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Challenge #04750-L363: Horror Amidships

An old ship is set to be sunk for an artificial reef. An inspector makes a final round to make sure the explosives are wired and no curious souls are onboard. That’s when the inspector finds a locked compartment which does not open to the supposed master key. What could be hiding inside that someone wants buried in the deep? -- Deathshead419

It may surprise many to learn that it takes a lot of effort to sink a ship on purpose. It's not just where and when. It's making sure every last speck of hazardous chemicals aboard are gone. Making certain that nothing left aboard would tempt divers to risk their lives going to fetch it or going to look at it. And making sure no air pockets could possibly remain.

Pressure is a harsh master, and one implosion can ruin a lot of plans. Especially if that implosion is in a load-bearing section of the wreck. Or, for instance, filled with things that could tempt divers.

Any mystery can tempt a diver, not thinking that the default answer to "What's down there?" is "Death. Specifically, yours."

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Challenge #04749-L362: Hung in the Loophole

Wraithvine comes upon a giant farm where the owner is keeping dozens of slaves. The laws of the kingdom leave the owner’s family a loophole to keep them, but, that won’t stop Wraithvine from doing the right thing, one way or another… -- Deathshead419

There are ways to know a slaver's property before anyone could spot a person in chains. Such as the immense fields that no one family could work, overseen by a large house that no one family

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Challenge #04748-L361: Lesson for a Lifetime

Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's being able to do what's necessary, even if you're terrified. -- Anon Guest

Ageratum had heard of the Hellkin in the dojo. Everyone had seen him from a distance and few dared to get close. Now he was closer than she had ever seen him. He was wearing Adept Black and kneeling where any other class teacher might kneel. Waiting for the class to assemble, in peaceful meditation. Hide as blue as a clear spring

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Challenge #04747-L360: Just a Little Help

When the child of humanity embraces the Divine Flame, they lost the gift to sense human hearts. From then onwards, their only purpose was to watch over the earth, bound to endless sea of stars and moons.

They continue to cherish life, yet could no longer perceive neighbours as living beings. -- Anon Guest

Humans should only become deities in retrospect. It's just safer that way. They do have the saying, Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

But there's always the statistical

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Challenge #04743-L359: Unwelcome Heroes

Outcasts. But they were completely immune to fire, and even heavy smoke did little more than cause one of them to sneeze a bit. So what did they do? Became one of the best fire-fighting brigades anyone's ever known. -- Anon Guest

They say that fire cannot harm a Dragon. They also say that heat rarely bothers a Devil. Of the two, Drakkonbred and the red-hide Kobolds are more likely to withstand a given flame. As for the devilborn, the only way

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Challenge #04742-L358: Gifted Family

The dragon was very sick, it knew, save for a miracle, it would not survive until its egg hatched. A human woman with an infant, kind, even if very poor. The egg gifted, a vision given, please take care of my child. The hatchling loved the human as if she had given birth to it. And loved its human sibling very much to. -- Anon Guest

Time runs away from all of us. We like to believe we have more than we

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Challenge #04741-L357: Precise Targetting

They are hunting their target on this stinking backwater of a rock, one whose actions caused many deaths on a world the CRC is only now able to start rehabilitating. A being that was heavily drugged by their target attacks Jay but, instead of killing them, Jay shows compassion for one who's yet another victim of the target, and only knocks them out so medics can help them recover. -- Anon Guest

It's the best thing to learn in Pax Humanis. If

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Challenge #04740-L356: Unusual Analysis Procedure

Story told from the Point of View of a Vampire whose boring night job is tasting blood at the blood lab analyzing blood to determine various chemical details, diseases, etc. -- Anon Guest

My name is Tae Devereaux I am a Hematological Dilettante.

To be frank, there's not a lot of jobs that would welcome a vampire. Like, disposal services for Kosher or Halal butchers. Or helping out the blood spatter folks at crime scenes. Sure, we're fast and accurate, but we

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Challenge #04739-L355: Birthday Wish

Visions guided Wraithvine to a village isolated on a forested island just off a wild coast. There ze finds a village where a fortnight before everyone over the age of 13 vanished. The children are distraught, food is running low, and the twelve year old girl who’s birthday is only days away cannot sleep.

What has happened to the adults and can Wraithvine get to the bottom of the mystery in time? -- Deathshead419

There was something deeply wrong with this

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Challenge #04738-L354: The Vanishing Mystic

A Spiritual Guru has been leading on her clientele with tales of a mysterious master who seems always just out of reach. Yet as her tricks of hiding cigarettes and magically “repairing” plates, she hatches a plan to have a fake “master” appear in the window to mollify her marks. And it works, his silhouette enough to keep them in awe and paying her. Only…the man she hired to do the deed tells her that he never made it that night…

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Challenge #04737-L353: A Different Kind of Bull

A trio of elves are using their longevity to rig long-term investments in a rather prosperous region, pretending to be a family of knowledgeable businessmen by taking turns as son, father, and grandfather with magic guises. Needless to say, they have amassed a fortune immiserating the humans of these valleys for generations. Though if Wraithvine were to show up it seems unlikely that their scheme would go unnoticed. -- Deathshead419

It was the kind of thing only a long-lived being would notice.

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Challenge #04736-L352: Not Another Faerie Tale

A chimneysweep out late at night sees the darndest thing: a carriage racing away from the palace as it turns into a pumpkin. Even stranger, a crystalline slipper falls from the fleeing vehicle, one that fits the chimneysweep perfectly. And then, word spreads through the city that the prince is looking for the lovely lady who wore a glass slipper to his ball. -- Deathshead419

Just like trusting government systems based on waterlogged women handing out swords, one should not chose eligible

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Challenge #04735-L351: One Head Under the Crown

A long reigning king has reached the end. The eldest has the strongest claim, yet his rule is unlikely to last long. The middle son is inclined to autocracy, yet, deft in international politics and likely to keep the kingdom at peace. The youngest is quarrelsome with his peers, yet, sympathetic to the plight of his people. And there is the bastard, a playboy likely to leave governing to the parliament except when he wants to indulge.

Wraithvine is called to choose

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Challenge #04734-L350: Welcome to Pax Humanis

Such a shame, so YOUNG to be a mass-murder, they're only 10./ "Wait, they're still breathin', tho'."

What? But...such shallow breaths and restraints?/ "Th' nice cat lady an' th' scary guys say use this thingy an' th' bad men won't chase me no more!" -- Anon Guest

Timi had had quite enough of the bad men. They all came to her big house and had a lot more food that Timi and her sisters ever did and they did things to

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Challenge #04733-L349: Sensory Overload Episode

They thought it was yet another knomira sitting and screaming not getting their way. But an observant individual sees they're covering their ears and back against a wall. And realize, this isn't a knomira, it's a person who's struggling due to the size and noise of the crowd. -- Lessons

"Stoppit, stoppit, stoppit, stoppit," the voice carried over the hubbub of the crowd. Given that it was a commercial concourse on a nexus station, it was a safe bet that this was

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