BUY MY STUFF!

Challenge #04948-M199: Last Days of a Saint

A dying elderly woman's final wish. She had spent her entire life helping others. And while that life had made her very happy, a tiny little piece of her wishes she could be spoiled a little and treated like a queen. Just for one day, though. -- BKF

A Saint for Wraithvine had reached the point where she was no help to anyone. A lifetime of charitable action had worn her near to a whisper, but she was happy.

"It is our turn to help you, Grandmother. What can we do?"

"In these, my last days, I wish for indulgence. Let me have the luxuries we treat the wealthy with. All the things that aren't worth a gnat's spit, but feel nice all the same."

Challenge #04947-M198: A Most Useful Weed

An alchemist has been brewing a potion for three months, and after taking meticulous care, it’s finally ready for the final step: the addition of a locally grown, fresh-picked herb.

Unfortunately, a combination of overzealous weeding by locals and imperfect weather means that the usual crop is not available.

The alchemist now has forty-eight hours to find the missing ingredient, and is becoming increasingly unhinged. -- Tergon

Months of steeping, fermenting, careful additions of each ingredient according to the instructions. The potion was almost done. The last, and easiest step - adding one dozen fresh leaves of ground ivy. A common weed that was everywhere in Lefthsyde.

Messalyn Chuffey had no concerns over that part. The rest of it had been a heart-stopping anxiety free-for-all, but ground ivy? The exemplary piece of piss.

Until the day came to get some. There had been a stand of it nine paces from Messalyn's front door, but someone had come by with their goats, and all that was left was stubble.

Possibly related to The Big Move(tm) in which two households are becoming one. The servers, as far as I know, are directly connected to the computers in Brizvegas. Computers that may be shut down or otherwise inoperable because they may or may not be in a U-Haul or moving crate.

I have been busy as all fuck this week past, and I am more than a little bit fragile. My knees are rebelling, my right hip is crying out for a hot bath [and maybe a tepid rub-down], and my dodgy ankle is being its usual bitchy self.

So I am taking a day of low expectations.

I work on today's story very soon. After that - perhaps an attempt to look after myself. Perhaps some extreme slacking off.

Challenge #04946-M197: Controlled Substance

There is nothing more stubborn than a determined wizard, except, perhaps, a determined CAT! And when the plants are fully mature, Lilbit manages to get into the catnip, with rather amusing results.

https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-04696-l312-important-gifts -- BKF

Wraithvine knew hir stuff. The wards did little more than add an unpleasant static charge to Lilbit's fur, but they kept her off the plants. The cat mint plants that kept drawing her back to a very unpleasant experience.

In an effort to spare her discomfort, Wraithvine used an additional magical ward to alter the scent of the plants.

It worked, most of the time.

Challenge #04945-M196: The True Impediment

A hellkin runs a special school for those who are disabled, helping them learn how to overcome the prejudices and misconceptions people have of those who are not considered "normal". None of those there are treated as lesser, but instead, shown just how strong they can be. -- BKF

There were two entrances to the place, depending on what kind of parent wanted their child there. One side was bright, open, colourful and soft. The other side was stark, dark, and oppressive. It's the inside that counts.

It's always the inside that counts, but the parents who leave their children at the relevant gate never care to step inside.

They all believe that they're doing what needs to be done, and that their children are in the hands of "better help". Only a rare few write to ask how the children are doing, though most ask if their child is "normal yet". Anisolys, the Hellkin who ran the place, never got over the fact that parents on both sides wrote with the same enquiry.

Challenge #04944-M195: Letter Campaign

A malicious letter writing campaign forces Lord Kormwind to implement a restrictive policy in regards to mail coming into Whitekeep. This has unforeseen consequences. -- Deathshead419

[AN: I can't easily imagine what might lead to such things in Whitekeep. Origins outside of Whitekeep can work]

A king of conquest is generally expected to encounter the need for more conquest. In such a way, empires are wont to grow. King Kormwind Arachis Felbourne Whitekeep, ninth of his name, stopped short of controlling enough land to become an Emperor, and instead forged an alliance.

Which did nothing to stop people calling it The Infernal Empire.

And nothing to stop people outside of it from getting funny ideas about what went on within its borders. And, like most people with a bug in their bonnet, they sought to appeal to the highest authority. Unfortunately, the highest authority was the very fellow they were complaining about. And they all wrote the same letter.

Challenge #04943-M194: Something Wicked

The royal family are faced with a terrible burden. The boy that was their son has long since died. What was within the body was pure evil. Now came the most painful part. Casting out the evil, though it would mean having to bury their son. For the sake of many lives, there was no other course.

https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-04898-m149-what-rude-beast -- BKF

The thing that inhabited Prince Crevith's body drove it relentlessly Eastward. To what goal, it did not say. It wore out three horses on its quest, and cared not for the welfare of the retainers.

But Druids find a way to manage. The good berries replenish and revitalise. One could fly ahead and prepare for the arrival of the others. One more could go and seek help from any vector. Including other Druids.

A great evil walked the world, and something had to stop it.

Challenge #04942-M193: Signed, Sealed, Adopted

Bibrid is offered the opportunity to officially adopt Chance as their own child. Scramble was not interested in being adopted, ze saw the two traveling with them as beloved Untys. -- BKF

[AN: The plural of Unty (The nongender variant of Aunty or Uncle) should be "Unties", but it also looks like that thing you do when you loosen a knot. My compromise is leaving the Y alone, so I fixed that in this prompt. Also, Scramble in Nonbinary. I checked. Last installment was Trees in the Way ]

Civilisation was still doing what it did best - being messy and unnecessarily complicated. Specifically about who gets what and who gets tossed out of the town's walls. As always since the dawn of Humanity's entry to the Xenophobia Wars, the devilborn were more likely to get the short end of the proverbial stick.

Bibrid held Chance's hand a little tighter than normal. The little Hellkin sensed his trepidation and wrapped his other arm around Bibrid's.

Scramble knew too well what hir odds were as a traveling vagabond. A child vagabond, even dressed better and cared for, was still a vagabond. By civilisation's logic and reason, ze was also a criminal element. A 'fact' made worse by hir Hellkin company. Nevertheless, knowing how towns and cities operated, Scramble insisted on walking on Chance's other side.

Challenge #04941-M192: Slow, Slow Progress

A person who studies plants, but is not a druid, just a normal human, works with her elven husband to develop Harukh'ai crop plants that grow more quickly, grow larger, and are more nutritious. Others may sneer, but they truly believe the way to world peace, is by making sure no one goes hungry. -- BKF

[AN: Possibly in relation to Had a Bad Day ]

Hard-root in its natural form is a slow-growing tuber that, like most things that grow in the Harukh'ai steppes, is hardy and tough as rocks. It takes quite a lot of work to actually kill the plant that grows it, as the Elves once driven out of the plainlands testified in their records.

It was also very slow to grow and necessitated the nomadic lifestyle of the Harukh'ai tribes.

A mature hard-root tuber is roughly the size of a firkin[^1] and weighs close to seven hundred pounds. It is not merely physically dense, but nutritionally dense as well. No wonder that the Haruk'ai are muscular.

Challenge #04940-M191: Give Your All

They were poor, but at time of offering at the temple, they gave their very last coin with a wish. Not for wealth for themselves, but, of all things, for the children of the local lord who was not unkind, would survive their illnesses. And the poor who gave their very last? The gods always know. -- BKF

See a copper, pick it up, and all the day you'll have good luck. So the saying goes. The truth of the luck of a relatively worthless coin is debatable. Then again, worth is relative.

To Old Dimaas, who lived on forage and the few things ze could forage or trade for, a single copper coin was more money than ze had seen in hir life.

It was covered in verdigris and filthy, but it had turned up inside a fish that ze caught. Dimaas had seen people in the town use such coins as trade. Ze took it to the town with hir trade goods to see what may be bought.

Challenge #04939-M190: Justice in the Snowfall

A child’s tradition- the shadow dance, to summon and welcome Kinderfreund and Helpmeet -- Weirdlet

Kid culture is a heck of a thing. Nobody knows who invented the floor being lava. There's no recorded instance of step on a crack. Nobody knows who first determined how to use a dandelion clock.

Nobody knows who created the Shadow Dance.

Just like nobody knows who thought of leaving out offerings for Greatfather Langeven and the unicorn that draws his sled. All around Alfarell, children just... started doing it. And it worked.

Challenge #04938-M189: Chosen Heir Test

A dying deregger oligarch, wanting better for his people, doesn't bequeath his fortunes and worlds to his descendants. He uses his will to give them to the only man who has never lied to him. An Alliance member who made their living astroid mining. -- BKF

Pax Humanis isn't the only reason why Deregger Oligarch's compounds are heavily fortified. There's also the descendants and seconds-in-command who are on the impatient side. Sharpening knives or preparing undetectable poisons when they weren't pricing assassins or attempting to lure Pax Humanis over to do their dirty work for them.

The Alliance are no fools. They investigate every appeal with covert agents.

What they found in this particular Deregger polity was an Oligarch doing whatever ze could against hefty pushback from other powerful oligarchs in the system.

Challenge #04937-M188: War Adapts

Alliance observers watch the boot camp where future human space Marines are trained. -- BKF

They say war never changes. Some aspects of it do. Such as, how badly the opposing sides can ruin the landscape they're fighting over. Or how nefarious or nasty the tactics can get. Or the tools employed in battle.

What surprised most of the Alliance was how Humans - the most reckless of Deathworlders - agreed that nuclear weapons were not on.

Turning contested territory into an uninhabitable crater that glows in the dark is somewhat counter to the entire point. They want to have it and all the associated perks, not to watch it through special telescopes. Nukes were worse than sowing the ground with salt, because they also made mineral exploitation a deadly exercise.

Challenge #04936-M187: Domesticated Predator

The havenworlders look upon the scene in shock as a normal house cat chases away a full sized bear from the camp. -- BKF

Human Yen loved to take her friends camping, and that included her cat, Dinky. Dinky, on harness and leash, did not do any of the hiking. She preferred to ride on Yen's backpack, chattering and chittering at the little creatures beyond her reach.

Yen was no slouch. Dinky was firmly attached with a harness and leash. Kept safe from wreaking havoc on the wildlife by a spring-loaded spool.

Well. Mostly kept from havoc.

Challenge #04935-M186: Legal Rites

Invited to a dwarven wedding, and you’re not sure if this is a joining ceremony or a courtroom proceeding. Either way, you hope you brought the right gift. -- Weirdlet

The ceremony was in a beautiful cavern, where stalactites and stalagmites were decorated with glowing crystals and fungi. The surface world had its traditions. Flowers. Manner of dress. Vows. On the surface, the marrying partners met each other in the middle and there were portents regarding how quickly they did it.

Here in the D'varuv portions of the Everdark, the marrying partners came with lawyers. All dressed to the best of their ability. The would-be matrimonial participants were wearing their wealth on their bodies, while the rest were merely wearing their best clothing. Each parent or guardian argued their reasons why their child should remain in their family, before each child argued why they should wed.

All of it was in formal D'varuk, so Espial was completely lost. He was the only Hellkin and the only outsider, invited there by Reinwulyn, and feeling like the only petunia in the onion patch. Or rather, the tallest poppy in the field.

Challenge #04934-M185: Had a Bad Day

this is as close to a princess as the orcs reckon, and she is not amused -- Weirdlet

For untold centuries, the Harukh'ai were seen as the most Unwelcome People. Often cast as villains. Stereotyped as instantly aggressive or prone to violent outbursts. What people generally neglected to think about was that the Harukh'ai were nomadic folk with centuries-long migration paths and oral histories to match.

They needed them, because the crops other species failed to recognise took decades to grow to maturity. So when the tribe of Harukh'ai returned to their crop-grounds to discover that their next food source had been destroyed by invaders, their reaction was only natural.

According to the invaders, the Harukh'ai were villains who attacked the brave pioneers for no good reason.