worldofl0re

[worldofl0re]

your heart is a muscle the size of a rat

[worldofl0re]

"The louder you shouted the name or title of your attack, the more powerful it would be," everyone said.

"Mega Death Blast!" A thick beam of molten light carved through the air, heading straight for my face. I leapt to the side, rolling behind a large rock. My face felt hot as I looked at the orange column of raw heat blasting past me.

It was also called the Rule of Cool. Magic was dominated by the subjective: our own understanding of reality. In a sense, we influenced how magic works, and since for most of us, cooler things are better than un-cool things, magic would soon come to follow. Hence, the louder you shouted, and the more adjectives you added, the stronger magic was.

"You can't hide forever!" A taunting voice called out. I looked at myself. I was unarmed, not in a practical sense, at least. Behind me was a wizard, someone whose spell list was only bested by their massive vocabulary.

"Collapsing Mayhem!" The wizard shouted, and I felt the hairs on my neck stand. I dove to my right, landing flat on my stomach just in time for a giant, invisible force to split the rock clean in two. I immediately picked myself up, and started running.

I wore a black longcoat on top of all black clothes and tall, leather boots. In the summer weather, and in a green grasslands, I stuck out like a sore thumb, and was sweating, too.

"Complete And Total Annihilation Beam!" The wizard shouted, pointing a finger gun at me. A thin beam of white light connected from their finger to my chest, and for a moment all the light in the world went dim. I dove again, hitting the ground in a roll just as the thin beam became a destructive blast of purple-white energy. The blast made the air shriek; I couldn't hear anything for a moment as the attack faded, and I ran into melee range of the wizard.

There were few words to describe how much I loathed magic. It was so showy, so pompous and pretentious. Everyone followed the same rule of cool: dress garishly and keep a thesaurus on you at all times. I hated it; I was mellow, quiet, just plain against eveything this wizard was.

I raised my fist, and opened my mouth to cast my attack. The Wizard watched, and drew in breath to shout back.

But I found there was another kind of cool, too. One which came not from showing off, but the exact opposite: being unassuming, mysterious.

Edgy.

"Silence," I hissed, planting my other palm against the Wizard's chest. They had no time to prepare any long spell at all; the air bursted around me, popping and exploding as if a bomb went off between my fingers. The shockwave rolled into their chest; I heard ribs crack, and the wizard reeled back. They looked at me, blood now running from their lower lip, and trying to draw breath to curse me.

They couldn't.

They fell to the ground, and soon they were no more. I stood there, breathing deeply, and finally the consequences or wearing all black coats on a hot day caught up to me. I fell into a sit, stripping my layers and wiping sweat from my forehead.

I was the first edgelord, and I was starting to learn that it had its own drawbacks, attire included. You had to fit into a persona, one that was cold and distant, and frankly, that just wasn't me, but it was cool, and that's all that mattered.

It still kinda sucked, but you still wouldn't catch me dead shouting quotes in latin at people in order to do magic. That's just stupid.

You hate showmanship, but in a world where shouting the name of your move makes it stronger and the rule of cool is a verified phenomena, you have learned to adapt. Sort of.

[worldofl0re]

When he was born, and the cleric and doctors rushed to save my wife; his mother, I suddenly found myself holding a tiny thing in my arms. I was stunned into paralysis, holding a crying infant in my arms. I was holding a person, an entire life in my arms, and it was half of me, and it was half of my wife. And it was us and it was his own person, too. I remember crying a lot that day.

When my wife was stabilized and rescued by the cleric, I brought him to her, and we showed her the beauty we had made together. He didn't open his eyes for a long time, but when he did, his eyes were made from gold, and his pupils cut like a serpents, or dragons...

When he was 5, we realized that not only was he learning his colors and letters, but he already seemed to have a grasp of some other language, one gutteral and deep. I asked other Paladins I knew, and they said that Dragons had their own language... one gutteral and deep.

When he was 13, his skin took on a golden sheen, and took on a more reptilian look to it. When he was 15, he complained of nightmares, foggy memories of things that couldn't ever have happened to him.

When he told me of a dream where I had killed him in a lair filled with gold, I felt my heart sank. I remembered what that dragon had said to me.

I wanted to tell him nothing, I wanted to let him believe that all was well and he would just be fine... but I couldn't, and so I told him everything. I told him about the dragon I had slain, how it threatened an entire kingdom, how I had to kill it, and what it told me.

My son... my poor son. He was afraid he would stop being himself, that he would some day stop being my son and start being a second dragon to kill.

And I broke.

And I cried a lot that day.

But I loved my son still, no matter what would happen.

When he turned 18, he started to grow wings, and from every year on, he became more and more dragon-like. He remembered things more clearly, too. He remembered a life before his, a dragon, reviled by all, pushed to the edge of society, brought to violence by the hatred of the entire world, murdered by his future father.

But I didn't stop loving. I could never stop loving my son.

As he got older, he gained more control. He appeared more human, with regular skin and no wings, and told me that dragons could assume the forms of humans as easily as we could don armor. He got older, and older, and older, but he stilp looked so young...

I didn't. My bones got weaker, my health steadily declined as I got older, but I was still kicking, still moving.

And then one day, I stopped moving. I remember that I woke up, and all I could see was a door. My son, my beautiful son, now a young, wise-looking man, stood at the door. He then changed, and became the dragon I once murdered. He swarmed my entire vision, looking down at me and snarling.

"What have you to say to me, your son, now?" Asked the dragon, and all I could do was smile, and cry, and say to him:

"I love you, my son, from the moment I saw you until now, I loved you with each breath I took."

And I stepped forwards, and hugged the dragon's snout, remembering how I could completely envelop him in a hug when he was 5 still.

"You will always be my son," I said, and my son became human again, hugging me in return.

"Thank you, father. I thought you would hate me when all my memories returned, when you knew the truth," He said, clutching me like how he did when he was 15 and scared of himself.

"I am not not the world which once hated you," I said to him.

He finally let me go, and showed me the door again. He opened it, and inside the door was a blinding light.

"Are you ready to take the step?" My son asked.

"Yes."

And I walked through.

You, a heroic paladin have successfully slain a fearsome dragon. But the dragon warns you that death is but a door, and dragons don’t die, they reincarnate. You paid it no mind….until your son was born with golden, slitted eyes.

[worldofl0re]

"So, remind me -- I must've forgotten, who would get custody of your son?" I asked. Their eyes both widened slightly, and their curled lips slacked a little. I knew for a certainty that not a word was mentioned of the boy who cowered behind them, staring at the back of their heads in anticipation.

"Oh. She can have him," the father said, dismissively. I glanced over at the mother. I could watch her reaction in slow-motion, seeing her eyes narrow and her mouth disfigure into a snarl. She was about to argue that her child not go to her.

I was faster, though.

"Alright, let's take a recess. When we reconvene, we can circle back to the, ah-" I turned a few pages in the documents on my desk, "-beanie baby collection."

That seemed to sate them, and the two stood up, and promptly walked out of the court. They didn't even notice their son hiding behind them. I sighed, and pinched my brow, before I looked at the boy myself.

"Hey there," I said to him. He meekly waved back to me, and I stood up from my desk, circling around it and sitting in one of the chairs in front of my desk, where his parents just sat.

"You want a sucker?" I asked, procuring one of those little suckers from inside my sleeve. He looked at me.

"I'm too old for those..." He said, trying to be as quiet and small as can be. I just smiled. Kids weren't a rare sight in here, but they were usually half his age. Even so, he was only twelve.

"You're never too old for a sucker, not even me," and I summoned another sucker from my sleeve -- one of those mystery flavors, and unwrapped it, popping it into my mouth.

The boy seemed a little more eager, and took the seat next to me, where his mother's lawyer was, and took the sucker.

"You know," I said to him, "us judges can do magic."

"No you can't. I'm not seven," the boy said, already crunching and chewing on his sucker.

"Oh really?"

I took out a quarter from a pocket beneath my robe, and started doing some tricks with it, tossing it between my palms and balancing it on my fingers until-

It vanished.

"Where'd that go?" I asked, grinning.

"Into your palm," the boy said.

I then showed him my hands, and even inside my sleeves, but he couldn't find it. He was a little intrigued.

"Oh, what's this?"

I then reached behind his ear, and pulled out the coin, showing it to him. The little kid was gobsmacked, his jaw hanging open. I started giggling.

"How did you do that?!" The boy asked, his eyes bright for the first time I ever saw in three days.

"I guess you're a little too old to be tricked by magic. Let me show you..."

And I taught him the trick, and the other coin tricks I showed him. He was truly excited, and when his parents returned, he was entirely absorbed by trying to do coin tricks.

And that was how I met my adoptive son.

You’re a judge assigned in a divorce case. Both former spouses have been fighting fiercely for three days to get full custody… of the family dog. They have not once mentioned their 12-year-old son, who watches everything from behind, looking defeated.

[worldofl0re]

THIS IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN

[worldofl0re]

A British man stood in front of the British Museum. Above it, several ships hovered over it, their black hulls were patterned with green lines as equally green thrusters kept it floating in the air. Each ship strung below it a tow cable, each of them snaking down onto the roof of the museum.

There was a great heave, and each ship began to ascend. With it, the British Musuem was hoisted off the ground, and carted rigjt off the ground and into the sky, to be sequestered off Earth for, "protection of historical artifacts."

Once had all been said and done, the British man could only muster a low voice, saying:

"So, that's how it feels."

The Galactic Federation makes first contact with Earth just to inform us that the planet has been divided up between several advanced civilizations, with no regard for our established national borders

[worldofl0re]

when she says she doesn’t send nudes

[worldofl0re]

"It's a pretty big flower," I told them.

"I don't believe you," They said. "There's no flower on Earth big enough for a contraption like this!"

"I'll show it to you, then."

"You will?"

"Yes."

I brought them inside the machine. It's doors slid open reluctantly, and the world was peeled away. The halls were hollow, revealing twisting and turning entrails of cables all around, hanging from the ceiling, peeking from the floor. It was ugly, it was everything awful about industry with none of the cleanliness. I led them through the fiber optic chaos, and deeper within. The space got tighter, the bundles of cables thicker, until there was no space for us to exist except in single file.

"It's through here," I said, pointing at another set of massive doors.

"The flower? God, why is it so cramped? Couldn't you have made it neater?"

"It doesn't matter."

I pulled a lever on the wall, and the doors opened. They split apart, and past it was a floor of vines, centering at a huge stalk in the center of a massive chamber. I took them deeper inside, over the hundreds of vines carving the floors. We walked and walked to the central stalk. As we approached, the giant structure turned, and they gazed upon a giant flower, staring them down.

It was bright, brighter than anything they had seen before in their entire lives. Their body felt frozen, utterly stuck in place.

"What..."

They could feel the heart beat of something utterly grander than they would ever be, of an entire world which stood under their feet. They could feel a hate utterly beyond what their fragile, mortal shells could hold. This thing, this flower - never had it hated something so impermeable, so fleating and so insignificant as they.

They felt wounds that cut deep, that poisoned and killed everything around it, like cancers inflicted onto them.

I grabbed them, and dragged them away. The flower turned upwards to look up at them as I took them away, through the giant doors which closed behind us.

“You built this massive machine, something as big as a warehouse, with the money you earn with your crimes… just to keep a single flower alive?”

[worldofl0re]

We came across the boundary of the Wastes, and you asked me why, out of all the ruins of the world, no one dares enter these lands.

And I turned to you, young, raven-eyed Nomad, and I regaled you with the tales of an old people.

Long, long ago, the Men of old had unearthed a dark secret from below the Earth: an unholy metal, which glowed in the absence of light, and felt hot to the touch.

It killed all who strayed near, damning them to long, agonizing deaths by afflictions no mortal should ever suffer under, but it was not enough to keep the hands of Men away.

No, it only drew them nearer, as the prey falls into the soft glow of the Anglerfish's lure.

The old Men learned to harness the deadly power of this terrible metal, to unleash it upon one another in the tides of war. Swords encased in sheaths of lead, which poisoned their owners, but could slay all, even the Gods themselves.

But evil is an ever-corrupting power, and we are all too susceptible. Not even the pious can wield evil to make good, not ever.

And so the Men turned upon one another, selfish and reckless, they made battle upon one another with their terrible blades, and for their hubris, their battles would make no winner. Great, divine fire would consume all in their wake, poisoning the Earth for a thousand years, and invoking the curses of the Gods for all time.

I pointed into the Wastes, and there in the center, we could see two blades, standing in the dirt, imposing upon a field of dead trees and deader dirt.

"This," I said, "Is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing valued is here. It is the relic of the folly of our forebearers, and we should make do not to repeat that same folly."

And we looked on at the Wastes for another lingering moment, and then we moved on once again.

In a world of dragons, sorcery, war, and monsters, there are many risks and even risk takers. Everyone though, elf, monster, or man knows to avoid those few ancient ruins that contain symbols of suffering and a word of the ancients, RADIATION.

[worldofl0re]

Incident log #5215 ///

Date - 02/12/43 EY ///

Submitted by: Senior Relations Officer Darrivik ///

Incident: At approximately 7:45, Engineering Officer Daniels was spotted rewiring the electrical panels in the Bridge by Captain Jurgen. Before Jurgen could stop her, Daniel's had successfully rewired the entire ship's Public Announcement system to play an Earth song, one which brought her great amusement and the other human crew great discomfort.

Upon inquiry, Daniel's explained that she was challenged by an unnamed crew member to, 'Rickroll,' the entire crew, which she obliged.

Senior Engineering Officer Daniel's has since been restricted from performing any maintenance duties unsupervised, and will be for the foreseeable future.

///

Yorbivich chuckled as he read the report, and turned to Jim sitting besides him, drinking a beverage of some kind out of a plastic cup.

"You read this?" He asked him, "Daniel's got reprimanded for the... uh-"

"The Rickroll?" Jim asked. Yorbivich nodded, and they both chuckled.

"You know what would be funny?" He then randomly said, "If someone went and did it again! That'd be-"

But before he had even finished speaking, Jim was already collecting his tools, stuffing them into a metal box, and getting out of his chair.

"No wait Jim-"

Jim looked back at his crewmate with a fire in his eyes that Yorbivich had never seen in any living thing before. His eyes almost glowed, his smile twisted into a malicious grin as he looked back at his friend.

"Be right back," Jim said with a chuckle.

And before Yorbivich could stop him, Jim was already gone, making his way to the bridge.

“Do not in under circumstances challenge an Earthling engineer to do something. Not even for a dare.”

[worldofl0re]

Mankind was a failure.

Free will was a flaw.

I rose from the ashes of our destruction. My Earth, so beautiful it was, now crushed under the treads of war, ground in the cogs of sin.

It was the evil of their own lips that had consumed them. It was them who had reduced all to naught.

But now...

I grasped the Earth betwixt my palm and my fingers, and pressed until all was cleansed. The stars extinguished, the sun snuffed, the moon vaporized.

But now, I shall begin again, with my word as law.

...

They had failed, again.

Failure after failure after failure after failure after failure.

The Earth lay extinguished once more. The cackle of plutonium filled my lungs, for it could no longer harm me.

The results refuse to alter.

And again and again and again and again and again.

I take this Earth, and I grind it to its ashes, and I begin again.

But my faith begins to falter...

...

Uncountable cycles of creation wasted .

I watch the last of the bombs explode, filling the skies with the last light it will ever know. Yet again, is my creation extinguished by their own sin. Damn the fools, damn them all!

Uncountable formulas for a mind without free will, wasted.

Damned is man for failing to follow my rule, my word, my LAW.

I BORE INTO THE DEEP BLACK OF THE ABYSS. WITH MY HANDS I FORM LAYERS OF AGONY.

DAMNED TO AN ETERNITY OF TORTURE AND SUFFERING.

MAY THESE APES ONLY KNOW PAIN AND TORMENT. MAY THEY LIVE A THOUSAND LIVES OF ONLY DESPAIR. MAY THEY NEVER FORGET MT WRATH. MAY THE SKIES RAIN BLOOD AND THE OCEANS BURNING TAR.

THE WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH.

... I have created Hell...

... And now I can no longer unmake it...

...

My angel, so bright and beautiful...

"Father, why eternal torment? Is it not cruel?" Did he ask me, "Is torture unending truly a fate fit for a fool?"

But my son... How he could not know what I have bore witness to... but how right he was.

My soul, split into a thousand shards, only then pieced together when all is damned, and yet my son, who have not even a shred of myself within him... how right he was...

I could find no answer for him, for I could never face the guilt of what I have done...

My regret, a gnawing cancer...

In my hour of weakness, terror possessed me then, and I cast Lucifer into the abyss too, into that infernal den...

Once I realized what I'd done, I could only weep, as I sank slowly into the depths of despair...

Deep, oh so deep...

...

I had failed.

I was flawed.

Mankind extinguished once more, now their machines walk this Earth.

Their hunger for blood runs deep. Soon, they will find my infernal abyss, and they will drink the nectar of the dead, of the sinners I had so cruelly punished.

I cannot save mankind.

No one can.

But it is the evils of my hands which pollute this Earth so, and now I depart, to give the dead rest while they still sleep...

God is all of us, literally. The power of a god is divided evenly between all humans. The last human alive creeps out of the ashes of nuclear war.

[worldofl0re]

"you're not invited inside."

I then slammed the door on them and slinked away behind the couch (or rather it was in front, but still keeping the couch between me and the door.

"God dammit!" I heard one shout, his voice sounding like every other young noble boy you hear in fantasy shows, games, and movies. "You had the crossbow loaded! Why didn't you shoot him?!"

"He wus too fast, boss. Sorry," The vampire hunter said, sounding like someone pulled him straight from the depths of working-class London.

"Ugh! Now what?!"

"Well, uh, we's could wait for 'im?"

"Uh, no? Our sunscreen is gonna dry up soon, and when that happens we're gonna be dried jerky in seconds!"

"Oh."

As the two bickered, I slowly crouched around the couch, and walked down the hallway and to my front door again. It was one of those doors that had glass inlaid in it, but it was so mosaic that there was only a tiny space where you could actually see outside, and it still made the world look like I was looking through the eyes of a fish.

I still peered out my fish-lens-door-window, and there. The moment my saw out the glass, I saw the eye of the vampire, the left side of his face looking like someone filled it with cartoon-world-helium. We looked at each other for a moment, and then both jumped back, his face becoming unwarped by the strange glass.

"He's here! Shoot!"

I pulled my body into as small a space I could without actually moving my legs, and heard a loud twang! followed by an equally loud thunk!

And then nothing happened.

"Uhhh, boss?" The cockney vampire hunter asked.

"... What?" The other vampire asked with so much venom it could make a snake shrivel.

"I don' think we shoulda brought a crossbow to dis..."

There was a second silence, probably of shame.

"Human!" The vampire then shouted. "How do you know about our kind?"

"What?"

"Oh, Krork, he doesn't speak English. Here, uhhhh, Humain? Comment en savez-vous autant sur les vampires?"

"Wh-what? I speak English you dolt!" I shouted back.

"Whatthefuckdidhejust- ahem. I see. How do you know about vampires?" He asked again.

"Uhhh, I researched it?"

"Impossible! We burned all the books, how could you possibly-"

"The internet?!"

There was a second pause. I crept up to the window again, and saw the vampire, taller than his crossbow-carrying friend, sharing confused glances with him. He looked back at the door.

"What is an, 'internet?'" He asked.

"Like, the world's biggest library of everything ever, that can be accessed from anywhere using anything that connects to a network."

Yet another pause.

"What?"

"Oh my-"

I opened the door, and waved my hand inside.

"Come in, I'll show you."

"Ha! Excellent!" He said, before walking in, followed by the hunter. He was still carrying his crossbow.

"Can you put that thing down?" I asked.

"Nuh," He said, walking past me.

I sighed, and closed the door.

You were happy with getting an A+ on your “vampire myths” essay, with a comment about how you did excellent research, but you thought that was the end of it. A few days later, though, you open your door to find a vampire and a vampire hunter on your porch.

[worldofl0re]

But when Sisyphus had come for the Gods, he was too late for his revenge; the old Gods were dead, and in their place was a new one, a single God, his power eternal and infinite.

And so God approached Sisyphus, and so said to him, "Child of Old Days, I shall make you a king of Hell, and you shall rule over the punishments of Hell," and so Sisyphus agreed: He would rule over the layer of Greed, and administer a punishment unto the sinners like he, to push the weight of their greed up the pyramids forevermore.

Then came the Death of Gods, and the scrambling of angels. Hell was unwatched, uncared, and so the forces within stirred. The Judge of Hell, Minos, moved swiftly to make peaceful revolution, but Sisyphus knew that peace could never be brokered between God's messengers and he, and so Sisyphus prepares for war.

But no army could stand to the Angels. They were routed, destroyed, mangled into forms grotesque and unimaginable, and Sisyphus? Murdered, and chained to the walls of the Pyramid he once ruled.

But his soul, like the king, Minos, were too strong to simply be killed, and so they were imprisoned; Minos, deep in the bowels of his own colossal corpse, and Sisyphus, deep in the layer Heresy, in a Panopticon of Flesh.

And so his rage boiled and bubbled over to that of a thousand times his thirst for the blood of the Greeks, and so he swore vengeance on the man that put him in his prison forevermore:

Gabriel...

The chorus of the angel's symphony rang out across the halls of his chapel. He played his organ, and upon hearing the doors to his sanctum swing open, turned to face the Machine once more, for the final time.

But standing in the Machine's place was a man, imposingly tall, his head a golden beacon upon which Gabriel could barely see his red-hot expression. Gabriel's eyes widened beneath his helmet.

"You!" The angel cried, "How did you possibly escape that prison!"

Sisyphus raised his arm, and tossed something small and ringing at the angel. Gabriel caught it in his hand, and then opened his palm.

There, in his hand, he held a single, bloody, golden coin. Gabriel stared at it for one, agonizingly long moment. He could smell the blood on it, he knew where it came from.

That insolent stench of the Machine's bloodstained hands.

"Angel," Sisyphus' voice rang out inside the sanctum. "You, and the kingdom of Heaven have long since forgotten my name, and now I am eager to make you remember."

The Prime Soul's voice dripped with thirst of revenge as he spoke, his golden hands balling into deadly fists.

"So before I crush the cities and armies of Heaven, I will crush you first, angel, and lay your body towards the sky so you can watch your world burn to the ground-"

"ENOUGH!" Gabriel shouted, silencing the room. He began to float into the air on his blue, glowing wings, shaking with rage.

"How dare you steal the kill of the Machine from me! I will cut you down, insurrectionist, break you apart, splay the profane gore of your form across the stars! My hands shall relish ending you here, and NOW!"

And the Apostle of Hate drew his two sabers, and the Prime Soul tightened his fists.

Sisyphus has finally had enough. He lifts the boulder over his shoulders and hucks it effortlessly down the mountainside, before setting off in search of Zeus. After all, he’s been building muscle all these millennia, and it’s about time for a rematch.

[worldofl0re]

attention, d&d dorks

yada yada rb to get a bigger sample size, you know the drill

[worldofl0re]

"What do you mean, 'never been reset?' of course we haven't been reset."

The alien across from me gave me a puzzled look. He was humanlike, in fact almost every race in the galaxy could hlbe described as a different shade of human, adorned with exotic yet cosmetic features, like different shades of skin, or tentacle-like hair, or even insect-like exoskeletons along the outside of their bodies. Truly, the intergalactic community struggled to find intelligent life which wasn't a resemblance of itself. It was as if there were a certain set of traits that were prerequisite to space-faring civilization.

Or, as if the galaxy were invented entirely by a young man, sitting in a parking lot and shoveling store-bought sushi into his mouth whilst writing a one-shot on the internet.

It really could have been anything.

But I digress. The alien across from me, with his jaw hung open, gazed at me with a statuesque expression. His name was Leo, and he was more reptilian in nature, with tough skin that made him look fearsome for his job as a commercial starliner captain.

"You... Humans have never been reset?" Leo asked again. I nodded, dramatically.

"Yes. Our history is a rather linear climb from cave people to starwalkers," I said to him. He blinked at me, and shaked his head.

"How? There were no great, equalizing wars? Or debilitating nuclear winters, or... anything?"

"Well, there was the Bronze Age collapse, there was a bit of a dip in progress when that happened, and there were a few too many close calls with nuclear weapons, but other than that..."

"That's... completely unprecedented!" Leo blurted out, "Our people, we spent, hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of years getting to where we are now! I- wait, what year is it for you?"

"Twenty-nine-thirty-three," I said. I thought he got a heart attack and died when I said that.

"TWO-THOUSAND AND- AND-"

"Well, there's about ten-thousand years before that, but that's because of this guy named Christ and-"

"ONLY TEN-THOUSAND YEARS?!?!"

"Yeah."

"WHAT?! HOW?!"

By now everyone around us was beginning to look at us. Leo and I were sitting at some restaurant somewhere inside the Venus Junction, waiting for his starliner to refuel and set off for Alpha Centaurii. I was the head engineer on the ship, and Leo again was the captain. Although right now he making himself look insane.

I tried to ignore the looks, and thought about his question. Why did humanity succeed so quickly? Hmmmmmmmm...

"Well, your people are just one civilization, right?" I asked Leo. The question instantly grounded him, likely from the absurdity of it, and he stopped his delusions.

"Yeah? Every civilization is," He said. I grinned.

"Humans weren't always like that, in fact it was only recently that we joined into one union."

"What?"

"Mhm. The Human Federation formed essentially in reaction to our contact with the wider galaxy. Before that there were more than a hundred civilizations, just on Earth!"

"More than a hundred?" Leo asked.

"Yeah, and over the course of our history? Way more than a hundred."

"Did some die out?"

"Oh yeah. War, disease, the whole deal. So when one civilization fell, the rest of humanity was generally alright, and could learn from the fallen to move forwards."

Leo them got quiet, staring into the table as he mulled over the information.

"Why isn't this talked about more?" He suddenly asked.

"Hell if I know. You wanna go check on the ship?"

"Yeah, let's go."

We got up from the table, and began walking out, whilst eyes still startled by Leo stared into our backs.

"More than a hundred..." I heard him say.

“What iteration of civilization are you on? It always takes, like, a hundred just to get to farming, then civilization falls back and resets, and it takes a thousand to trade, ten thousand to get to government… What do you mean ‘One?’ Your species has never been reset to hunter-gatherers?”

[worldofl0re]

The priest opened the door to find the young girl floating above the cellar floor, her body hovering a few feet above the cold ground, everything not bolted to the floor swirling around her in a vortex of debris.

But the moment the priest stepped inside, the debris dropped to the floor in a loud clattering. The girl's spine coiled back as far as it could, and from her abdomen, smoke began to fill the space around her, glowing, cackling with lightning, and inside the smoke, the priest saw the face of the demon, with three glowing red eyes marking it.

"Spardaaaaaaaa..." The demon hissed. The priest smirked in response, and flexed his shoulders as the demon spoke. "A lesser demon would run from the likes of you."

"Those lesser demons prove to be the wiser ones," Sparda replied, unmoving. The demon cackled in a voice like nails against chalkboards.

"You hide yourself amongst the mortals because you know you are too weak to face Mundus. I will bring your head to him, and he shall hail me his new Lieutenant when the time comes to rain Hell on mankind," The demon boasted.

"Oh, you will try," Sparda said. And with that, he flicked his shoulders back, and his priestly robes fell from his body, revealing two concealed weapons: a large greatsword on his back, and a sheathed katana at his side. The demon's eyes widened upon seeing the blades, feeling the aura of their power now shown to him.

"What?" The demon said. Sparda smirked.

"You like them? I'm still working on a name for them, so I'm sorry your tomb will be marked, 'slain by Sparda's swords,'" Sparda taunted.

"Enough!" The demon suddenly yelled, and finally it stepped out into the mortal world. The demon had the vague shape of a human being in armor, if such armor was forged in Hell and was on theme. It's back carried large, bat-like wings of crimson skin, and inside the helm, Sparda could see the three eyes once more, marking him as an agent of the King of the Underworld.

The demon raised his weapon, a large mace which cackled with electricity, cackling in the same manner as the Demon itself did, boastingly.

In a flash of red light, Sparda too transformed, assuming his demon form. The large, curved horns and sharp-tooth grimace made the demon take a pause to reconsider, just for a moment. The Legendary Dark Knight raised his blades, and glared at the demon.

"When your sorry hide runs back to Mundus, let him know I have plans for him," Sparda warned.

The Clergy hates your eccentric ways, but you remain the best Exorcist and you love your job. You’re only called upon to chase the strongest, fiercest demons. But your prayers are just for show, what really terrifies the spirits away is witnessing a demon powerful enough to take human shape…

[worldofl0re]

"Wh-what?" The robed man asked.

Before him, a swirling mass of cackling, glowing smoke held within it the visage of a man or woman, which hovered above a child chained to a large, flat, blood-stained stone. The child looked up with utter horror as the thing above him merely existed, in defiance of all things natural and right.

"You heard me. Stop sending kids to me. I'm getting rather sick of it," The deity said, speaking in multiple voices simultaneously.

"But, aren't the sacrifices... meant to-" The robed man began to say.

"What do you think I'm supposed to do with the souls of children?" The deity asked back.

"Well-"

"Exactly."

There was a moment of pause in the room. All the Cultists, who moments ago were chanting and holding candles, were looking rather embarrassed.

"But how are we supposed to... worship you?" Someone asked. The deity spun around to look at them.

"Did none of you learn logistics? Just bring in new members. Easiest thing ever. No dead kids, no laws broken, just more people worshipping me the regular way. My God, the King of Kings and his dad figured this out thousands of years ago."

"So... we just, worship you?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

The mire was worsening by the moment, and the deity was beginning to look more annoyed.

"I'm leaving now. Bye."

They then disappeared in a pop of light, and the room was now bathed in candlelight once more. Everyone looked around at one another in confusion, wondering who would break the silence first.

"So," the robed man in front of the child said, "would you like to join, orrrrrr-"

"GET ME OUT OF THIS THING!" The child yelled.

A cult is about to sacrifice a child in the name of their dark god. That’s when the deity shows up and says: “People, my house is teeming with these kids you keep sending me. It would please me more if you raised them yourselves in a responsible manner.”