and every aspect of her life as she’d known them threaten to crumble around her.

And these are my WIPs!!!!! I hope one of some of them have caught your eye, and that you stick around to see where these all go!! To know more about some of these WIPs, I've their tags down below!

Thanks so much for reading!!💛🐧

[most-tragic-character-tournament]

To tide y’all over until the bracket is finished, here’s a list of every fandom in the tournament! Sorted by when each got its first submission.

It takes time to make the bracket cuz I gotta arrange all of these to be at least semi-equal in popularity to each other, and then make all the edited photos. I’ve been rather busy lately, but it should be up by tomorrow night :)

Minecraft Diaries

The Outsiders

God of War

Ace Attorney

Bungou Stray Dogs

Murdoch Mysteries

Yu-Gi-Oh!

The Raven Cycle

Lego Star Wars

Sanders Sides

Kamen Rider

Castle Swimmer

QSMP

The Magnus Archives

Lego Ninjago

FNAF

Half Life VR But The AI Is Self-Aware

Pokémon

DC Comics

Critical Role

Romeo & Juliet

Macbeth

Witch Hat Atelier

Final Fantasy

One Piece

Warrior Cats

Sonic

Chicory: A Colorful Tale

Trigun Stampede

The Owl House

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Fallout: New Vegas

MCU

Arthuriana

Tokyo Ghoul

Total Drama Island

Nimona

The Cable Guy

Paranatural

Marble Hornets

Marvel Comics

The Umbrella Academy

Life Series SMP

Fire Emblem

Julie and the Phantoms

Persona 5

Star Wars

Young Justice

Fullmetal Alchemist

Hamlet

The Shadowhunter Chronicles

The Young and the Restless

The Untamed // Mo Dao Zu Shi

Cooking Companions

Demon Slayer

John Wick

Pit People

Battleblock Theater

Star Trek

LittleBigPlanet 2

KinnPorsche

Midnight Museum

The Witcher

Teen Wolf

Beast Wars: Transformers

Lost

The Stormlight Archive

The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

The Arcana

Jujutsu Kaisen

Ultraman Nexus

Antigone

Angel

Revolutionary Girl Utena

Edward Scissorhands

The Mechanisms

91 Days

Assassination Classroom

Death Note

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Pluto

Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

Bokura

Mabinogi

Battle for Dream Island

Leverage

Twisted Wonderland

The Iliad

Call of Duty

Tangled: The Series

Team Fortress 2

The Goes Wrong Universe

Harry Potter

Bendy and the Ink Machine

DSMP

Live A Live

Real Life

Stranger Things

Malevolent

Red Dead Redemption 2

Ib (2012)

Spies Are Forever

Madoka Magica

Magia Record

My Hero Academia

Ravenous (1999)

Lifesteal SMP S4

Outsiders SMP

Phineas and Ferb

Empires SMP

Ruse of the TMNT

Origins SMP

Frankenstein

The Otterverse RP

GenLoss

Woe.begone

Danganronpa

Witch’s Heart

Project Sekai

The Silmarillion

The Lord of the Rings

Spider-Verse

Helluva Boss

Greek Myth

Percy Jackson

Limbus Company

Rain World

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Homestuck

Markiplier

Mob Psycho 100

Lord of the Flies

Good Omens

Word of Honor

Just Roll With It

Subnautica

Witchcraft SMP

Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun

Realm of the Underlings

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint

Clangen

Hadestown

Rats SMP

Steven Universe

The Hunger Games

Fate Grand Order

Arcane

Everymanhybrid

Nashville

Welcome to Dreamworld

The Dolls of New Albion

Pact Web Series

Brandon Rogers

Ghost Quartet

The Dragon Prince

Steam-Powered Giraffe

Six of Crows

Torchwood

Deltarune

Bojack Horseman

Epithet Erased

Steins;Gate

Casualty

Tale of the Nine Tailed

Cookie Run

Succession

Purple Hyacinth

The Wicked + The Divine

Outer Wilds

Carnosaur

Miraculous Ladybug

Transformers Comics

Legend of Zelda

Breaking Bad

Devil May Cry

Castlevania

Dragon Age

Smallville

RWBY

Undertale

The Locked Tomb

Mystic Messenger

Black Butler

Interview With a Vampire

Death By Dying

Higurashi When They Cry

Transformers Animated

Pirates SMP

All The Bright Places

Chulip

Ride the Cyclone

Grey’s Anatomy

Empire of Exiles

Octopath Traveler 2

Hello from the Hallowoods

The Burning Sands of Ma’ssob RP

[falleri-salvatore]

RWBY Headcannon:  Should Magic return

Ruby would become Light and Death incarnate (think a mix of Xion’s and Marluxia’s battle styles from KH3 Data Battles). Weiss would possess an obscene amount of affinity for every kind of elemental magic there is, and almost every non-elemental magic as well; which, when coupled with Weiss’ outright encyclopedic knowledge of Dust, Physics, Chemistry and Magical Theory; and all of that topped by pinpoint peerless control of every single unit of magic spent means that Weiss would become the Archmage to end all Archmages.

Blake would go full Umbramancer. EDIT: Yang’s magic can actually enhance the range and potency of her shadow magic by deepening and widening the shadows in a battefield/place (via Yang enhancing the intensity of sunlight).

Yang’s magic would be basically be the same as FGO!Gawain and NnT!Escanor, being able banish storms, enhance the intensity of sunlight, and growing stronger from the sun the closer to noon it gets (she would also be Nora’s hard counter, just as Nora would be hers). Jaune would have the potential to become an even more absurd Archmage than Weiss (in terms of sheer raw power and in terms of complete and utter affinity to any type of magic. However; in terms of knowledge, skill and mastery Weiss still reigns supreme). However, because Jaune is a paladin who behaves like a black knight who thinks himself a black knight but lives by the code of a paladin; Jaune would instead become an unrivalled master of buff, debuff and utility spells (which turn out to be more bullshit when compared to elemental bombardment spells when properly used). Nora goes full Thor and will gain the power to summon storms and call down rain, hail and lightning at will (she would also be Yang’s hard counter, just as Yang would be hers).

Oscar Pine inherits/regains Ozma’s Full Magic as well the magic that would belong to him as an individual (all Ozcarnations, should magic still have existed, would have had access the Ozma’s magic collectively but their own unique magic individually).

Ren would be a more esoteric type of mage that is as knowledgeable about magic as Weiss, but instead would focus on the mysticism of it instead of the theoretical applications. EDIT: Bonus entry Pyrrha Nikos (may she rest peacefully) would, like Jaune, possesses a strong affinity for any and all type of magic, though nowhere close as absurd. She would also have more raw power than Weiss, but again; nowhere near as as close to Jaune. On the other hand, she would be very well-versed in Dust, Physics, Chemistry, Magical Theory (like Weiss) and even Arcane Lore (like Ren), though nowhere as close as Weiss (or Ren). Her magic control is already considered exceptional, Pyrrha’s magic control efficiency being at a startling 94% (breaking the 90% threshold is actually considered mind-boggling, since magic, by definition, is a foreign power source that, while strong and plentiful, tends to constantly fight being controlled unlike one’s own Aura); however, she still falls short (heh!) to Weiss, AKA: the freak of nature who has achieved a 100% control rate through sheer stubborn will sublime skill. (For those curious, Ruby has an MC rating of 90, Blake is 84, Yang is 78, Jaune is 90, Nora is 78, Oscar is 94, and Ren is 89.) Pyrrha’s personal magic is Clairvoyance; it allows her to observe, analyze, dissect, and even learn the enemy magic and combat styles in just one glance (and since she has a high affinity for all non-exclusive magic, this is made even easier). It also grants her the ability to see the future from up to five seconds; making her aware of her opponent’s movements before they themselves are even aware. Clairvoyance also grants her the ability to see visions of the future in her dreams, though these tend to happen randomly, without context most of the time, and she can’t control when they happen.