No I definitely got to know where he wound up. I mean this is going to kill me with curiosity.

I have a hunch

I had been calling the cathedral home for going on 20 years now. From my secluded tower above, I was privy to a unique perspective.

When I first wandered into that French town, my body was broken, cold and hunger ushering me to death’s embrace.

It was the kindness of the elderly bell ringer that saved me. He had spotted me from atop the bell tower, a drenched mess in the rain, trudging along half dead, covered in frost. The waning sun had disappeared by the time he reached me, any longer and I’d surly be dead.

As I regained my constitution, I noticed the bell ringer’s health slowly diminishing. That’s when he charged me with being the new tower master, and taught me the signals and routine of the bell ringing. We lived above the cathedral, sharing stories and becoming close friends. Everything we wanted we sent for, paid for by the church, and delivered to our quarters.

Before he died, I decided I needed to share my secret. The nature of my injuries and sudden appearance had been the result of turbulence during a time travel experiment. My AI companion drone had been slowly self repairing since my arrival, and I was able to show it to my humble savior in all its glory.

He died on the spot.

I vowed to keep it secret from then on.

I feel guilty sometimes, but I’m paying my penance, swearing a life of solitude and servitude, maintaining the bell tower atop this grand Cathedral until the day I am replaced.

With my drone and my advanced knowledge, I’m able to help the townspeople anonymously and from afar, secretly enriching their lives with a well placed antidote or enlightening message.

Plus the drone’s flying capabilities help me skip all those steps.

^300 ^words

It was a snowy evening, and the torches in the streets were dimmed by the thick sheet of snow. The knight and his boys were out smoking; just finishing up the pot with the finest rolled paper in the Seven Kingdoms. He then went home to his wife and kids. His wife has been recently unhappy with his behaviors and more specifically an incident with a princess abandoned in a tower. "WDYM I only saved her because of sexual reasons! She was stuck in the top of the tower and hopeless at that. I am a knight sworn by my duty and she needed a saving. The blowjob was a common courtesy."

(I think I accidentally used a few details seen in other commants, sorry!)—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Text file Created: Log 1

Pikaland: So uhh.. Apparently I am the previously unknown Lost 5th Guardian/Admin of reality and I am the Main guardian of the dream world/ Nightmare realm? I’ll start with the discovery of this status.

Alright, It is October 3, 2030 10 years after my final stand against the Nightmares. Since then I have been learning how to code and even learned morse code. Then for no reason other then: Hey, it would be funny if I blinked Console in morse code and well it worked. A black and gold accented translucent overlay appeared in my vision and promptly freaked out. Luckily I was in my cabin and alone so nobody saw that. Anyways after recomposing myself I looked and a message from someone else asking who I was and how I had access to the console. I gave my first name and told them that I have no clue about whats going on, that I just blinked Console in morse code using my eyelids and had no clue it would do this. They then asked me what files I could see in my “Player” file. I looked and I told them that I could see A README file, a Phyical, mental, spiritual,Subcon and temporal Body file, And a “Activate Nightmare Slayer. Guardian” File. they reacted to this info and literally tp’d to me, head butted me then say that they did that so they could see it for themselves as thats what allows people to “share their screen” AKA lets someone see though your eyes, seeing your console. This person invited me to a Guardian's of reality group chat and called three more people to my cabin. They told them that they found the guardian of the Dream world. Those three people appeared and headbutted me to see this for themselves. They were happy that they finally found the 5th Guardian of reality. I was still completely confused About whats going on and so they explained everything however they told me to activate that .guardian file. I did and it felt strange, I was seemingly transformed into how I appeared in Dreams and I even gained Nightmare’s Bane, my armor and my other equipment. The other guardians were surprised that I had My guardian’s Weapon already. I showed them my old Nightmares via Burnt in Memories of em and they were concerned, terrified and impressed. I was then force tp’d to some base that was supposedly in the appellation mountains and gave me a room and tp codes for the base and my cabin due to me asking to have it to hide the fact of this happening. They also told me that I am the strangest Guardian due to coming across everything by accident or forcing something that was unknown to me.

End of Log 1

(Well did I do good? Edit: Dang it, it buggered up when I copy pasted it from google docs. Edit 2: There we go, fixed it)

In my tavern, at the next table, two men who looked to be barbarians sat at a table. One was taller, and he wore blue. The other wore yellow. “Squid”, said the taller one before plopping a wriggling squid tentacle in his mouth. “Dragon”, said the other. He then bit into a cube of meat. “Bat.” He bit into one’s lower half. “A bunch of bugs.” He grabbed fried bugs off of his plate and threw them into his mouth. “Are you two seriously trying to impress each other by eating?”, I said, smiling. This tavern has some of the most disgusting foods, but we only carry them to appeal to a select few. Another specialty of ours is veggie meat. It is weird to see an orc eating a veggie burger…especially when he’s right next to a group of fairies enjoying dragon flesh.

I know, right? ^_^ The best short stories are the ones with a funny ending. Poor Faekth's going to have a double heart attack when he gets around to Star Trek.

hehe awkward dragon. This was like a sit-com!

Really well done response here, as well as references to actual space tech. A+

Sounds like King of the Hill, aka Texas anime

The prompt would almost work better in reverse.

Cyberpunk edgerunners and living in night city would make that laid back lawn mowing job look pretty sweet in comparison after a week or so.

That's just the first one that came to mind, and night city as depicted in edgerunners is about middle of the road as far as horrific places to live in from recent popular anime.

Attack on Titan, Berserk, Re zero, Hunter x Hunter, Made in Abyss, Mushoku Tensei, Vinland Saga, One Punch Man, One piece, Dorohedoro, Chainsaw man, Fire Punch, that's just a few anime and manga series I've checked out in the last few years that would be really really dangerous to live in.

Anyone so desperately in need of an adrenaline rush that they'd want to visit any anime world outside of the slice of life genre must have a death wish. XD

That was a good read.

I don't know what to do. I have to take this secret with me to the grave for others are depending on my silence. And yet the pressure of my silence is burning a hole through my head. It is literally killing me.

See, I alone know the truth of what happened on the 22nd of September 2029.

The world knows that date. It was a normal Harvest Moon, some press making catchy articles to drive ad revenue but really nothing special. More eyes turn to full moons though, and no one who looked could miss it. I was in Ogden Utah at the time, winding down on the back porch after another stressful training day on the base. The moon was just rising over the Rockies, just to the right of De Moisy Peak, looking oversized with the reference points of the mountain profiles. It had the reddish hue that early evening full moons had and drew my eye readily. I was watching it measurably creep upward when the pale red seemed to flicker, leaving blues and greens instead. It took some seconds for my mind to register the shocking change, but it finally started sinking in.

I scrambled out of my chair and inside for my binoculars, my fallen and shattered glass unnoticed on the concrete. The binoculars confirmed the radical color change, but no greater detail. I could barely stop staring at it, unable to comprehend what it meant, but I finally pulled out my phone and started checking news sources. Nothing. Social media was trickling, then flooding. Lots of pictures. Some memes already. Plenty of people asking questions. Some were even intelligent questions.

It lasted 25 minutes.

The color flickered again, and the moon returned to what it has always been. Almost always.

The news finally got the story and puzzled hosts and reporters do what they do: ask silly questions of the wrong people. It took a few days to confirm that not a single major telescope got pointed at the moon until after the color vanished. There were millions of images from phones, thousands from cameras with lenses, a few from amateur telescopes. None with real detail.

Artemis was nearly ready, and the decision to go gained even more pressure and momentum. My training schedule ramped up even harder.

Most people know me by name, since I was the science officer for that return landing to the moon. The only survivor from the surface.

The flight itself was incredible, but I don't remember the sensations of it any more. 32 years since helping to finish erasing that memory that started with the enormity of what we found.

I don't know how to continue. The habit of keeping silent has formed a wall within me that is tangible. Like a physical restraint keeping my fingers from typing out the words that reveal the truth. Who would believe me anyway at this point. Nutjobs. Wackos. The kind of people that would go camp at the gates of Area 51 after seeing Independence Day 4.

The public record states that contact was lost with the HLS Lander at an altitude of 391 meters above the surface and was never reestablished. The public record states that for 26 days NASA and ESA worked tirelessly night and day to try to figure out how to contact us, then when our liftoff didn't happen, how to rescue us. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter kept up a steady stream of imagery of our landing site, but told them almost nothing aside from the fact that the HLS Lander didn't crash. The crew in the MPCV was a helpless link to whatever hope was held. They expected that we would work to conserve whatever oxygen and water we had and the longest possible scenario was one survivor lasting 26 days before hypoxia and death.

After 26 days, focus shifted to recovery and finding out what happened. The MPCV and its two crew members were brought home shortly after. 35 days after contact was lost, NASA got an unmanned capsule to the moon, at the same coordinates of our landing site. Contact was also lost with that capsule at 391 meters altitude.

At 42 days, my HLS Lander lifted off of the surface of the moon and entered a ballistic return trajectory to earth. No contact was ever established and the lander was never going to survive reentry. A scrambled Dragon capsule on a Falcon Heavy managed to rendezvous and dock with the lander, burning all of its fuel to barely get the lander into a stable orbit, although highly elliptical. A week later, another Dragon was able to dock and a rapidly developed adapter allowed the crew to interface with the lander hatch.

I was inside, still alive. The body of my fellow crewmate strapped to his seat beside me.

We made splashdown a few hours later.

I had to lie. Every electronic device in the lander was fused to slag, there was no possible way to corroborate any story, true or false. The truth was absurd. And dangerous. I was debriefed for months. I held close enough to the truth to stay repeatable without revealing anything. You know the official conclusion that was reached. "Through an extraordinary display of ingenuity and resourcefulness one and the humbling and heroic sacrifice of the other, " etcetera.

There were suspicious people of course. The math didn't lie. I had survived 52 days on oxygen that would have been exhausted at 26. There was no explanation given or found for where the oxygen had come from. Theories and fan fiction abounded that maybe there actually was oxygen and habitable conditions on the moon. But no one of any real scientific mind believed that.

There was just that 25 minute glimpse of lush green and verdant blue on the moon to suggest all sorts of ideas.

None came close to reality.

No one suspected that the moon had been colonized. Or holographically masked. That glimpse everyone saw? A bug had crashed the software maintaining the holograph. And they neutralize any craft which pass within it to protect themselves.

They are peaceful. Fleeing their own past. A remnant of a remnant that was saved.

In the decades since, scientists have decided that moon dust is impossible for electronics to survive in, and no mechanical solutions to explore have been found. Political will has fallen, and no one even thinks seriously about returning to the moon any more.

It's for the best.

Fair point! Lol

A slice of life anime about lawn mowing sounds like a better place to actually live than most anime settings.

Offhand, most of my favorites seem like terrible places to actually live in for non protagonists.

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My grandpa had celiac disease. The bread does not toast at all and is strangely chewy.

Confession

Cool air collided with summer heat as the Cathedral doors opened. The clanging and buzzing of construction dulled as the doors reunited. The clash of hot and cold danced on the parishioner’s neck through the vestibule, down the nave, and towards the confessional.

"Bless me, Father, for I will sin." The warm voice poured out slowly, like smooth, dark honey.

“Tell me, child, what sin will you commit?” The priest’s gravelly tenor held intrigue.

“I… will break a promise.”

“What promise?”

“I gained the trust of others. They confided in me horrible things that happened to them, made me promise not to tell anyone, and not to do anything. But I cannot keep that promise.” The voice maintained its warmth.

“Sometimes, promises must be broken and trust must be betrayed for the greater good.” The priest said reassuringly.

“Have you betrayed trust, Father?”

“I… have acted in God’s name.”

The buzzing sound became more noticeable.

“Was it in God’s name that you betrayed 267 children over 40 years?"

“What did you—”

“Was it in God’s name that you silenced their families?”

“Yes, I have silenced hundreds of families. And I can silence you.” The priest said smoothly.

“No, you can’t. You won’t silence anyone ever again.” The voice responded.

The buzzing grew louder.

“How dare you! The confessional is sacred!” Spit flew from the priest’s mouth.

“You’re right, Father. The confessional is sacred. But that’s not where we are.”

The buzzing became deafeningly loud. The stained mahogany of the confessional box began to distort and shake before fading. The walls, candles, alter, and everything in the Cathedral vanished as a thousand drones appeared, revealing an empty white warehouse with two chairs. The drones departed. The buzzing was replaced by the sound of heels clacking as the parishioner walked away.

That was great. I could use an entire book about this dragon.

Thank you! I appreciate the kind words. The world is one I've been writing in for a while, though I hadn't had a chance to touch on the concept of the Royal Inspector's Corps just yet, so thank you for a prompt that inspired me to do so!

Glad to please! Im imagining the scene with Pedro Pascal and it's now impossible not to.

Absolutely FANTASTIC work! I haven't seen a story written from a prompt with so much detail! The worldbuilding on it's own, and the story?

chef's kiss

Bravo, my friend! You are an exemplary writer

Thank you!

A gluten allergy, the worst of all curses

I love it!

Dura was closer to the rifle than Richard was, and as he reached it, he found her foot resting on top of it. He tried to pull it out from underneath before he realized what he was looking at, and gaped up at his sergeant, her tall, broad figure suddenly imposing.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, "what did you just say?" There was more menace in her quiet tone than there was in her shouts; she didn't have to look to know that Venmys had shuddered a little at the sound. The elf had been on the receiving end of this tone before, and had gone out of their way to avoid it happening again.

"Sarge, lemme have my gun! This dragon is a menace, it has to be our target! It killed me! Why didn't you kill it?!"

Dura sneered down at the human. She'd thought as much; she'd noticed little things since he'd joined. The way he seemed to look down at Venmys, or seemed to treat Conor like he was the one in charge and not Dura. She put the tip of her sword into the trigger guard of the rifle, then lifted her foot and pushed Richard away with her heel. He was still weak from resurrection; there was no chance of him resisting, and he rocked backward, landing on his ass.

"Listen here, Dick," she said. "You being upset about dying? Sure, I can handle that. That's not what's got me pissed off right now. Your open racism is what did it." She knelt down to look into the man's eyes, and gave her lower jaw a little extra jut forward, emphasizing her tusks. "You said the quiet part out loud, you dumb shit. And in a squad led by an orc, no less. Not very smart. I don't know what backwards precinct you came out of, but that shit don't fly in the RIC. Queen don't take kindly to human supremacists - you know, being an elf and all."

Richard looked frightened now, and turned his head to look at the others. Venmys was now looking at him with open disgust, their rifle lowered and slowly discharging back into the storage cells on their armor. Conor had stood up, and was looking at the younger human with stark disapproval. It was Conor that Richard's gaze lingered on, and he said, "You're not gonna just let her talk to me like that, right? Brother?"

Conor sneered as he said, "I ain't your brother, Richard. And she's your Sergeant." He paused, then added, "My wife is Feyblooded - you know, our quartermaster? So don't think your garbage is gonna buy you any points with me."

Richard scrambled to his feet, and stepped backward away from them - then gave a sheepish yelp as he realized he was backing towards the dragon, and stumbled forward, away from her.

Dura laughed. She couldn't help it. "Ven," she said, "get this piece of shit out of my sight. I've got to ask some questions still. We'll deal with this later."

"With pleasure," Venmys said, their alto voice tense with dislike. "Move it, shithead. Outside. Don't test me, or you'll find out how good a knife-ear's reflexes are. Don't think I didn't hear you call me that under your breath the other day..."

Venmys poked Richard with the business end of their rifle, and that was enough to get him to move, walking ahead of them. Which left Dura and Conor to deal with the dragon.

Dura turned back to the dragon, sliding her sword into the holder on her back as she did. "Ma'am, I'm so sorry about this. It's Halcida, right? Are you capable of shapeshifting? If you are, could you please assume a smaller form? It'd be easier to talk to you that way, but I don't mind if you can't."

"No, I...I can," the dragon said, and she closed her eyes, focusing on the shapeshifting power native to most dragons. She began to shrink, taking a human form, her hair and eyes the same vibrant blue as her scales had been. She was reasonably pretty, but most shapeshifted dragons were - as her Captain had put it, with a vain flick of her own silver hair, if you could choose what you looked like, most people would choose to be pretty, wouldn't they?

"I...I was just minding my own business," Halcida said, her voice now quieter and higher pitched, "you know...admiring my treasure? And that...man burst into the cave, and started screaming at me, pointing his weapon at me. I-I panicked, and when he advanced on me, I just...lashed out, I couldn't think of what else to do, I'm so sorry!"

Dura put her hands up, her expression as gentle as her voice. "It's okay. You were defending yourself. I'm not planning to say anything more than that. It's a big world with a lot of different people in it - things happen."

"I'm glad he's okay," Halcida said in a small voice. "Even if he is...you know, a racist...I didn't want to hurt him."

"He'll be fine," Conor said, smiling behind his beard. "A little weak for a day or two, but it's nothing he doesn't deserve for being an idiot. Now, can we ask you some questions about what's been going on around here lately?"

"With the disappearances? I'd...I'd heard about that, I've been keeping an eye out when I go out to stretch my wings." Halcida's expression settled a little, the fear ebbing away into an eager look. "I want to help, I live here now, so I should be a good neighbor, right? That's what Papa always said we should do. And I saw something the other day, a bunch of cars driving along the highway, but...they were weird, they had some kind of shadowy stuff around them. It was hard to see them."

"Can you show us where?" Dura's tone was excited now. Finally, a break.

"Yes, I can! I could fly you there, if you want!"

Dura held up a hand, smiling. "I like your enthusiasm, but one thing at a time. I've got to get my soon-to-be discharged rookie back to the local chapterhouse so he doesn't get killed by my arcanist for looking at them wrong. Is it alright if we come back tomorrow, and you can show us then?"

"That'd be okay. I'm...I'm so, so sorry about all this..." Halcida's expression became anxious. "Can you tell that man I'm sorry? Maybe...maybe he's just afraid of dragons. I don't blame him, I'm a little scared of my older sisters..."

Dura gave Conor a look, then smiled at Halcida. There was no reason to shatter her optimism by telling her racists seldom had good reasons to be hateful. "I'll tell him, sure. We'll see you tomorrow, Miss Halcida. Have a good night."

"You too," the dragon said as Dura turned to leave the cave, Conor following close behind.

After a moment of walking, he asked quietly, "How are we gonna deal with all this?"

"Well, first, we're getting that enormous pile of shit out of my squad," Dura said with an undisguised snarl. "Then, we're gonna track down this shadowy caravan and figure out what they're up to. No more people are gonna vanish from this province on my watch."