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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 adopt a foundling."

The lady bit her lip. "My husband and I truly love each other. We won't stray." She thanked the Wizard Wraithvine for hir help and took her bodyguard with her as she went out into the streets around the castle she called her home. Wandering and listening, hoping... for the cries of a child with nobody else to help them.

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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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Challenge #04347-K329: First, Do No Harm

The deregger escaped their polity by fleeing onto an alliance ship. Their depression made them feel like cutting, but strangely? They couldn't find anything sharp. -- Anon Guest

I made it as far as an Alliance freighter. Hundreds did not. Every day, I heard about others who tried and died in the attempt. How many others' blood would be on my hands just because I made it? How many others would spend their value on a futile effort because less than one

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Challenge #04346-K328: Early Childcare

There's something to be said about need being the parental of invention. A small, sharp needle, some thin wire, and a lot of imagination can move mountains. -- Anon Guest

[AN: A little elementary research has shown me that the concept of a fastening device that doesn't hurt its wearer is older than you think it is. Look up fibula brooches. You're welcome.]

There's something to be said about loving another to the point of invention. Loving someone so much that creating

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Challenge #04345-K327: Home of Contention

They lived in a land where polygamy was common. However, this trio was ... shocking for none had seen the like. They were human, one of their loves was hellkin, the other was halloblood. And all three loved each other almost more than life itself. Now if only outsiders would stop trying to rescue them! -- Lessons

Pax, Amity, and Grace lived out of the way from most residents of Lauthiraux. They had a happy life together, not that many in Lauthiraux believed

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Challenge #04344-K326: Just a Pause

"You're going to die if you don't stop."

I don't care I have to keep going.

"You've done so much to help everyone already. See? The crisis is now very well in hand."

But it isn't enough yet.

"Please, you're hurting yourself, your feet in in blisters, you're growing so thin, forgive us.. but if we have to, we'll make you rest."

This prompt strongly reminds me of this story. A person driving themselves to pain and possibly to a death that

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Challenge #04343-K325: Escape From the Gilded Cage

The Pax Humanis agent came in to destroy a cruel cult leader. The cult leader was one of the rare ones that got the drop on the agent, prepared to finish them off. A child of the cult leader ended the leader to save the killer, tearfully telling the killer, thank you, they were finally not going to hurt anymore. -- Anon Guest

Murder, it is said, is for the unimaginative. That statement can go both ways if you think about it

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Challenge #04342-K324: Giving a Hand

They wanted to be a Great Hero, wearing gleaming armor and recognized through the land.

They became a Great Hero, without fanfare or armor, the night they were willing to dislodge boulders which cascaded and jammed tight as the strongest brickwork ever known into the ravine, stopping a massive flood from destroying the city. Even though it cost them their primary hand. -- Anon Guest

Heroism only looks like a gleaming costume, a white charger, or a blazing sword. That's how heroes

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