Challenge

A 351-post collection

Challenge #04336-K318: A New Challenger

So, kid, you want to fight this old devil to see if I still have skills? You sure? Well I'm slowed with age, but sure I'll humor you. But remember, you did challenge me, not the other way around. Still, you did ask politely, so I won't be - too - rough. -- Anon Guest

After he turned one hundred and seven, Kosh routinely wore his hakama because it was easier to don. His ageing hands were tired of buckles and his old back was complaining about bending to do them up. And the wider pants were more amenable for temperature control. And, because he'd retired from teaching at the Dojo, he wore it with his more normal shirt and red doublet. That, and the woven hat Delia made for him, did nothing to stop the occasional blowhard.

The first warning of one was their egotistical coo of, "So this is the Thrice-Sworn King, death knell of Olikent slavery? A withered old man who needs a cane?"

Kosh sighed and rolled his glowing eyes. "You think I was this old, seventy of years ago?" He sized them up. Young buck with a shiny new sword and a great deal of ego. Not yet at his full growth nor all of his facial hair. Bad stance, bad posture and, from the smell of him, bad hygiene as well. Someone wanting to look big by taking down someone with the biggest reputation.

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Challenge #03914-J262: Lots of Fries With That

Several Thranityr invite a near-army of human chefs and their assistants to their homeworlds. They have only one request, teach us how to make foods that will fill a belly fast and help us feel full for a longer period of time. The entire species are surprised at how excited the humans are for the experience. -- Anon Guest

Thranityr were possibly the most infamous Deathworlders known to the Galactic Alliance. Until Humanity introduced them to Unsuitable Food, they were most well-known

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Challenge #03133-H224: Learn From Mistakes

The four humans, on leave from the ships they work aboard, are sitting around a table with four boxes that simply read Dangerous Nuts High Scoville. Once known to humans as "The Death Nut Challenge". Grinning, and razzing each other, they're about to each see how much spiciness they can handle when a level 3 Deathworlder, full of arrogance, pulls up a chair and demands to join them. After all, these squishy, weak-looking, apes are eating what is just five little nuts,

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Challenge #02337-F147: A Challenge Presents

The darkest place in the universe, as distinct to a black hole which traps light, is known as the the Nothingness, the Big Black or the Deep Dark.

Some species even Deified it as the 'anti" to whatever particular flavour of saviour their belief systems held on high. and appropriately avoided such an abhorrent place. Officially it was called Boötes Void (a distinctly Human moniker, as only humans would NAME such a place)

So naturally the humans wanted to explore it.

The

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That was painful...

I recorded my second story this morning. It took longer than it should have. Why?

  • I can NOT read properly, today
  • I learned that the mic works better when the headphones are turned on
  • I learned that my headset automatically turns off after like seven minutes.

Combined with outtakes, stuffups and re-do's, that's... a lot of reading. At least I was able to pick up where it dropped off and just read the end from there.

BUT my throat is shredded and

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Challenge #02165-E336: To Cross the Lake of Certain Death

So long, and thanks for all the ghoti. -- Anon Guest

They were large, piscine lifeforms, big enough to swallow a Goliath whole, and the lake they inhabited was as large as an entire country. It would take too long to go around. They had to go across somehow.

"You can fly, right?" said Anthe. "Just zip us across?"

Wraithvine said, "Look for what isn't here," and summoned an illusory globe via Prestidigitation and floated it out over the surface. It fizzled

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Challenge #00952-B221: Innovative Resource Management

They outsourced a surprising amount of their ship building (that is, they had a habit of using ships captured in battle).

People think low-gravvers are weak. Let me tell you something. A deathworlder adapted to a low-G environment is still a deathworlder.

And when there’s a hive of them in chained asteroids… you do not throw rocks at the nest.

I saw it from a safe distance and under a definite amnesty. I’m not stupid enough to cross with

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Challenge #00950-B219: Sailor Fey

Grab another one!

http://thepreciousthing.tumblr.com/post/121702150607/finding-flight-okay-but-imagine-a-medieval

Most sailors feared to go near the Siren Pass. Beyond, they whispered, were shores of gold where the waves broke with pearls and gems as sea foam. Where untold riches and wealth awaited for anyone who could actually survive the pass. Here, there be mermaids. They decorate the rocks with foolhardy sailors who chance too close and fall victim to their song. Their bones, anyway. All of them picked clean and bleached

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Let Sleeping Beauties Lie...

The cursed princess in the castle tower was asleep for a very good reason.  The people of her kingdom were only safe during the day… and even then just barely.

(#00947-B216)

Prince Philip wasn’t exactly inclined to listen to good advice. As a child he ate sweets before dinnertime, and crept off to play with the faeries in the wood.

The fae didn’t want him, which possibly tells you all you never needed to know about Prince Philip.

Now that

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Challenge #00943-B212: 'Straya Mate

Someone runs across this book. And then are told about the fact in the last comment.

“This,” said T’reka a’Nyerrik, “is a book for N’Ozzie children?”

“Yes,” said the helpful Archivaas with a bundle of similar tomes. “N’Oz colonists insisted on bringing their -ah- scientifically interesting native flora and fauna with them from Australia.”

Ah yes. Australia. The only land mass on Earth that almost rated a Level Six on the Deathworlder scale. In fact, N’Oz itself

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Challenge #00938-B207: Human Phenomena

An alien witnessing a human do the “Just walked through a spiderweb” dance for the first time

OR

A scholar writing a research paper on the one dance universal to all human tribal cultures, the “Spiderweb” dance.

In augmented scope sight, the web was clearly visible. And the spider itself stood out like a miniature sun.

“This spider,” whispered a lizard off to one side of the screen, “has been weaving and re-weaving its web all night. In a few hours, it

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Challenge #00934-B203: Loverly Spam...

You don’t reference Monty Python to be helpful, you reference Monty Python because you can.

On the upside, they now had an interstellar ‘ride‘. On the downside, it was an abandoned freighter. Its hold was still full. Which meant that the parental company had pulled the plug and evacuated the pilot when the cargo proved to be valueless.

And, of course, Shayde had to look.

“No,” she grinned. The tone of her voice made it sound like a good thing.

Which

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Challenge #00929-B198: Fortifying Education

A Havenworlder finds out that even after reaching the Information Age, with early-warning systems and all the other resources available to a species at such a level of development, tsunamis (“The term refers to several million tonnes of water traveling at two hundred meters per second.”) still killed an average of seven thousand people consistently, every year, over four decades

(last four from 2015)

Th’k’x had to wear full health monitors and have a Medik on standby, just to access

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In the slightly-paraphrased words of Robert Heinlein...

If need be, a human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly. Specialization of role is for insects, not people.

(#00911-B180)

“Was he serious?” said Rael. “What happened

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Challenge #00907-B176: SUO's - Small Useful Objects

A lot of us have a “kit” stuff we cart/tote everywhere, stuff we need. Mothers carry stuff to feed,amuse and cope with the Sprogs. Crafts people carry weird stuff(well I do). So what does a Joat carry? Or pick another character/profession and add kit.

Rael could tell a newbie JOAT. It was the way their limbs trembled
under the weight of the gear in their coats. And the gentle ‘ping’ of
stitching giving way under the stress. He

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