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Challenge #04362-K344: Matthew 25:35-40

You're about to face the Judge. The spirit can see your heart. Read your thoughts and feelings. And they will tell you what you do NOT want to hear. The truth. You sure holding your rank and throne is worth this? -- Anon Guest

You live your life, and then it ends. Many, many chapters have been written about what happens next. But for a great majority, they agree. After the spirit leaves the mortal realm, there is judgement. Judgement, and peril.

Weigh your heart against a feather. Have your life viewed and judged by the On High. Pay the fees to the Eternal Judges. Does your name appear in the special book? Make sure you have your passport to the afterlife. Cough up two obol for Charon...

No matter the judgement, there's always some who believe they are right... when they are very, very wrong.

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Challenge #04361-K343: Executive Three Card Monte

The CEO was as evil as they came, so it would seem. They called the ones in the factories, "machines". But when Pax Humanis found them, they were caring for their children lovingly, and the young children also called the ones in the factories machines. Didn't the CEO, or the kids actually know the ones there were people? -- Anon Guest

[AN: Considering recent events... I will be trying to remain in the positive vibe zone]

Deregger polities generally have a light

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Challenge #04359-K341: Not Touched by Human Hands

This restaurant had the reputation of being one of the best, and the most adaptive, places around. The fact it was owned, and ran, by kobolds surprised many that didn't know them. The head chef is quite an interesting kobold indeed. -- Anon Guest

Food, everyone agrees, is the foundation of life. What everyone disagrees with is how preparation and preservation should be done. Everyone points at other peoples and declares that they're doing it wrong. Cultural cross-contamination has spread many methods

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Challenge #04360-K342: Flight of the Unwelcome

Moving day for such a huge household is SO much easier when you're friends with a wizard, and a dragon is willing to play with the littlest ones while everyone else is packing. -- The New Guy

[AN: following on from this tale ]

It's never easy to be a surprise parent. Bliss appointed himself as suprise parent to a dozen pitiful lives on one harsh stormy night. He managed to pick up five more in the process of seeing to the needs

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Challenge #04358-K340: The Love Delusion

Never get between a team of rough and tumble space marines and the kids they are caring for. You WILL lose, and it WILL hurt. -- Anon Guest

[AN: Content warning for the perspective of the exact kind of person who'd kidnap a literal child as 'breeding stock'. Spoilers - he doesn't prosper]

It's a dangerous mission, to save my princess. It's a risk well worth the reward. She was promised to me, and I will have her. I will crawl if

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Challenge #04357-K339: Lost in Multiple Ways

Mr Sunshine and Jay were at the shopping center when a very elderly human was looking lost and confused. But when touched gently and asked if they were okay, they lashed out violently with terror in their eyes. Dementia is a terrible thing. -- Anon Guest

[AN: I would like to think that my future has eliminated most of the causes of Dementia, and identified patients prone to suffering so that the Mediks can be prepared. Therefore, this kind of thing would

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Challenge #04356-K338: To Change...

Oh great wizard, my one dream was to have children. But this illness has robbed me of the chance. My home is large, as is my land, what do I do now? I just want a family. Please help me? -- Anon Guest

"There's nothing that can be done to reverse catching swellneck as an adult," sighed Wraithvine. "Short of praying for a miracle, there's only one option."

"Which is?" prompted the Lady Derisdranya.

"Either adopt one of your husband's by-blows... or

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Challenge #04355-K337: Only Looks Harmless

Never underestimate a little girl with a dolly, and a grudge. -- Anon Guest

The trick, as one great philosopher once wrote, was to skip everywhere. It fooled everyone completely. Ribbons and ringlets may help with that, but so too does frilly clothing. And pink. Lots and lots of pink.

And it really did work.

Nobody saw her coming. It was easy to be overlooked. Who could suspect a little girl with a violently pink dress and an equally pink dolly? Not

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Challenge #04354-K336: Proof of Might

Why do you keep insisting on picking on these havenworlders? Do my students need to kick your tail a second time? -- Anon Guest

Master Twii tended to keep their dojos in the Edge Territories. It was where they were needed most. It was where one could easily find cogniscents 'proving' their strength by beating up smaller and weaker ones.

To Master Twii, it only proved that they wasted their strength on bullying. To Master Twii, people like that needed some kharmic

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Challenge #04353-K335: Health, Wealth, and Happiness

I asked them to bless my newborn. Their reply was "I bless thee with great richness of spirit, abundance of life, and a beautiful heart."

That was the most wonderful blessing I could ever imagine. -- Anon Guest

Blessings can be curses, and vice versa. It's all about the heart and intention involved. And whether or not some malicious entities want to take things literally. Fortunately, there are those whose intent trumps malice in all its forms.

Well. At least one.

The

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Challenge #04352-K334: Inherent Instability

The ones seeking to be kings wanted to outlaw schools. The people educated themselves. The ones seeking to be kings vilified those who had intelligence and compassion. The lands taught these would-be kings that it was this intelligence and compassion was the only reason they survived. -- Anon Guest

Of all the universal truths, the one most forgotten is: Those who actively seek power should never have it. Those sorts of people never seek power to do good for others. Especially beware

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Challenge #04351-K333: Help From Nowhere

She was alone in the ramshackle hut having a difficult birth, the last survivor of a caravan. Fortunately for her, the family of Brauniin heard her cries, and came to this woman in her hour of need. -- Anon Guest

The house barely had a roof left, more weeds and leaf litter than true thatch, nevertheless, it counted as a house. The Hidden Ones lingered there. A house wants its Faekindred. Brauniin or Nisse, some waited for the ruin to be a

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Challenge #04350-K332: A Preserved Year

An archivaas finds a large box from before the Shattering. In the large box are several diaries, records, and a hand-crank, antique, player. The children of the family had buried their dairies in the time capsule. The parents had added to it a player and records. Music not heard in millennia now graced ears once more, words of children still of school age, seen on the pages happily. -- Anon Guest

Time capsules were an absolute joy to the Archivaas. They were

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Challenge #04349-K331: Unappreciated Comparison

I feel utterly worthless.

"You're a weed waving among the brick and stone."

See? Worthless.

"You ability to thrive truly has shown."

What .. do you mean?

"Your strength, my dear, I'm so proud you've grown!"

There among the bare gravel, where there's very little that's green, a lone dandelion is visited by a butterfly. -- Anon Guest

It's easy to devalue yourself when nobody else finds you worthy. It's easy to not wish to be part of a world that hates you

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Challenge #04348-K330: A Returning Memory

Even the smallest photo can bring back so many memories, especially when you're trying so hard to smile again. -- Anon Guest

"We've restored it to its original condition. Honestly, it was a miracle such fragile ephemera made it to this century. A miracle find, considering where it was found." The Archivaas went on and on and on about anaerobic bacteria and all the varied things that ate cellulose and assorted photographic chemicals in a landfill.

Shayde had stopped listening, staring at

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