Magical Mayhem

A 216-post collection

Challenge #02870-G313: Double-edged Blade

I was Baptized twice. Once in water, once in flame. I survived because the fire within me burn brighter than the fire around me. -- Joshua Graham

There's a reason why certain peoples are fire resistant. Their ancestry is in flames, their genome comes from an active cauldera. There are pyres in their souls. Those who claim to have souls, anyway. Some have given up on laying claim to souls.

It's the way of worlds with magic in their bones. Be dragon-kin and people respect you. Be demon-kin and people reject you. Barava was neither of those. She was Human, and not even a trace of another intelligent species had found its way into her bloodline. Nevertheless, fire didn't touch her.

She had no magic, but she forged steel, which was close enough. She did not make blood swords, or swords with the souls of the vengeful dead intertwined with the metal. She didn't make swords with magic powers. She did, however, make blades so sharp that they could cut through bone in one blow.

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Challenge #02868-G311: To Change the World

The life of tieflings and kobolds has never been an easy ones. Discriminated against, trodden upon, mistreated practically from the day they are born, it is not unusual, though heartbreakingly cruel that it is, to find an infant of one of those races either deceased or weak, thrown upon midden piles or abandoned in the forests. But that was to change. At least a little.

A new village was starting to form. The alone, the abandoned, the lost, all gathered here. Tieflings,

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Challenge #02857-G300: The Curse/Blessing of Brightherald

Her child, one of several otherwise unwanted waifs within the village that she'd adopted, brought him to Ma. An older woman who was scarred and, yet, quite strong. She never gave up hope. He was old, he was poor, and he spent a great deal of time hungry. She'd seen him begging before, but had never had a chance to speak to him. When he was lead to her by one of her children during the Sunshine Festival, she had the chance

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Challenge #02854-G297: Here's One We Made Earlier

They had left Marvin with the village he had saved through the adventure he'd done on his own. As much as it hurt Anthe to do so, and even Wraithvine felt a tugging in his heart, they knew it was the best thing for him. That village needed the young man, and he needed his home there. Him and his new wife. He'd met her when she'd joined him, Wraithvine and Anthe while they were adventuring together.

Then a message came as

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Challenge #02849-G292: Deserving of Love and Mercy

They called him Sap, but he had another name once. Like almost all of the rest of his kind, the world looked down upon him due to what he was born as. Due to what he is. A Tiefling. All he'd wanted since his childhood was a little bit of kindness, some understanding, maybe to find love one day. A dream he refused to give up on. Then there was Cleric Lachasse. She saw the struggles he went through even as she

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Challenge #02847-G290: Worthy of Story and Song

Hey, have you heard? Ymir, the crimson adventurer? Dead! I know! Now his brother is on a rampage across Brakvob looking for the killer, swearing that once he finds him he’ll- oh shit that was you guys... - Anon Guest

Ymir saved so many. Ymir did so much. Ymir, like most Adventurers, laid a path of wreckage around him in the process. The grand quest looked spectacularly optimistic when viewed from the winning side, but... There are always victims, even to

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Challenge #02826-G269: Foretold You So

Do you remember the story of how the lord obtained the nickname Bargore the Beloved? -- Anon Guest

[AN: One paranoid search of my entire archive later, I can say that I have to now invent Bargore :D My thanks to a Tumblr post I cannot immediately unearth for the plotline of today's tale]

Some people were never destined to be evil. No matter how many forces turn them that way, no matter the determination of the individual, Fate has other plans.

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Challenge #02821-G264: Caste of the Shadows

“Before I make my request I will let you know the you may get angry.” I barely said anything but the tension of the room skyrocketed. The duchess straight face slowly firmed up “go on”. Steeling my resolve “I cannot really sugarcoat it, so I will be blunt.” My gaze drifted noticing the axe next to the chair where the duchess was sitting. “Basically, I want to experiment on your daughter-“ the axe that was by her chair was now lodged in

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Challenge #02799-G242: Wombmates For Life

Hey! Aww, you're so cute I can't stay mad at you. Please don't do that again. -- Anon Guest

[AN: How to Encourage Bad Behaviour Amongst the Telegenic 101. Step one, above]

Tieflings have to fight their entire lives just to be recognised as living things with feelings. Aasimar... don't. If devils can interfere with the affairs of normal folk, then the gods can, have, and will do the same[1]. If Tieflings evoke one reaction from everyone around them, then Aasimar

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Challenge #02778-G221: To Walk Away

Call it what you will, the dollar shop, the thing store, they are inevitably tied to poky little book stores designed by Escher in that they contain far more than they should, and often never store the same thing twice. They are inevitably attractive to maker types as they have things you cannot find elsewhere, or ever again. They also have the phenomenon of wandering in "for a quick look-around," and emerging days later with a full shopping bag, an empty wallet,

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Challenge #02776-G219: Peculiar Parenting Problems

There were things I expected to say to my children when I got into this whole parenthood thing. Things like "don't eat that" and "put your pants on" and "stop drawing on the walls" or "do your homework". Then, there were the things that took me by surprise. "Don't put that in your butt" was one, and "NO! DON'T PUSH YOUR BROTHER DOWN THE STAIRS!!" was another, but most recently, "If you make me faceplant into broken glass, you will be in

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Challenge #02774-G217: Finding a Smile

"No, thank you."

...

"Get that out of my face."

...

"STOP" -- Anon Guest

They said, Give a sweet thing to a sour face. Which was the very essence of the Sunshine Festival. Enough smiles, and the sun would rise, bringing an end to the cold of winter. Which was why the marketplace was overloaded with cloth flowers that had been soaked in cloying perfume. Honey-cakes abounded. Beautiful music filled every corner and turned every road into a cacophony.

Compliments that usually didn't

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Challenge #02765-G208: The Double-Edged Blade

Justice may be blind, but she can smell fear!

~Me -- AmberFox

Power, they often think, is wearing a crown and giving the orders. They were wrong. Power is taking responsibility and knowing that one person made the rules that encapsulated all their welfare.

Numbers beyond the safe ability to count were favourable when it was money, but not so when it was people bearing pitchforks and torches. When the people prospered, those in power prospered. Alas, when the people were oppressed,

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Challenge #02764-G207: If I See Further...

Necessity may be the mother of Invention, but Spite can make for an exceptional foster parent. -- AmberFox

Is there any phrase more simultaneously motivating and de-motivating than "you can't"? Whether or not someone takes it to heart, or how they take it to heart, is a matter of importance.

"You can't do that, you simply lack the mental capacity," is a good one that has inspired many to prove the naysayer wrong. Of course, such proof is almost inevitably dismissed as

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Challenge #02722-G165: A Rough Gem

Me playing support: get the f back here so I can heal you!

Some dumbbutt: but dps go bam... -- Anon Guest

"WHY, in the name of the Living Light, do you keep forgetting that you're squishy?"

"I'm used to being strong. I'm used to fighting the world. On the plus side, I have a pretty good grasp of tactics, so I'm not squishy for long..."

Gaarsh snorted an aborted growl. Being a Cleric of the Light wasn't always easy, but being

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