You are a knight and your duty is to serve, no matter who - or what - that is.
Fairness was an understatement. She never thought it would all come to this. Berethel didn't think her mother's goals would go this far. But getting her family into a better position and making her younger brother the next in line to the throne wasn't a thing she foresaw. Now here she was, serving as a knight for her brother. She'd serve him loyally but he was sadly only a puppet to their mother.
A school trip takes an unexpected turn for the worse.
Paris sounded like a great place to have a school trip, it was just a chunnel right away. All of those rumors she'd seen online had to be fake. I mean, most things she saw on tiktok were faked, why not this.
That was until halfway through the museum tour it happened. She got into a dumb argument with a classmate and she heard a voice. She got Akumatized.
10. You were sent by those above you to kill the mighty dragon. But when you get there, you realize you don't want to.
It had been a long expedition up the mountain to even get to the Dragon's lair. The local kingdom claimed that it burned their towns, kidnapped their maidens, and ate their cattle. There certainly wasn't any sign of such destruction when Smoldering Ember rode into town on his pitch black stallion.
Yet he was a wandering hero who swore to alleviate the burdens of those who would seek his help, so he took his fierce red and blue armor, sharpened his sword handed down to him by his father, and took on the quest to slay this foul beast. If it did spew fire, the enchantments on his armor make him resistant to the heat of flames and the chill of frost. If the dragon flew from his reach, that would be a problem, so he had to be quiet and corner it in its own lair.
What he didn't expect when he arrived at the mountaintop lair of the dragon was the bustling town of women who were cultivating cattle and experimenting with high-altitude farming. They had dug small creeks and stepped layers of soil which they made fertile to plant food crops. When the women sa him enter the town, they welcomed him warmly and explained that the dragon did not kidnap them, nor did it eat the kingdom's cattle. And it certainly never burned down any towns.
The dragon shows itself as a woman named Treya. She was tall and muscular, with white flowing hair and an eye that was purely white as though completely made of ice. She and the women explained that Treya entered their small peasant towns and befriended them, becoming aware of their plight as peasants living in abject poverty while the kingdom raised taxes every year. Here, on top of the mountain, Treya provides for them and allows them to have purpose beyond slaving under a ruler they never chose and will never even meet.
Ember empathizes with the plight of the women and loses all desire to slay this dragon. Maybe he should give the king a piece of his mind when he gets back down the mountain.
Username: Lirilei Prompt response: Bad Decision was known for doing just that. Making bad decisions. Even when she thought it was a good one...it turned out to be a bad one. Buy a new car? Too bad that car happened to be stolen. Get her hair cut? Too bad the stylist ended up singing off a chunk of hair and gave her bangs. It was awful.
7. Your life is a horror story, a testament to everyone of what not to do.
Dice rolls
[7] = 7 1d20:
[
7
]
= 7
Last edited by Lirilei on Tue Nov 28, 2023 2:06 am, edited 1 time in total. word count: 83
Shallow Waters was not thrilled with the current circumstances. It was a trip he'd been looking forward to, but now he was having a minor panic attack. He got trapped in an elevator and didn't do well in small spaces, especially when there wasn't a light on either...he was lucky his boyfriend was in there with him, but this was still awful and he needed to get. out. now!
A school trip takes an unexpected turn for the worse.
Dice rolls
[18] = 18 1d20:
[
18
]
= 18
Last edited by Lirilei on Tue Nov 28, 2023 2:08 am, edited 2 times in total. word count: 87
A choir trip, this was sure to be easy right? Wrong. Hoof Stomp managed to fall off the stage while trying to get into place...and broke her ankle in the process. Just...why?
A school trip takes an unexpected turn for the worse.
Username: Scaramouche Fandango Prompt response: "A school trip takes an unexpected turn for the worse."
Strange Creature hugged her knees to her chest as she sat pressed against the cold glass of the bus window. The zoo was her absolute favorite place for a field trip, and she was so excited to visit lizards that were different than the lizards she had at home. But not just lizards- the zoo also had snakes, and turtles, and tortoises, and crocodilians, which she also loved so very, very much. There were two types- a pair of African dwarf crocodiles in the African rainforest biome building, and two beautiful Orinoco crocodile sisters in the Swamp biome building. And that's where her group was headed first! She knew her classmates would be oohing and aahing over the otters, but she only had eyes for the Ori girls.
But the building... seemed different. She rushed past the first aviary- it reeked of fish-eating bird guano, and the netting made the boat-billed herons hard to see anyways. As always, she stopped by the small bank of enclosures that held small lizards- but curiously, the basilisks were gone, replaced by another... honestly, boring as hell eyelash viper. She never got the appeal of those, and she got this one even less, because there was already an eyelash viper enclosure in this bank of tanks. Why did they need two displays for the same boring animal? The Cuban knight anole was also missing, but that was pretty normal- they rotated him in and out, since he was a sensitive boy who didn't much care for paparazzi. Still, it was weird that there were no lizards. And she wasn't even able to see the vipers.
Her next stop was even more unsettling- an area that held several aquariums of unusual amphibians- dart frogs, aquatic sirens, Surinam toads, and cacelians, was devoid of any aquaria or enclosures. Instead, there was a large, climbable statue of a bullfrog. It was empty and uncomfortable, and not at all what she was used to. Still, she looked forwards to the jewel of the swamp, the large complex housing a pair of Orinoco crocodiles. They were sisters and had been there for as long as she could remember. They were gorgeous specimens, sassy and smart, and she loved watching their training displays.
But the two crocodiles... weren't there. Instead, there were six juvenile flamingoes in their enclosure.
She gaped. She gasped. She looked a flamingo in the eye and said harsh words to it. It honked at her. What had happened to this building, one of the most interesting reptile buildings she'd ever been in? There was one lizard left in the entire Swamp. Out of the original seven lizard taxa, they were down to one, the Merten's water monitor. The basilisks, now missing, were one of the mascots for the building- there was a huge banner of one of them outside on the main zoo gates, and they weren't on display anywhere. The crocodiles? Gone. There were interactive signs about them in the building, there was even a button that let you hear a bellow- but they were replaced by birds. The building already had birds, and now... well, now they had one more species exhibited at the other zoo across town, at the expense of the only Orinoco crocodiles in the state. She would have to cross state lines to get to the nearest zoo that exhibited a full-size crocodilian. It was a disgrace. Three AZA facilities in town and not a single one of them exhibited a crocodilian over five feet long. What was the world coming to?
She trailed through the rest of the building in a fugue state. The giant Chinese salamanders? Gone. (At least she knew where those were, they were downstairs because they'd outgrown their enclosure. She'd seen them on a special behind-the-scenes tour that summer.) The two-toed amphiuma? Gone. The other basilisks? Gone. The 300-pound alligator snapping turtle? Gone, replaced by some admittedly cute Blanding's turtles... which would have been great if the zoo didn't have those in two other buildings and an outdoor seasonal display.
It was a disgrace. A travesty. An outrage. And to make matters worse, her classmates were still mammal-watching. Could this day get any worse?
(this is definitely a fictional story and not something that happened to me two weeks ago that i'm definitely not still bitter about grumble grumble grumble)
Username: Scaramouche Fandango Prompt response:"A wizard grants you any magical ability or superpower that you want with no downside."
"Lizard."
The wizard looked at her, confused. "You... want your magical ability to be... lizard?"
"LIZARD."
"I'm gonna need you to explain this. Like, do you want to be able to crawl up walls? Change color like a chameleon? What does "lizard" mean?"
From the back of the room came an annoyed grumble. "She's been at this for a while now, pal. Just grant her what she wants so we can get out of here.
The wizard looked around, blinking. He was in a darkened room, and he was aware he'd been summoned from his study, sucked in through a portal across time and dimensions. This was fine. This was ok. He was used to this kind of thing, he summed beings all the time. But this was... unusual. He wasn't in a magical study; he was apparently in somebody's cellar. There was a summoning circle on the floor, painted by an amateur in red craft acrylics. And there were several other creatures trapped in summoning circles of their own- a djinn, a demon, a bottle imp, even a leprechaun. "Just let her read you the terms and conditions and see if it's within your wheelhouse, because we would all really like to get out of here. That was the leprechaun, an exhausted-looking fellow. "She's got this thing written out all contractually, and frankly none of us want to do it because of the whole magical power at a price thing. She doesn't want any of the normal magical stuff- she just wants lizard."
"Ok, ok," said the wizard. "You have summoned beings from the four corners of the universe, beings more powerful than I could ever imagine, and you... are doing this for lizard."
Strange Creature beamed. "Now you're getting it!" she said.
"You could have invincibility. You could have the gift of teleportation. You could have anything you wanted- money, power, knowledge- and all you want... is lizard."
"Yup."
"Once again, I need you to explain what lizard entails."
Strange Creature took a deep breath. "I want to be able to turn into any kind of lizard, and turn back into my normal form at will. I want to be able to speak to lizards and have them understand me, and I want them to be able to speak to me and be understood in turn. I want to retain my human knowledge, thoughts, emotions, and motivations while in lizard form, and I want to be able to shift between these shapes painlessly and easily. I want to be able to keep my personality in lizard form, and I want to be able to retain the ability to communicate verbally and through the written or typed language with humans. Also I want the lizards to want to talk to me. Like, give me a lizard friendship aura. I want the lizard friendship aura to be constantly active so that the lizards know that I am their friend."
"Wait, you want your power to be lizard friendship? Not like, control over lizards, or the ability to produce infinite lizards, or like, even a dragon or something? You want the magical power to be able to befriend lizards. Again, you could have anything you dream up, and this is what you want? You're sure? You're absolutely sure that lizard friendship and some minor shapeshifting is what you want? This is-"
The wizard stopped. He stared at her, looking deep into her eyes, and realized in one terrifying moment the depth of her sincerity. She approached closer, standing on the edge of the summoning circle, and hissed the word with such intensity that the wizard suddenly understood what had gone on in Abdul Alhazred's mind as he wrote the Necronomicon- that single purpose and drive that led one to the greatest of heights or the deepest of depths.
"Liz. Ard."
Well, if lizard was what she wanted, lizard was what she was going to get. Alakazam, alakislizzard, turn this person into a lizard.
Username: beejoux Prompt response: Delicate fingers had stilled on the strings of the mandolin they'd been playing. It felt like the world was disappearing around them, sound swallowed up by static and everything going numb. For long seconds Born just sat there doing nothing, saying nothing. Scarely remembering to even breath.
After what felt like forever a voice pierced the deafening silence. It was startling, but tone suggested they might have been talking for quite sometime and Born hadn't heard a word of it. Not after...
"Did you here me?"
"Sorry. No. I didn't hear." Their voice sounded thick to their own ears. Born swallowed, trying to force back the knot of emotion. "...would you please repeat that? How did he...?"
"Mortally wounded. On the front lines. I'm...I'm sorry."
Born's chest constricted, and they nodded. "I understand."
A letter arrives in the mail one day with news of someone you lost. What does it say?
Username: Fasti Prompt response: You were sent by those above you to slay the mighty dragon. But when you get there, you realize you don't want that.
Liquid Amber carefully crept around the large rock behind which the narrow path into the dark valley began.
"You can do it!" He reminded himself, took a deep breath and placed his first hoof on the sparsely overgrown ground. Moving forward carefully, he went over the directions in his head one last time: "Climb the Mountain of Eagles, from there look for the big fir tree, behind it begins the swamp of toads, don't leave the path. A charred tree shows you the end of the area, keep left until you come to the waterfalls. Look for the large rock behind which is the path into the dark valley. Follow this and you will find the dragons."
It had been a while now, the path wound its way between rock walls that seemed to get narrower with every step. It was no longer possible to look around, was this really the right way? Trees towered over the rock faces, making the path appear even darker. The minutes passed and Liquid Amber was about to push backwards when he saw the end of the path. At least that's what he thought. He quickened his pace until he found himself standing in front of a rocky wall. “Great,” he thought. "I could swear it just looked like there was a curve here!"
The end of the path was a little wider, a kind of circle surrounded by rock walls. On one side there was a tree, on the other a tiny stream flowed into the rock face.
Liquid Amber looked around in surprise, was this a dead end?! First think... he sat down under the tree and looked around, but found no sign of a path. He hit the tree in frustration, but what was that? He stood up, an arrow vaguely visible was scratched into the trunk, with wavy lines beneath it.
"THE WATER! That's it!" He quickly ran to the stream and looked around. "THERE!" A tiny opening, covered by moss and vines, into which the stream disappeared.
He pushed himself through the entrance, cold water sprayed up him, but he didn't care. Behind him, the plants obscured the entrance, leaving him alone in the darkness.
"Let's go!" he murmured to himself and continued on his way. It didn't take long before a small point of light appeared in front of him, that must be the exit! With every meter he got closer he became more cautious; after all, he hadn't come to drink coffee.
The exit was surrounded by bushes that provided good privacy, very good!
He stepped out of the hole and stopped dead in his tracks, this wasn't what he expected! Meadows and forests as far as the eye could see, lakes and rivers meandered through the landscape. Colorful flowers grew everywhere he looked. But the most amazing thing were the dragons! Hundreds of them fly through the air, sit together by the water or doze in the shade of the trees. "What..." he said out loud.
"This isn't quite the valley you were hoping for, huh?" came a voice next to him.
Liquid Amber was frightened and jumped to the side.
"Always take it easy, I won't hurt you." said the dragon. His scales were the color of the rock walls, which meant he hadn't noticed him.
"You are the fourth newcomer, your predecessors all came through this corridor, that's why I'm waiting here."
The dragon looked at him questioningly, but when Liquid Amber made no move to answer, he continued talking. "I assume that you too were sent to defeat the 'Great Dragon'?!" a laugh escaped him. "I have to disappoint you, but there is no big dragon, we live here peacefully, hidden from the eyes of the outside world."
Liquid Amber snapped out of his stupor. “How do I know I can trust you?”
"You're in a valley full of dragons and you're still alive, I think that says a lot."
He stood up and walked a few steps. "Come on, I'll show you around, then you can see for yourself."
Liquid Amber followed him hesitantly... perhaps the place really was completely different than described.
The dragon turned his head to him. "By the way, I'm Greyfang."
Username: Scaramouche Fandango Prompt response: "Your life is a horror story, a testament to everyone of what not to do."
When he wished for immortality, he should have wished for youth and wholeness, too. What would fall off next? The rest of his jaw? The other leg? He was a rotting corpse-that-wasn't, a shambling heap of gangrene and decay. Time marched on without him, and his body paid the toll.
You cannot see, but you can hear and you can smell and you know you are not where you should be.
The darkness had closed in quickly. In a blink, the shadow chasing reared into a huge wave and crashed down upon him. His world turned so pitch black, he was sure that there was no color left and there never would be again. At first there was no sound, no smell, no sights. Then the wailing began. A low sound that slowly rose. He wasn't sure what he was hearing and then the smell hit him. It was wet and rotten, like half eaten corpse after it's been rained on. He retched.
She was powerful, a witch who called to ghosts that haunted sad places, she was delight for she calmed the ghosts by making them laugh, making them feel joy again, and then opening the door so they could run through, letting their joy and laughter lead them to the other land, the other side.
A school trip takes an unexpected turn for the worse.
Fire Across The Sky was having a great time on the school trip to the harborside Aquarium. He had been so excited in the weeks leading up to this trip, because he wanted to see the penguins. At this point, he was dancing along with his group, because he was trying not to be impatient about the fact that they had not yet seen the penguins.
And then there was the sound of screaming, loud and terrifying, filling the aquarium from the direction of the bay. He turned, along with the rest of the group, to see what was happening.
It was huge, it was terrifying and... It was filled with his penguins! It was a giant water monster, and it seemed to have absorbed a bunch of the exhibits, so that there were fish and octopi and penguins swimming inside of it. It was stomping... well, sloshing really... through the Aquarium, making a loud sound like waves crashing on rocks during a storm. Anyone who got in its' way was pulled into the swirling water, tossed around, then spit out behind, unconscious (or so Fire hoped, he couldn't tell.) The animals seemed ok, the penguins even were swimming to the edges, sticking their beaks out for air, then swimming back in. Only people were in danger.
There was a long moment where their group leaders stared in horror, then they began to yell orders, forcing the group to flee. Fire followed, wailing about his precious penguins the whole way.
Bad Decision was known for doing just that. Making bad decisions. Even when she thought it was a good one...it turned out to be a bad one. Buy a new car? Too bad that car happened to be stolen. Get her hair cut? Too bad the stylist ended up singing off a chunk of hair 
Shallow Waters was not thrilled with the current circumstances. It was a trip he'd been looking forward to, but now he was having a minor panic attack. He got trapped in an elevator and didn't do well in small spaces, especially when there wasn't a light on either...he was lucky his boyfriend was in there with him, but this was still awful and he needed to get. out. 
A choir trip, this was sure to be easy right? Wrong. Hoof Stomp managed to fall off the stage while trying to get into place...and broke her ankle in the process. Just...why?
She was powerful, a witch who called to ghosts that haunted sad places, she was delight for she calmed the ghosts by making them laugh, making them feel joy again, and then opening the door so they could run through, letting their joy and laughter lead them to the other land, the other side.
Fire Across The Sky was having a great time on the school trip to the harborside Aquarium. He had been so excited in the weeks leading up to this trip, because he wanted to see the