A girl standing on her porch rethinking her 4 year long relationship unable to recognize the person she has become. Not that she hates that person, she is just not that kind of a woman.

Nice!

Nice!

A mute swordmage on a first date with a pretty and huge elven half-orc, but they have not revealed their mutism to their date yet. They're trying to bluff their way through by having their talking raven speak for them using a throw voice spell, but the pair had a falling out ahead of time and now the raven is sabotaging the date to their point that a battle breaks out. Can the swordmage resolve the situation and repair relationships old and new without even being able to speak?

Nah, just have 'em roll a life saving throw every few turns lmao

And add a permanent -2 do dex throws

Nice!

I vote to adopt the dragon!

Nice one!

"This is what I was saying!" Martha screamed. "It's that god damned dog all over again! You save one stray dog, what happens when you come across the next stray dog?! We live in Arkansas, Justin! We could find a stray dog every block if we wanted to! And now that same pathology, with helpless young women stuck in towers? What the fuck, Justin? What about us?! What about you and me? What about Tom and Helen?"

"Babe," Justin said. "I don't know what you want from me. We both knew this job would require travel. We both agreed to this."

"We both agreed to occasional travel!" Martha retorted. "You are not traveling occasionally! Every weekend, you go trolling around looking for another twenty-something to whisk down from a tower, then be like 'oh, I dunno what to do with you, let's just add her to our family'. We have enough 'daughters', Justin!"

"Hey," Justin sounded angry. "Enough, Martha. These little girls need someone too. They have no one, they don't deserve to be locked away their full lives."

"But, honey, that is just the world! That is what we live with! It is like the stray dogs! Do you want to go rescue some?" Martha swung open the front door, from which they could see two stray dogs, one corgi mix, the other a mutt. "Go get 'em."

Justin looked at Martha with vitriol, not speaking to not regret his words.

"This is different." Is all Justin said, his eyes fixed on the floor.

"Sure," Martha spat. "Sure. Keep scratching this weird altruistic itch at the downfall of the rest of your family."

"You don't get it!" Justin screamed, suddenly animated. Martha recoiled, slightly scared.

"It didn't start like this!" Justin continued. "The first time I went, I didn't even want to! Clyde and the boys were going and talked me into it. That first time, honey... I didn't think it'd be so bad. That little girl... I still dream of her most nights, skeletally thin, unbathed, chained in her own filth.

"The only thing that has ever helped has been contributing, from dawn until dusk, until you're too tired to take another step. Then slamming a flask or two of whiskey, then gracefully to sleep. And the sleep that comes then is blissful, cradled in darkness. Morning comes and I don't wake up with a tight chest. This is saving me! This is saving my heart!"

By the end, Justin was blubbering. Martha cradled his head as he sank into the couch, laying on her lap.

Their 'daughters' had stirred from the guest house and were wondering what was wrong with their mom and dad.

However, Justin soon fell asleep in Martha's lap, following the intensity of the evening.

Martha invited in the girls, who had breakfast prepared when Justin woke up from his deep slumber.

Thanks! You reawakened the latent spaceflight nerd in me for this one!

The legendary hero, destined to vanquish the dark lord, was instead transported to our world and has no clue how he’s going to survive.

"Hm, let's try this one step at a time, does that sound alright?" The large reptilian beast spoke patiently.

Sir Albert watched from below with his jaw dropped and his sword hanging loosely from his hand.

"I'm terribly sorry, I just-" the beautiful woman, with her curly black hair looked at the stairs with fear written all over her face and whimpered,

"Its perfectly alright. Fret not, your highness, we shall find a way down." The dragon spoke again.

They were standing in a tall tower in the middle of an absurdly large castle. The tower was near bare, holding on a winding staircase and a single room at the very top. The staircase itself was fairly nerve wrecking thing, circling the inside walls, though lacking any railing, leaving a large, unguarded pit in the middle all the way to the bottom floor.

The dragon was currently gently flapping its large wings in order to fly in the middle of the tower, talking calmly to the princess, who clutched the doorframe of the room with a white-knuckle grip.

"Truly, I do not understand that horrid witches obbsession with leaving people in my masters palace, it's so utterly disrespectful. Master is old, he cannot keep retrieving kidnapped guests from this top tower everytime the witch has her feelings hurt."

Sir Albert's bafflement increased, and he place his sword back in its sheath, declaring the beast to not be of threat to him or the princess.

"Uhm... pardon me!" He voiced hesitantly,

Their attention turned to him, and the princess leaned closer to the stairs to get a good look at him, "Sir Albert! You came!" She said happily, before realizing how close she was to the edge and squeaked, backing further into the safety of the room.

The knights gaze flickered to the dragon nervously as he crept further up the stairs.

"Yes... uh.. your parents- they sent me to... rescue... you?" He asked, uncertain that she really needed saving from his observations.

The dragon nodded in understanding, "Oh that was a very good course of action, though I must ask where your men are, sir?"

He paused, briefly wondering of this was a trick to determine how much of a threat he may be, before deciding to go the honest route.

"I've come by myself.",

The dragons eyes widened, "Why, they must have much confidence in your ability!"

He heard Karina's voice from inside the room, "He's the best knight in the kingdom!" She bragged on his behalf.

"Truly? Well how magnificent, congratulations young man."

He flustered, "Ah, it's really nothing special." He said sheepishly,

"Don't let him fool you Astyick, he's the youngest officer of the ages."

"Modesty is a respectable trait." The dragon commented with a nod.

Sir Albert finally reached the top of the stairs, "Right, well, Princess Karina, let's get you back home." He said, offering an arm for her to hold onto.

She fidgeted anxiously in her spot, much to his confusion.

"She's having a bit of trouble dealing with the... distance of the tower."

"Ah, yes, I forgot about her phobia. Well, this may be a bit complicated then." He said, feeling embarrassed by his own forgetfulness. He'd known the princess since they were children, he ought to have remembered her paralyzing fear of heights. The woman hardly ever even went to the second floor of her own castle.

Karina looked embarrassed, "I'm sorry for being so difficult to you two-" she started, but both knight and dragon cut her off.

"Your highness it's no trouble-"

"Its hardly your fault-"

The group brainstormed ways to get her down. Albert's idea that Astyick fly her down was instantly denied by Karina. They wondered if perhaps the wizard of castle could use magic to deliver her down, the same way the witch had gotten her up there in the first place, but Astyick confessed that their master was far too weak as of late and was not willing to risk his health.

Finally they decided the easiest thing would be to have Astyisk block the open edge while Albert held her hands and slowly walked her down each step. Both dragon and knight kept her distracted with stories and conversation, and though it took absolutely forever, she finally touched the bottom floor, where she instantly collapsed and praised the ground, much to the others amusement.

The all decided to pay the wizard a visit, and Sir Albert and Karina stayed long enough to share tea with the frail man before taking their leave.

They would both return at later times to visit the wizard and Astyisk, as they learned he did not have anyone else and agreed the man was far too polite to be lonely all the time.

Sir Albert also put extra work into hunting down the witch that had kidnapped the princess. One, for kidnapping their royalty, and second, for bothering the poor old man with her viciousness. They had learned she would often place the victims in wards to make it harder for them to escape whilst blaming it on the wizard, and that simply would not do for his new friend.

Honestly so do I - poor girl will have some trauma to process after this mess :P

And thank you, very happy to hear you enjoyed the little story!

https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/119n7g6/wpyoure_a_software_engineer_who_is_a/j9qi56v/

Glad to hear it! It was an excellent little prompt, and a very enjoyable write!

And I'm sure poor Brimstone will appreciate the pats after the day she's had, poor dear

Hahaha! You know, that is indeed starting to look like the best course of action! XD

It’s a male dragon. He’s a top. Better ask the wizard for a polymorph.

[…]

The thick black columns of smoke were sure to attract attention – some of them were clearly unwanted. To the elven and dwarf defenders, it would be the incoming of more ravenous orcish hordes – to the orcs on the other hand, it would be the presence of a third party, who had grown some concern for the situation and decided to intervene. Though effectively nobody would ever shed any tears for the arrogant elvish lords or a few unbounded dwarves, the southern titan of Tiberium Imperium would surely intervene, if Zolg the Ravager failed to control the spread of his own forces and let his scouting party stray too close to the human controlled territory.

The human approach to warfare was unlike any other races – for starters, their infantry forces were average in every ways, however, that same infantry always packed themselves full of gears, equipment and provisions, not for battles, but campaigns, even that their operations were just a half-day march from this fortress to the next. This, combined with the human tendency to erect roads and landmarks everywhere they went, made them an odd match to any other races – saved only for the dwarves.

And then them humans did not march into wars alone, they brought alongside them their cattle. These quadruped beasts served their bipedal masters well, from the oxen and mules to drag their heavily built carts all the way to the horses, whom these humans sat on their backs to go to war with. Though the domestication of these creatures wasn’t limited to the humans, the ways they used them, was very different – at least, that’s for the Tiberium Empire.

For every type of infantry, it seemed to always have a horseman counterpart. There were the horse archers, unlike the elvish ones that always had to dismount to shoot, the Imperium ones would always release their arrows on horseback. Needless to say, their accuracy was pathetic, same as their range and power – their recurved bows must sacrifice those for mobility and handiness. However, these horse archers made up for it by their ability to do two things: to shoot at the weak points from the vantage points, thanks to their unmatched mobility; and to be able to constantly applying pressure to anyone that unfortunate enough to be on the receiving ends – “Suppressive fire”, as those humans called it.

The orcs could counter that by deploying their own mounted infantry, the wargs. Normally, the wargs could easily tear any horse archer forces apart, if they could get close enough. Either the northern giant wolves could bite easily through the horses, or the warg-riders could easily cut through the tunics and cloaks of these bowmen. But again, IF they could get close enough. Normally, them horse archers could have bolted as soon as the wargs got closer to thirty paces, all the while peppering the pursuers with arrows, while their infantry closed the gaps. Though the wargs could have charged the infantry with a certain level of success, getting pinned in one place would be suicidal, for there were other types of horsemen these Imperial army could use.

The spear horsemen would then swing into action; this time, the riders were much better armored than the archers. Although not armed from heads to toes, these moderately armored spearmen, armed with a middle length lance and a moderately sized wooden shield could easily skewer the warg riders from their height advantage – providing that they were the first to make contact. Horses, being the herbivore they always were, naturally feared the wargs and often panic at the sight and smell of the giant canines. However, the horse spearmen did not need to stay around to be deadly: their lances were nimble and lightweight enough to be throwable – and in the distance of less than twenty paces, a hailstorm of javelins would be devastating.

That’s why Zolg had spent the majority of this pre-campaign season trying to… appease these Tiberium Imperium humans. Though orcs were often horrible at such diplomatic affairs, he had managed to… delay the intervention for a short time, making concessions along the way. One of these concessions was to NOT attacking the human settlements littered around the valley beyond the White Mountains – a task that was pretty impossible for the incoming orcish contingents, many of them outright disregarded the diplomatic approach of their supreme leader as weak but so far, his reputation and prowess had kept their insubordination in check – but for how long them gonna stay obedient, none can tell.

“Gorzghul, take thirty wargs over the southeastern mountain pass, seeing if those Imperium are there. Howl if clear, keep them busy if there are many walkers, come back here if there’s only horse-riders…”

Gorzghul was among the most loyal horde leaders Zolg had in hands, and in the word of the orcs, the most obedient. Hot headed and rather reckless in his approach, as shown from his scar-covered body. But if there’s anyone who’s most familiar with how the Imperium humans conducting warfare, that’d be him. And of course, there’s Zolg the Ravager as well. The supreme leader was pretty sure the unrestrained orcs had already defied the deal between him and the Empire’s provincial officials – judging by the dwindling number of returning warg scouts coming from the southern mountain passes.

The humans were coming – no doubt – but it would be better if Zolg the Ravager could have some ideas about when and how those Imperial men were going to proceed, whether they were here to merely observe or they came to intervene. If that was a full contingent of mostly light armored cavalry, then likely it’s their patrols – better left them alone then. But if there were many infantry marching in columns, well, it’s best that those forces be delayed at all cost.

“Supreme Master, you put those filthy humans higher than their worth… Why do we need to run away from them horse-riders? Our wargs are clearly superior to them in every way…”

Zolg rose up from his command seat at the subordinate, it was until then that the Ravager’s height actually showed. Towering over the lesser orcs, Zolg the Ravager was clearly a deadly warrior, with many decades of experience under his belt – literally, in the form of many skulls and helmets, hanging under his belt. One of them was an Imperial cavalry helmet, still having the cheek pieces strapped around an expressionless metal face mask.

“You are an outstanding warrior, Gorzghul, that, I have no doubt. But you do not yet know them humans like I do. They do not fight battles… they fight… wars…”

***

To be continued

Awesome vignette. I feel so bad for the dragon lol

Nice one!

No, it definitely isn’t just a kids’ series! Plenty of grown adults enjoy it, and besides, it doesn’t matter if it’s a kids’ series if too enjoy it.

Part 3

I had already eaten the pizza when I was reading my father’s note again. Roger and others had left. Roger hurried away saying he'd be back but he needs to go to his friend who was a ‘Centaur’, but Jack assured just before leaving that he meant ‘Senator’ and that Centaurs don’t really exist.

I heard a knock and Levandar’s voice “Daniel?”

“Anderson. Daniel Anderson”

“Oh. Ok. Daniel Anderson. Can I come in?”

“You can call me Daniel. It’s fine!” I tried to recover from my mistake.

“I’m coming in.” the door shrank - the wood squeezed, its width reduced to the size of a book. She came in and the door sprung back to its original shape.

“Sorry for coming like this but it was cold outside.”

“I’m sorry Lav. Lavender. Can I call you Lav, do people call you Lav? I was going to let you in…”

“You’re sweet Daniel. You can call me Lav. I apologise for leaving earlier without saying anything.”

“Oh no. It’s fine. It’s great. But actually, I was wondering why you left. But it’s okay now that you’re here.”

“I think you may not trust me right now. Roger doesn’t like me too much either. I had to go to pick up my mother and didn’t want to ruin your moment with the dog” she explained while stepping near me.

“Discordant,” I added.

“Is that its name, isn’t it sweet?” she was standing very close to me now.

“I don’t know, I haven’t tasted him. I don’t lick pets usually. Or ever, to clarify. But you probably meant his name, yes that’s a sweet name. Yes”

“Shhh” she whispered coming very close to my face. Next moment our lips met and we kissed.

I stood there frozen for the most part, not because the kiss was cold, which was in fact, very hot, but because I didn’t know what else to do with my hands.

“I really wish you find your dad soon. Ping me when you need me, here’s my console ID.” She handed me a slip of paper which had just appeared in her hand. The door was already squeezing when she started walking back to it.

I wanted to say “will do”, “bye” or “see you later”, any of that would have been fine, but instead I stammered, “will do you later”. Fortunately, she smiled and waved me bye instead of stuffing me into the wall.

When the dust settled, and I meant literal wooden dust from the door, I got hit with a pressing question, “Did she just materialise paper from thin air?”

I messaged her on the console chat app and asked how she managed to do it without root access since it was supposed to be impossible.

Later in the night, I was thinking of the README note again. I hadn’t heard back from Roger, and I didn’t know his console ID. I hadn’t heard back from Lavender either. I re-read my father’s note.

“I love you, sorry I couldn’t spend more time with you and your mother” one line read.

I skipped to one of the later sections.

“I don’t know how much time is left. This virus will sooner or later destroy me”

I jumped to the last section.

“Take help of others. Don’t do it alone like me. Destroy this virus. I’ll share some of my tools. Be careful with them, they’re very advanced. Give my love to your mother and her dog. Also, use the dog.

ㅝკ⊗ቱഝ઒ഐŊཙᆿᗶᆰⵥჵᆰⴴ᧐㊿ყⅻഐঃᆹŊཙᆿᗶᆰⵥჵᆿ⋋㊿ᄯቿᗺᆰⴴᆿŊཙᆿᗶᆰⵥჵᆿ⋋㊿ᄯቿᗺᆰⴴᆿკ⊗ቱഝ઒ഐ ”

My attempts at decoding the message had failed. I also had no idea what he meant by "using the dog." As far as I could tell, that mutt had gone to great lengths to prove his utter uselessness at any task I could think of.

I don’t know when I slept but I was very sure of the moment when I woke up.

I woke up for two reasons. Firstly, while dreaming, I realised that the note had read ‘Give my love to your mother and her dog,’ but the dog was never hers. The only dog she had was a stuffed dog in her bedroom. Secondly, and more effectively, there was a loud roar that came from beneath the floor.

The voice grew louder and suddenly the floor gave away in front of my bed creating a large hole. From the hole, a black box began to rise, which I soon realised was an elevator.

The door opened and Roger emerged from it. He didn’t look too happy, although he was apologetic “Daniel my boy, sorry for baring in like this, but it’s an urgent matter. Lavender has taken over the weapons.”

“What? Which weapons?”

“All of them, of course.”

“All of them? What’s she doing with them.”

“Nothing good you better believe. She controls the parliament now. The president’s life is at risk. She demands full control of the projects.”

“My father talked about the projects. What are they?”

“Oh. These are the top-secret projects being developed by RARPs. They are really big and important projects.”

“What’s RARPs”

“We are RARPs Daniel. Us programmers. Well don’t ask why we are called RARPs, it’s an embarrassing history. Oh, what the hell, you’re gonna know sooner or later. We started by calling ourselves Real Programmers.

Because we truly were the real programmers you know. Programming reality. But then javascript became popular and those who knew C and C++ started calling themselves real programmers, so we had to change our names to Actually Real Programmers.

Before long, people started developing all sorts of things using AI, so the Javascript folks began smugly calling themselves real programmers too. This bummed the C/C++ folks, who then switched their name to Actually Real Programmers.

That’s how we finally ended up with Really Actually Real Programmers – RARPs to truly distinguish ourselves from mere computer programmers.

Boy, you distract me. Lavender shouldn’t be able to do this unless she hacked the console to get root, which mind you, is near impossible to do.”

“Roger, I think she has root access. Last evening she conjured a piece of paper from nowhere just after we kissed.”

“You did what? You kissed? Boy, you are an outlier like your dad, only while he’s smart, you’re as dumb as Clippy.”

“What’s wrong with a kiss?”

“She kissed away your root privileges Danny boy. Kissing is an intimate act. During the kiss, she had access to all your secrets. She probably modified all the access files.”

I felt cheated and distraught. I got up only to sit back down with a thud.

“Don’t feel bad for yourself now. You’re only learning. Now. We have much to do. I had a guy research the encryption algorithm that created the cryptic code. I’m pretty sure we’ve found the algorithm. We just need the passphrase to solve it.”

“What could it be?”

“Well, you should be telling me this. Think boy, didn’t your father ever tell you some secret phrase?”

“No, but I have solved a clue in his note. We should go to my mother’s bedroom right now.”

I found the stuffed dog in my mother’s bedroom which my father hinted at in the note. Hidden inside it was a piece of paper which read:

‘astp://yasdlxkas.de/U9axz’

“It’s a link to a console website. Let’s open it”

We tapped our foreheads together. Roger opened the link to reveal a map of the world. There were multiple blue dots spread throughout it.

“Dev nulls of dev nulls, unbelievable!” exclaimed Roger “look at all these names. All of them are RARPs. Amazing!”

“I can see one Lavender! She’s in Europe.”

“Nice boy. This will be very useful. However, we’ll be powerless against her.

We still need to recover the root access. Maybe the tools your father built can help, he must’ve used them to gain the root access after all. Do you think any of this will help us crack the code? What should I try in the passphrase? I have already tried your name, your date of birth, your father’s place of birth…”

I wanted to ask how he got all that information but there was a feeling of dread inside me. I was hoping that the stuffed dog would lead me to the passphrase, but it had nothing but a link to a map. “Stupid stuffed dog,” I cursed to myself.

“Wait a minute, have you tried my dog’s name?” my eyes lit up “Use the dog! The note said to use the dog! Use Discordant”

He started typing in quick strokes. "It worked!" I felt an immense sense of joy, but it was short-lived. The message read:

“Beat you again Roger. Love - Lavender”

Nice!

A superhero who is stuck in space, just floating and hoping someone in a ship picks them up

Far exceeded my expectations. I made it needlessly difficult with the loss of his arms, which made no sense anyway. So bravo. Impressive.