It was a prompt on here less than a month ago iirc

Damian, the Human Paladin (Oath of Devotion)

Damian was the most average adventurer alive; loving and supportive parents, no shitty backstory like everyone else he met at the tavern... he didn't even mean to choose this lifestyle. No, he became a paladin on accident, and he just kept at it because decided that it'd help pay the taxes enough for it to be worthwhile.

The day that he took his oath was like any other day for him. He was working errands around his city, saving up so that he could open up his own restaurant.

That day, he was tasked with cleaning up a grand temple, one that thousands of people went to every year. People were careless about their offerings, putting holy coins all over the floor, and so it was his job for today to clean all of them up.

As he first entered and looked up at the towering statue that watched over the building, he muttered to it that he would devote himself to his goal to open a restaurant for as long as he lived.

It just so happened that the God of that temple ruled over hospitality. As he finished his sentence, he felt... what he thought were the most intense goosebumps in his life.

Damian looked down at his hands wordlessly, wondering what the fuck just happened. He ignored it for the most part, however, and just went on with cleaning the temple.

That God came to him in his dreams that night. They started a grand speech about him being their holy paladin, which sent him reeling. All he did was just make a promise to himself! But oh well, apparently he had to help protect the world now.

Of course, Damian denied the job at first, but his new God told him that it'd pay him well. So, with that good news, he went off to start his quest of being the best damn protector there ever was... all for his future restaurant.

They could be inexperienced, perrrrrhaps. I did think of the invisible dude as a spy though who just couldn't avoid the pencil of death.

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Thank you! :D

Is multiclassing allowed? Shadow sorcerer sword bard and barely understanding emotions

Paladin who only desires to be a restaurant manager

Bard - “it’s their fault for falling for it”

loved this but was the switch from Buckland to Berkland intentional?

Love it! The mystery continues …

Satan is in a heavy metal band and plays the fiddle.

It seemed like everyone on the west coast knew of Buckland's Emporium. It is a small antique looking shop in east Portland. Seemingly aged well beyond its years compared to surrounding buildings and perpetually covered in graffiti from the local teens wanting to tag the hottest place. The staff seemed to be entirely a single old woman who has seemingly never been spotted outside the store despite how rare it has ever actually been open. No one even knew her name, but the community sensibly seemed to agree to refer to her only as Ms. Buckland. The reinforced windows were covered in what seemed to be vanta black paint from within. The door was likewise covered completely save for a small square perfectly cut out to showcase a hand-written sign, reading "Open 7 Days!" It was as if the shop was the exact opposite of what a shop was supposed to be.

Buckland's certainly wasn't open seven days every week. In fact, in the eight years that people can remember it even existing it has only been opened three times. The first opening was the day the store seemed to first appear. Rumor is only a few people even bothered to enter the store, let alone buy something. It's been disputed if anyone at all truly bought a single item that day. The recollections were always roughly the same on the offerings available however. It was what seemed to be your run of the mill snake oil junk sold at ridiculous prizes. A genie lamp promising three wishes for $300. A fuzzy pair of dice meant to hang from a car's dashboard promised fantastic luck to the owner for $400. A beautiful but cheaply made costume jewelry necklace claiming to grant the wearer immortality for $1,000. Every item as ridiculous as the last. When the store didn't open after that most assumed it was just a failed scam.

Everything changed when the store re-opened three years later for a second day. A local college girl had recently hit an explorative phase and was trying to hunt down every weird and indie shop she could find for her small blog. The decor of the place was bizarre to say the least. The pictures from her blog showed seemingly random items hanging from the ceiling making it hard to walk. A rainbow colored bicycle. Animatronic heads that seemed to always be looking at the camera. Long strings of Monopoly money hand-sewn together with red string. The items within the shop were stranger than the first time. Still promising extravagant claims impossible to fulfill. The photos showed an old timey phone that claimed you could speak to the dead for $600. A pocket watch that would let you fix any mistake for $400. A black box sealed close that simply said "everything inside" for $2,000. The girl had loved the eccentricness of the shop, it was the weirdest place in Portland she had found yet! Having never heard of it before despite it clearly being open some time and not seeing any other customers she decided with great pain to force herself to support the small business despite the crazy prices. She had found one of the smallest items in the store, a gorgeous gold coin with mysterious symbols carved into both sides. The paper attached to it simply said "CERTAIN VICTORY - $250". That was more than she'd paid for basically any of her favorite clothes but it reminded her of the victory she had finding such a cool place for her blog and motivated her. Besides, it looked like real gold so maybe she could sell it later to a pawn shop for some of the money back.

The blog had barely any entries after that post. However, it would be quoted endless in TV interviews, documentaries, and books since. The author had spent a few days going about business as normal, keeping the coin in her purse as a small token of good luck. She was having a great week. She had won the scholarship she wanted despite feeling her essay was a complete mess. She had won her Tennis match against an opponent who had previously completely out-classed her. She entered the local scratch ticket lottery and won the grand prize with her first ticket. It wasn't long before the pieces starting clicking together for her. She played a game of Chess, a game she never cared for and just barely knew the rules to play and best the AI at it's hardest difficulty just guessing what pieces to move randomly. Every test she seemed to just remember the answers despite not studying, so soon she stopped studying and somehow kept aceing tests. One day she had forgotten her purse in her car and got the worst grade of the year. That seemed to seal the fact to her that the coin wasn't just a piece of pretty junk. She went on to play professionally in several sports, being the undefeatable rising star. She had no hesistation thanking the trinket she bought from her store as well. People showed up often to check if it was open and ask around only to be let down like all the rest. Finally one day she took a private jet to attend a professional tennis match and it simply disappeared over the Bermuda triangle, never to be heard from again.

The store had gained a small cult following, although many still were incredibly skeptical, they couldn't resist the temptation of curiosity. The soft whisper in their ear of "but what if?" A sub-reddit and forum were made discussing theories and potential opening dates. A local nerd and active member of /r/Bucklands coincidentally living across the street from the store had setup a camera pointed across the street and at the door setting it to stream on Twitch so people could casually watch the door while they played their PC games or read a book, hoping one day they might see it open. At exactly 7:06 AM, June 6th, it opened for the third time. It only took 13 minutes for someone to realize it. Then quickly they had posted it everywhere. By 8:15 AM there was a small crowd. SunshineLilly, the most popular YouTuber in Portland. /u/BigCatsBigHats (commonly referred to as "Bigs") the admin of /r/Bucklands. GriftahTTV, the owner of the Twitch streamer who had lived nearby, and a trio of friends - Stephen, Eric, and Melissa - who had talked each other into rushing over after seeing a Tweet with the news. A few arrived just minutes after the last of the group but none managed to enter the store before "Ms. Buckland" started shooing people away saying the store was about to close.

SunshineLilly recorded the majority of the store's experience for her channel. Wanting a more interesting story to give her viewers she peppered the owner with countless questions. Only two pieces of information were given thoroughout the dozens of questions. "Ms. Buckland" was a collector. Customers may only purchase one item per person due to limited supply. SunshineLilly had purchased a small plastic trophy labelled "Ms. Popularity" that looked like it was stolen from a 10 year old ballerina's participation trophy shelf. It was the cheapest item this time costing "only" $350. Bigs bought a dirty Japanese lucky waving cat figure that said "good fortune" for $2,500. Stephen and Eric both reached a similar conclusion roughly equating to, "This is ridiculous. It's a cool looking shop, but I'm not going to drop half my paycheck on a piece of junk because one prodigy girl claimed she got good luck." Finally Melissa was the last to purchase an item, deciding on an old silver mirror that looked as if it would have been considered old during the American Civil War for $700. It's price tag included a brief description of "See your best self". Moments after the last purchase they were all pushed outside - for an old lady she seemed to be packing some muscle in her musty sleeves. The late-comers bombared them all with questions. "What gives? I thought the store was open today? It hasn't even been an hour! I called off work for this!", "Wait, you guys were actually in there? What did you buy?", "I'll pay you double whatever you paid for that cat!".

Soon enough the commotion died down and people returned home. Then sure enough, everything changed yet again. SunshineLilly went from being the most popular YouTuber in Portland to the most popular in the world. She was landing acting contracts and commericals just to play herself. Bigs had gone on to make it onto Forbes' Youngest Billionaires of 2020. Melissa had gone from an overweight frumpy self-proclaimed "potato bod" to one of the most recognizable super-models in the world within six months.

Then, one by one, each mysteriously disappeared by the beginning of 2022. Since Bigs, the last to disappear, had finally gone missing the "Bucklanders" as the community grew to call itself had numbered in the tens of millions. Real estate near Buckland's Emporium had sextupled in price since the store opened. There was always at least a couple people hanging around the store at all hours now. Yesterday recordings from the outside heard rumblings of furniture being dragged and nails being hammered inside. The frequent rumors of a new opening went from active to relentless now. Major new outlets kept trucks on standby. People slept outside of the store and police had to frequently disrupt fights over who was first in line. The store was going to open again, and it was going to be soon.

r/suddenlyTF2

I like this universe a lot honestly

Atheist Paladin

"Right, okay, so. You're here because—"

"Yes, yes, you don't have to say it."

"Well, I mean. I am your therapist. So I feel a sort of, you know, a certain obligation to—"

"Just fix it. That's what you're paid to do, right? We don't have to talk about it. You don't have to — you know."

"We do have to talk about it. That's how we go about fixing things. Also, I'm dead, so. I don't get paid. So tell me when it started."

It starts when he wakes up floating three inches above his deathbed.

You can duck your head beneath the water for a little while and enjoy the pressure and cold, but at some point you gotta breathe. So what happens when you get stuck down there? No one holds your head — you just can't get back up. Like it's the nature of things.

Acute Corporeal Aversion.

Labeling it doesn't make it any easier.

Cider wakes up freshly dead, an unseen whisper that holds shape, surrounded by weighty solid things. His wife, dripping wet tears onto a thin hospital blanket. His children, shocked and (shockingly) present. A nurse stands in the corner looking painstakingly empathetic while idly picking dirt from beneath her nails.

The room's the reservoir. The people are water. Cider's thin as tracing paper and all this pressure's gonna—

"So you're afraid of people," his ghost-therapist says in that question that isn't really a question way.

"No, I wouldn't ... I mean it's not exactly like I'm scared of them or anything, it's just—" A beat that lasts a decade. His children graduate college. His wife stops dyeing her hair and lets the grey grow out. "—there's all this squeezing, right? Like I'm getting juiced. All these people are so solid, and they breathe and their hearts beat and every time they speak it's like I can feel their throats tighten up, you know? I can feel that tightness and how all that sound just— just vibrates, like it shakes up all the air, and everyone's always talking."

"Okay. Yes, okay, well. This sounds like a classic case of ACA. My suggestion— excuse me, my professional opinion, is that you isolate yourself from corporeal humanity for, let's say, a century." The therapist scribbles nothing into the air with a pale pointer finger. "Go wander the woods, and come back when you feel rested."

nice that you had it be a random person and not a spy fumbling around trying to dodge the pencil

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My mind loved to wander. As I sat at my desk, it was clear that my body required movement. I eyes trailed over to my recently sharpened pencil. My wandering mind caught on, and ordered my body to execute what I wanted to do. I picked up and the pencil, and a smile ran across my face in satisfaction.

With strong thrusts I swung the pencil through the air with random, unpredictable movements. I did whatever I wanted to do with the flying pencil. Anyone who was around me, you better beware!

Unfortunately, the invisible man in my room didn't take on the hint.

A high pitched scream suddenly came out of absolute nowhere, but it was very close by to where I was. I jumped out of my chair with a yelp of my own, letting go of the pencil which would have obviously dropped to the ground, right?

Nope. It stuck in the air.

"WHAT IS THE WORLD WERE YOU DOING??" An anguished voice in pain shouted from the exact spot the scream came from. I was shocked. The pencil remained lodged in the air, but I couldn't see the bottom half on the pencil upon turning my head to observe the pencil. Blood was evident at the end of the pencil.

My brain was processing this certainly unusual situation. My mouth remained shut. The pencil began wriggling, as if whoever, or whatever, had it in them was trying to dislodge the item.

"My eye.. my eye.. I'll go blind!" The voice yelled again. "It hurts! Oh man.. this damn pencil won't come out! Damn it!"

At this point I was well a distance away from the floating pencil. I had to speak up eventually.

"Hey man, uh.. need help? I wouldn't suggest trying to pull it out. The bleeding would be horrific if you do so."

The voice didn't reply, but instead amidst its groans it topped tugging at the pencil. It eventually spoke up with a pained tone.

"Then.. I'll have to head back.. to get this removed.. ugh.. the trip is too long, driving is near impossible like this! It hurts so much!"

"You'll have to go back to where you came from. Since you're in such a state, um.. why not I give you a ride?" I said awkwardly.

I extended my hand towards the direction of the voice, and felt a touch on my wrist.

"Yes, please."

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Hey, he still got them what they wanted even if he thinks it's shit. That's a pretty cool guy right there.

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I reckon he listens to some banging tunes

Necromancer Rick Astley.