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Challenge #02394-F204: Achievement Accomplished

"Why do you always have a magnifying glass?"

"I like having dumb and/or ridiculous things with me, and a magnifying glass checks both boxes. Also, it's not ALWAYS a magnifying glass." -- Anon Guest

"What? So... it's a multitool?"

"Well, there is a set of incrementally smaller screwdrivers in the handles, but that's not the point. A magnifying glass is specifically useful in weird directions and I love it. It's a solar-powered firestarter, an analysis tool, a joke prop and a general excuse to be strange."

Thorax glared at the Human. "That's a life goal for you, isn't it?"

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Challenge #02393-F203: Ill Met in a Summoning Circle

I can't believe no one's asked you for this before, but a Crossover please...? -- AmberFox

[AN: Betwixt whom? I'm picking my Unlikely Heroes and Shayde because she can wind up anywhen]

They had arrived two minutes past the nick of time. The demonic cultists had succeeded in performing their ritual, summoning a being from a realm beyond their understanding. The portal was open and a humanoid figure was in the middle of resolving itself in the centre of the arcane diagram.

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Challenge #02392-F202: Legendary Orphan

What if the Human race were fantasy creatures to races we think are myths (ie elves, dwarves, kobolds etc...). -- AmberFox

The world is big, bigger than you think it is. A shire may be enough for a Halfling, but there are entire mountains and valleys that have not been traversed by one being. There are realms in which the people who live there believe that they are the only people in the world. Then they meet other people... and the world

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Challenge #02391-F201: Resisting Instinct Case Files

Creatures from earth evolved for four reasons called the "Four f's", fighting, fleeing, feeding, and fuc- fornicating. -- Anon Guest

Four fine instincts to make life continue are very important on Deathworlds like Terra. Fight or Flight are just two of them. The third -Feed- keeps the living alive and the dependent upon them alive as well. The fourth... let's call it Fornicate... continues the evolving population through preference-based selection. Deathworlds have many opportunities for fatalities, therefore the compulsion to breed is

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Challenge #02390-F200: Here There Be Dragon

"I will do it, but I will do it crying." -- Anon Guest

"You've had a bad day," said the Silver Dragon, currently disguised as an Elf, in an exhibition of galaxy-scale understatement. This, considering that Anthe had just been stepped on by an Ogre and thrown into a dragon-pit, only to be revived once in the Dragon's claws. She was now battling the instinct to genuflect in the Dragon's general direction and do whatever they bade her to do. The fact

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Challenge #02389-F199: Be Prepared

There is always an outsider. One that, although they accepted the risks of space travel, are extremely hesitant to accept any OTHER risks. -- Anon Guest

The Humans have a very apt saying: There's always one. In this case, there's always one traveller who takes certain aspects of travel way too casually... and others way too seriously.

The livesuit was one of the best ones on the market. In-suit cleansing, bio-attachments, and necessary padding in silky comfort. The manufacturers bragged that a

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Challenge #02388-F198: Nibbled to Death...

There is a myth about the Shattering. It states that the Shattering was put into motion by one human, one that had seen the future. -- Anon Guest

Five hundred years makes all the difference. For Earth, it viewed all its sundry colonies as a form of backup. Not just for the Human race, but also for the data and knowledge the colonials took with them. Surely, they reasoned, the colonists would keep such vital information about their beginning days.

Of such

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Challenge #02387-F197: Very Strange Creatures

I always believed that humans were these unstoppable beasts, until I met one of their infants. -- Anon Guest

Elsewhere Station. Here there be Humans. Seryk watched hir step. Ze only wanted to hire one human for the exploratory mission and this was one of the Edge Territory stations where they were reputed to swarm. So far, Seryk had seen numerous Edge species, but few Humans.

Those who were present were busy at other occupations. Seryk searched for hours, but found few

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Challenge #02386-F196: Please Ask

When you have an interest, you have something to enjoy in the humdrum of daily life. -- Anon Guest

Welcome to Podunk Station. Mind the legos. This is a natural result of leaving three to five Humans largely alone for long periods of time. Though their daily duties are many, Humans are naturally lazy and figured out how to streamline the humdrum necessities of daily existence... and then sought out new ways to keep busy during their non-active hours.

Fortunately, some of

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Challenge #02385-F195: How Lucky

A scientific analysis crew of aliens hire a human bodyguard. The human has a strange power over fauna, as in they become friendly/borderline domesticated like earth pets. The human is confused as it's happened in many planets/stations. Meanwhile the scientists are having trouble between making sure to get the data and making sure the human stays on as a permanent crew member. -- Anon Guest

It is a known rule of the universe that Humans will attempt to pet anything

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Challenge #02384-F194: Attitude Adjustor

There always a foul-mouthed human within every group, but when there a kid nearby, they put on a mask and they're the politest creature you ever met. -- Anon Guest

They say that people who curse a lot are more likely to be honest. If that is true, then Human Nor was the most honest being in the known universe. If they came with a censor beep, others might be mistaken for believing they were speaking in morse code. Unfortunately for those

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Challenge #02383-F193: No More Pencils...

Can we hear more about the changes in intergalactic schools? (And can two of them be the removal of perfect attendance "awards" and school lunches that even the most well behaved child can't choke down?) -- Anon Guest

The Cogniscent Rights Committee had a lot to say about Terran Standard Schooling, especially that of the pre-shattering era, relics of which can still be found in Terran colonies. Nothing it had to say about the school system was polite. They tried, but there

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Challenge #02382-F192: It's Just a Hobby

Captain: "You have nothing to worry about. Our only human crewmember is one of the nicest, sweetest humans you will ever meet."

Human: "I found my knives! Now, WHO THE HEY HID THEM FROM ME IN THE FIRST PLACE!?!?" -- Anon Guest

Rule Eleven: Never go anywhere without a knife. -- Leeroy Jethro Gibbs, historical Terran hero.

Civilisation in general holds certain truths to be self-evident. Such as the ability to make and safely use sharp things as one of the stages

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Challenge #02381-F191: Viva La Revolution

The peppy one with beautiful blond hair is always in black and the one with dyed-black spiky hair is always in soft pastels. -- Anon Guest

She wore braids. Neat, tidy braids she wound into a knot of a bun in the back of her head. The only thing that changed about that 'do was the length and volume of the hair, and that was progress that was annually cut back. The rest of her choices were pretty much anything she liked

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Challenge #02380-F190: Tasty Trade

Alien witnesses true fear in the eyes of a band of country roughneck mercs in the form of a single raised eyebrow of the group's diminutive elderly "grandmother" figure. Grown warriors, men and women, who have charged into the maw of insanity cowed by a 98lbs octogenarian.

Pretty pretty please. -- Yup

In all the known universe, there is little that is as unlikely to be terrifying as the words, "What the diddly gosh-darn heck're you kids got goin' on in here?

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