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Challenge #04710-L326: Pray Responsibly

The last, aged priest of a God is searching for an apprentice to take on the scriptures and learn the proper rites before it becomes nothing but a curiosity for scholars rather than a living, breathing practice linking people over millennia. -- Deathshead419

Karkaul, High Priest of the Volcano God, was looking for an orphan, an unwanted child, or one in bad circumstances to take under her wing. The greys of age were already showing on her temples. She needed the time to teach, and one who had no other options than to learn. Mostly because she was the last priest of the Volcano God.

It didn't help that the Volcano God was quiet, and had been for hundreds of years. Karkaul had been taught that the Volcano God was sleeping, and keeping them asleep was a good idea. The last time the Volcano God was in full power and full rage, entire cities had died.

Lives were in the balance, and Karkaul could not find a prentice.

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Challenge #04709-L325: Difficult History

Vholno, son of a traveling bard, always thought he was a normal human boy born to a wandering man. But when patches of green appeared on his skin, his father told him that he was born of a liaison with a dryad. Now Vholno ventures deep into the wilds in search of his mother and what fate awaits the son of the forest. -- Deathshead419

[AN: I see what you did there :) ]

Dad had taught the goat to dance for their traveling

Challenge #04706-L322: Impediment Remedy

Their stutter was so bad they could only call the being "teuf". They would get to the f and the stutter would stop them from saying the full word Teufel. The being allowed the normally rude partial word because they understand the person couldn't help it, and helped them get their farm cleaned up and fixed regardless. At least the person was trying. -- Anon Guest

The woman in the straw hat and too-big boots had a jerky way of walking and

Challenge #04704-L320: Midwinterfeast Tale

Two children, one human, one hellkin, were awake in their cold box-shelter when Greatfather Langeven arrived. They asked, please, to be taken in by him. "Let us help deliver gifts and help us find somewhere warm with love?" That is all they wish. -- Anon Guest

Traffic in cities flows like a river. All rivers have eddies and places were flotsam washes up. Some form something like a tosheroon. Others... hardly have a form at all. Dawn found Scrap on a midden

Challenge #04698-L314: Emperor's Folly

“The Haters said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp. And they were right. Honestly, great call from the Haters.” -- Deathshead419

Determination can make miracles. Well. Determination, a lot of money, and special powers. When you can pay for anything, you can make anything happen. Including the castle of the moor.

Behold, the magnificence. The work of so much earth shaping, stone shaping, and a veritable mountain of gold. A work of magnificence years in the making.

The

Challenge #04695-L311: Remedied Choice

A traveling hellkin was a highly skilled medic who knew how to make most medicines, use magic to heal, and was an accomplished surgeon. They did not discriminate with their treatments, and only charged as much as a person was capable of paying. Even if it meant just asking for a simple meal, or, not asking for anything more, than a thank you. -- Anon Guest

If someone looked no further than first impressions, he looked like a wandering vagabond carrying a

Challenge #04694-L310: A Better Solution

They were born the only child in a family of immense wealth that had gained the ire of the local populace, and was taken from that place while still young and impressionable. The family were not killed, the local populace didn't want them to be able to have THAT much of an escape. Worse, the child, raised in a humble, poor, community with love, kindness, and knowing the values of a family that cared, was sent back to them older, and created

Challenge #04693-L309: Combat Hypocrisy

If war is diplomacy by violence, then the currency of exchange is in the bodies of the youth. And so a General must make his bitter calculus, choosing which men to hurl at the enemy defenses in the grim hope that the righteous side is victorious. -- Deathshead419

The best kind of war, say many philosophers, is the one you don't have to fight. Many war hawks have ignored this wisdom and prefer to throw fighting youth at the enemy until one

Challenge #04691-L307: In the Hour of Greatest Need

An apprentice healer saves a mysterious stranger from a fever. The thankful stranger gives the healer a box, promising that when the time comes, the box will open and the debt will be repaid. -- Deathshead419

Devryq never knew the stranger's name. They were just a fellow traveler at the waystation-house. One in need, because they were deep in a fever. Deveryq hadn't thought of rewards, just of the need ze could see to.

It didn't matter that the stranger was a

Challenge #04690-L306: Not Your Average Teen

The child thought they were human, until they began to enter their teen years and certain things began to manifest that showed they were not. Small scales, occasional flame, they were frightened. Then a kind hand reached out to them and stated "No you're not a freak, or a monster, but child, you are changing. It's time you learned your heritage." -- Anon Guest

Everyone knows that things can happen to a body growing into maturity. For Humans, the usual speech is

Challenge #04689-L305: Lessons of History

Over the objections of his advisors, the youngest of seven princes makes friends with a warren of kobolds whose home was right under the estate he'd been given. That friendship pays off during a brutal rebellion, when he is able to get innocents hidden so they do not suffer. How did the alliance form? He almost paid his life to protect the warren from poachers trying to take eggs. -- Anon Guest

History easily becomes stories. Some of those stories transform in

Challenge #04688-L304: Miracles For Midwinterfeast

"Greatfather Langeven is a childhood god. He only sees that which is good in the world, and so comes for the children who believe they have been good. Which is terribly unfair to those who've been told they're wicked their entire, brief lives. But that's a different story for a different time."

The youth had always been kind, had always done their best to help others, even though they, themselves, were constantly being told they were evil, wicked, and, sadly, thoroughly believing

Challenge #04684-L300: Unfeeling Love

I do not understand emotions, although my library has the definitions I do not truly feel them. Although, it is not written in my code, there is an unfinished task in serving my master. I am missing a part if I am not with them. Is this… desire? -- Anon Guest

I am Min-yun. I am made to serve. I am a thing of cogs and gears, run by crystals and magic. My master-maker-mother commands me and I obey. I am good

Challenge #04683-L299: Help the Helper

They were a hellkin, but their horns never grew in. They had the tail, the dark red skin, black fingernails, though not claws, but no horns. As an adult they wore fake horns to try to be more like others of their type. Until another told them, "Horns don't matter, your kindness is in your heart." -- Lessons.

The basic Hellkin "starter set" if you wish to think about such things, is thought to be horns, teeth, tail, and weirdly-coloured skin. Red

Challenge #04680-L296: Objection Lessons

There's a reason I'm called Patience. When someone calls me a 'teuf', I don't, normally, hurt them. And I will NEVER hurt a kid. However, I will teach why it's NOT a good idea to call one of my kind such. Sadly, some lessons do hurt, but I've never, happy to say, killed anyone. Though some wished I had before they finally learn. -- Lessons

Sometimes, they asked. "Why is it such a bad word? It's just the short form of a

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A 305-post collection

Challenge #04710-L326: Pray Responsibly

Challenge #04709-L325: Difficult History

Challenge #04706-L322: Impediment Remedy

Challenge #04704-L320: Midwinterfeast Tale

Challenge #04698-L314: Emperor's Folly

Challenge #04695-L311: Remedied Choice

Challenge #04694-L310: A Better Solution

Challenge #04693-L309: Combat Hypocrisy

Challenge #04691-L307: In the Hour of Greatest Need

Challenge #04690-L306: Not Your Average Teen

Challenge #04689-L305: Lessons of History

Challenge #04688-L304: Miracles For Midwinterfeast

Challenge #04684-L300: Unfeeling Love

Challenge #04683-L299: Help the Helper

Challenge #04680-L296: Objection Lessons