Just Add Prompt

Challenge #01927-E103: Clean-out in Aisle Seventy

The joys of 'Bargain bins' and 'end of Season' clearances. -- Anon Guest

Sale (n): A period of time in which retail emporiums lower the prices of their merchandise to cost or slightly below cost to save on storage fees. -- The Cynical Dictionary.

Wise men said that only fools rushed in. They were the ones who spent their savings on shiny gimcrack that wouldn't even last a weekend. Therefore, when the doors opened on the Big Box Mart Once A Year Sale, she walked past the big displays were people were already trying to kill each other for the nastiest of shiny things. Lynn knew better.

Softly and quickly, that was the key. They kept the good stuff in the back of the floor displays. Hidden in the shelves. Not out in the open where the mortality zone was. Lynn steered her trolley to the side as soon as possible. In between the shelves, where the foolish and the greedy rarely wandered. Waiting for a true bargain to present itself.

Support me on Patreon / Buy me a Ko-fi

Prompts remaining: 12 Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!

Challenge #01926-E102: Science Fiction, Double Feature

Let's hear it for all those cheesy Z grade movie monsters. -- Anon Guest

Shayde had started another side business. The facade declared it to be Armpit Theatre Entertainment. And a placard on one of the windows proudly proclaimed, We show the worst that humanity has to offer! Closer inspection revealed a subtitle to that which read, Yelling at the screen is encouraged if you are funny.

Was this one of her jokes on the rest of civilisation? Or was she making

Challenge #01925-E101: Tragedy Tomorrow

Today's program consists of the Men's choirs, Poetry reading, original, Poetry reading from one of the set poems, and children's dance. (See The Goodies, "Eisteddfod from the Welsh. Eistedd, bored. Fod, stiff.") -- Anon Guest

Colony worlds, once cut off from their progenitor planet, have to deal with what they've got. B'Nar took everything nerd-related with them owing to the fact that it was settled by genetic engineering companies and their nerdy, nerdy staff. And their equally nerdy families. The assembled Greater

Challenge #01924-E100: A Tisket, A Tasket...

Coracle. Ancient form of water transport made out of sticks, cow hide* and waterproofing. *any firm waterproof material will do. -- Anon Guest

The human was messing around with the local vegetation again. They had already taken some fallen wood and whittled two paddles, and now they were making a positively enormous basket out of the long, bendy reeds that had once been growing by this lake.

"Is this a temporary shelter?" asked Thok.

"Nope," said Human Grif. Still lashing things together

Challenge #01923-E099: They Call Her Queen Badass

"How in the world could a single bottle of alcohol render nearly a dozen of Her Ancient Majesty's finest - oh, and the Millennial Queen Herself! - to nothing but a scattered roomful of unconscious drunks?!"

The taller woman examined the elaborately-decorated crystalline decanter, and then the glasses around each snoring soldier. "Hmm... yeah... I'd say fourteen-thousand-year-old firewine would probably do the trick better than anything..." She paused, re-counting one pile of glasses and then looked back at her partner with a

Challenge #01922-E098: The Big Guns

She unleashed the most powerful, devastating, army-halting, tyrant-toppling weapon... the puppy dog eyes -- TheDragonsFlame

In the times of Dragons, a very young Elf only has one defense. And after the Orcs raided her village, and Tila woke up in a cage, it was a matter of urgency to find a time to use it on creatures who certainly planned to eat her. Once she realised her situation, she certainly couldn't return to anything approaching rest. Every Orc was carrying a young

Challenge #01921-E097: One Tension-rich Moment During an Ambassadorial Introduction Party

Your annual festival of re-birth is celebrated by eggs laid by a rabbit! -- Anon Guest

"With," corrected Shayde. "It's celebrated with eggs that're hidden by a rabbit. Yer pretty close though. Gold star fer tryin'."

Behind her, just out of restraining reach, Rael breathed out. The confused statement of brand-new Ambassador G'thox were not, in fact, fighting words. If they had come out of someone trying to start a fight, it might have been a different story.

Shayde had over-the-horizon radar

Challenge #01920-E096: Cometh the Postman

Humans are social creatures. Even the solitary ones. - MolluscsAndMonsters

Humans like me have a saying: No man is an island. Or words to that effect. And... they're right. Even antisocial assholes like me need to brush shoulders with other cogniscents now and again.

But that's why I have the mail run to the cul-de-sac strings. You get wormhole chains like those. Places where it's ten or more jumps to any nexus, anywhere, and the places along the trip are the places

Challenge #01919-E095: I Welcome Our Automated Overlords

At last robots replace politicians and things get done, sort of. think of the pro/anti same sex marriage bill here in the wonderful land of Aus. -- Anon Guest

Everything is getting automated. Everything. There's a company of machines that are churning out placeholder, formulaic potboilers with mad lib plots. Humanity now finally values the creative spirit, because it is about the only thing that cannot be replicated by procedural machines. But even then, the machines are learning.

And, in an

Challenge #01918-E094: Weapons of Mass Pacifism

Sometimes, some people are born with a kind of "blessing". It makes them totally unable to understand the concept of "evil". And it could create people, children most of the time, that are so pure and innocent that even the most ferocious beast or darkest dark lord wouldn't even think about hurting it. -- Anon Guest

There are people and things that are too good to be real. Well-behaved puppies. Ball pits filled with plushies. The really expensive salted caramel ice cream.

Challenge #01917-E093: Deploy E.C.O.

"Welcome to the first cross-species special forces. You were selected because you are the best of the best in your domain. Now, you will all learn how to efficiently subdue or kill a foe, how to infiltrate a place heavily guarded and how to secure civilians that were hostages. But most importantly, you'll learn that your most important tool isn't your service weapon or a multi-tool knife. Your most important piece of equipment will be this plushy. Because there will always be

Challenge #01916-E092: Give Me Your Answer Do

To be a good bouncer, you don't really need to be strong and to like violence. You just need to be intimidating enough that even the drunkest person on the universe wouldn't want to make you angry. -- Anon Guest

Dave didn't need to do much to keep the rowdy ones quiet. All he had do do was flex. It meant that he took up twice his previous volume and made his previously-loose clothing creak ominously at the strain. It was easy

Challenge #01915-E091: Surprising Nutrition

All fungi are edible. It's just that most are edible only once. -- Anon Guest

[AN: I recognise that Terry Pratchett quote!]

"There's food all around us," said their nature guide. Teaching these wayward kids some wilderness survival skills. "Can you point out what's edible?"

Tilly, the quiet one, said, "Everything. The real question is: what's edible more than once?"

Nature Guide Sam winced. Right. Some of these kids were on the spectrum and took things to literal extremes. Or extreme literalism,

Challenge #01914-E090: Primate See...

One person or animal discovers how to do something, think barb on a fish hook, monkey's using salt water to separate rice and baboons catching protein rich flamingos. One creature, but the whole clan picks it up. -- Anon Guest

Civilisation rises on the phrase, watch and learn. There are stories centering around clever and wily people who tricked, crept, or sneaked their way into learning important secrets from Gods, Spirits, or other Magical beings.

Sometimes, those beings come from the stars.

Challenge #01913-E089: They Do What Now?

The rise of the mammals, primates such as humans included, was something of an evolutionary fluke. The world was dominated by proto-avian, likely feathered behemoths before the rise of the mammals. What if humans were the only mammalian species to evolve "cogniscience", and mammalian species are otherwise quite rare? Reptilian, avian, cephalopodic, or insectoid life might be far more common. Aliens must find humans quite odd. -- Nani

It's almost natural for newly spacefaring species to be egocentric. They are, after all,

Menu

A 4757-post collection

Challenge #01927-E103: Clean-out in Aisle Seventy

Challenge #01926-E102: Science Fiction, Double Feature

Challenge #01925-E101: Tragedy Tomorrow

Challenge #01924-E100: A Tisket, A Tasket...

Challenge #01923-E099: They Call Her Queen Badass

Challenge #01922-E098: The Big Guns

Challenge #01921-E097: One Tension-rich Moment During an Ambassadorial Introduction Party

Challenge #01920-E096: Cometh the Postman

Challenge #01919-E095: I Welcome Our Automated Overlords

Challenge #01918-E094: Weapons of Mass Pacifism

Challenge #01917-E093: Deploy E.C.O.

Challenge #01916-E092: Give Me Your Answer Do

Challenge #01915-E091: Surprising Nutrition

Challenge #01914-E090: Primate See...

Challenge #01913-E089: They Do What Now?