I just want to throw it out here, y'all are way too tame with your relationship hypotheticals. My partner and I go back and forth with these all the time, often with ever escalating levels of elaboration. If your partner wouldn't still love you if you were the ghost of the artist formerly known as Prince, are you even in love?

Imagine waking up on a passenger jet.

[Edit: Eh, fuck it. I just wrote it.]

what video would you perhaps be talking about? I just had this idea at 5 am in the morning lmao

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You knew there was something fishy about that ritual the moment you read it. One hundred sacrifices? That seemed like a lot. And why did it never specify what kind of sacrifices they had to be? Human, animal, plant... it wasn't clear. I mean, of it were 100 humans, that would be a huge undertaking.

You decided to investigate further, and the more you looked into it, the more suspicious it seemed. The ritual itself was ancient, but as far as anyone could tell, had never actually been completed in its entirety. You soon came to realize why: it was impossible to complete! None of the steps in the ritual ever made sense; one step would require something that had to be impossible to acquire.

The more you looked into it, the more certain you became that it was some kind of trap or curse. So you decided to be the smartass that you are and got a petri dish full of bacteria. 100 tiny bacteria, all offering their lives in service of whatever dark god or goddess this ritual was supposed to appease. You could just imagine their microscopic faces contorted in terror as they faced their impending doom.

But alas, it was not to be. You sacrificed them all without a second thought and went on your merry way, leaving the dark god or goddess to wonder what the heck just happened. Smart move on your part - after all, why risk your own neck when you can sacrifice a bunch of innocent bacteria instead?

And that, my friends, is the story of how you outsmarted an ancient ritual. You were a hero in your own right, and you never looked back. Who knows what could have happened had you not taken matters into your own hands? Maybe it's best we'll never know...

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Dude... Plot twist that had me rolling! Well done.

Ok, this needs a full novel, I'd read it in a heartbeat

local bard rolls a 20 to marry the shapeshifting (?) wyrm

Crystal was sitting on the couch, watching TV when her spouse, Carl, asked her a weird question. "Honey," he said, "would you still love me if I turned into a worm?" She thought it was a strange thing to ask, but she answered honestly. "Of course, I would," she told him. "I love you no matter what."

A few weeks later, she realized that Carl meant "wyrm." And unfortunately for her, Carl had been reading about wyrms online and was convinced that he was going to turn into one. She tried to reassure him that it wasn't going to happen, but he just wasn't convinced.

Every day, Carl grew more and more paranoid about turning into a wyrm. He even started sleeping in a different room from her and refused to let anyone near them – even their parents! The only time he would come out of his room was when he was hungry or needed the toilet.

It got so bad that he even started thinking about leaving them. But then one day, while they were eating dinner at the kitchen table, he turned into a wyrm right in front of her eyes! At first, she was horrified, but then something amazing happened – she still loved him! In fact, she loved him even more than before because now he was this amazing creature that could do things no human could ever do.

She hugged him and they both cried tears of joy. From then on, Carl was no longer scared or paranoid about turning into a wyrm. Instead, he wore it like a badge of honor and proudly showed it off to the entire world! He and Crystal even wrote a children's book about him turning into a wyrm as a teaching tool for kids that it's okay to be different.

And they both lived happily ever after, which just goes to show that love really does conquer all!

Try not to step on the landmines.

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Call of duty legend of Zelda crossover

Sorry for all the mistakes that might be in this story. English is not my first language, so please do not roast me too bad 🥲

"I need the strenght to overcome this situation in my life. I tried to pray to all kind of gods but nothing seems to work. I hope this time will be different. I hope you will hear my desperate cry. Please help me, K"

In eons I never had the chance to hear someone or something mentioning this.

I was forgotten by all the races from all the universes known and unknown.

This poor foul must be knowing something that nobody knows. So I decided to see where it goes.

This poor soul was challenged in his life. Her pain in unknown, and her intention are as pure as they are a little bit childish for me. But what is not childish for me?I am the first God of Creation. All the things, seen and unseen are made by me. The perception of this little human about reality is as fragile as a fly in a tornado. The only thing that she wants is to be strong enough to work more to support her family. So foolish and noble. She wants to sacrifice herself for the good of her family. Nothing seems to be fair in this poor creature's life. But she is the only one who found a way and the necesarry information to pray to me. This is enough for me to help her a little bit more that she expects. This is the first time she prays so I decided to make her mother's illnes dissapear.

She prayed for the second time and the third time and so on. After some time, i became her only God, and she is asking for signs.

Little does she knows that she can summon me anytime she likes, because, now, she is the only thing that keeps me awake, and I want her to be happy. She is prayimg so why wouldn't I provide her the life she needs.

This time she did it. After the prayer, she wanted me to give her a sign. A sigh that I am here and all the good things that happened were not just luck. So here i am, taking a human form to meet the poor soul that gave me hope.

She asked me why I was the one who helped her and why the oder gods never listened to her prayers.

The onlu reason why the other gods never help is that they think they are superior. They juns wanna watch and have fun. They have fun when they see creatures struggling. But not me. I know that when creatures stop praying, they lose their power. And, someday, they will be forgotten, just like me. After a long discussion with this little poor soul, I left. And my only objective was to take care of her needs. Her life was wonderfull, but someday, something happened.

See? Nothing is perfect. Even Gods have their flaws. Nothing has infinite power. Think about that God and the rock paradox. If you don't know what I mean, let me explain. If any God has limitless power to do everything, cand that God make a rock that even He can't move? If He can make that rock he is not able to move it, so that is the limit of His power. If He can not make this rock, His power is again limited. That day, she forgot to pray, and even I was not paying attention, and some drunk man in a metal box with wheels hit her and she lost her life. Everything started to crumble, because if she was not there for her family, they returned back to their original state. They wete all sick and poor. They did not even tought about what happend. They only cared about the fact that they won't have the necessary funds to bury her.

Her family never loved her. They saw her as a source of income and a source for their whealthy lifestyle. She was tge one who was struggling. She was the one who was doing everything. Every good thing that happened to them was because of her. But the most important thing is that she was the only one in eons that prayed to me. She was the one that made me realize that nothing will ever change in this reality that i have created. So now, because she woke me up and helped me to regain my power, I will get rid of this reality and make a new one, where all the species will have only one God, and because she put her hope in me, I will let her be the God of this reality. I am too old to rule over this.

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That all happened when time was a thing, but now...

Within a year, it afflicted almost the entire population of prisoners, and by the second year, they were all either dead or comatose, able to breathe without obstruction, but apparently unable to enjoy the effects of the air they had taken in. While this rid the council of a very tricky problem, what to do with the large population of captured loyalists, it was also a forewarning of a massive tragedy looming for the entire world.

By the second year, the affliction had spread to half of the known world, and a full half of the citizens of the newly renamed Capitol Civitas were either dead or dying. The Society of Rational Observation had been called upon to discover the mechanism by which the disease spread, but their findings, only reached after another full year of experimentation, only confirmed the worst:

The disease was transmitted from person to person by some form of close contact, however the delay between when it could be transmitted, and when the infected began to show signs of affliction, was at least a full month. Sometimes several. A single infected person could live in a city for a full month, infecting others without any knowledge of it, before they even began to notice the slightest shortness of breath.

The Council devoted its resources to combating the virus, to isolating entire villages, but they faced the frustrating prospect that by sending out emissaries to warn people and enforce isolation, they might very well be hastening the spread of the illness, since the emissaries would have to be dispatched from the center of administrative power in the world, which also happened to be where the virus was most widespread.

And over all, the pall of doom also hung, because knowing that they were likely already infected by an illness with no cure, they were all acutely aware that they would likely catch themselves feeling an unusual faintness from a minor exertion some day, and they knew that when they did, it would foretell the end.

They began to explore methods of treatment, in a veritable panic, for by then, it had become clear that even if it took between one and two years, the illness did not subside or leave once present, and it was always fatal. In the fourth year since victory, with as many towns and villages isolated as possible, receiving and sending missives and reports to the empire at large entirely from purpose-built signal towers, the ever-shrinking population of the Society of Rational Observation stumbled across a method binding together the employ of magic and machinery. By heating certain materials, and using magic to permeate the cells of an afflicted person with the gases emitted by those materials, a breathless person could be revived temporarily from their stupor, and if a spell was cast to make the transfer happen continuously, a person could live indefinitely as long as the spell was maintained.

Enchanted capsules of the pressurized gaseous products of the burned materials began to be manufactured and distributed to citizens of the capitol; first to the members of the Society, then to anyone else who could be reached.

In spite of the extremely broad, nearly unlimited support and love the Council of Citizens had enjoyed on the day of its final victory over the Old Regime, it was not immune to the panic and fear engendered by the spread of this new illness. Initially it was believed to be some trick of the Magi as they raged against the dying of their League, and people rallied even closer around the Citizens Council and the administration it oversaw. However, with time, people grew frustrated by the council's inability to end the crisis, and while villages which had managed to isolate in time were very effectively held in captivity by their own fear, in regions which were infected, unrest and chaos began to take root.

Until the word spread of a cure. A cure which could only be created by the great industrial resources, magical knowledge, and technical expertise available at the Capitol. The capitol made its best effort to distribute these new devices throughout the world, but there were simply too few to distribute to everyone.

They were forced to prioritize the regions which were best able to produce the resources which were used to produce more of the devices. This created further resentment on the part of those living in regions which were not able to provide those resources, and by virtue of the enormous urgency of the pressure placed on the Council to maintain order, thus began a policy of preferential treatment which slowly evolved into a policy of control by the mechanism of threatening to withhold the Vapor of Life from entire towns and regions. In spite of its best intentions, the Council had finally come full circle, and the exigencies of reality had transformed it into the very thing it sought to destroy.

All because one mage, in his foolishness, had accidentally summoned a demon, and had, more successfully than he would ever know, managed to replace in the summoning spell all referential forms of humanity with those of microbes. The "Demon Sickness" (which was, again, more accurate than anyone could possibly know) came to define the landscape of society for generations upon generations to come. But time moves only in one direction, and all stasis must eventually give way to change.

As the miners wordlessly mined in the rock for materials to extract mercury, one of the materials needed for the Vapor of Life, they exchanged nervous glances. They knew their work was illegal, and that, if caught, their entire province could be punished, but without an independent secret stockpile of apparatus for infusing the Vapor of Life, their plans would grind to a halt within months. A second revolution was brewing. As with all revolutions, those planning it believed it to be inevitable, but, again as with all revolutions, time alone would tell.

The summoning had failed.

The dwarf Haemar shrugged and issued a sound of frustrated boredom, "I don't know what you thought you'd get, laddie, they're just small 'uns, if they be even there like ye says. What could they possibly do for us?"

The young mage Archaeus stood silent still though. Everything in the books indicated that this should have succeeded. The discovery of these cells was new, and much about them was still not understood, but his refraction spell had allowed him to see the cells on the plate and count them; there were plenty for his purpose, and he had modified the summoning spell to account for the new sacrifice source.

"This should have worked. We should be seeing a demon here."

Haemar raised an eyebrow, "We really are be desperate then, eh? I wouldn't have thought it to you to take up that kind of summons. You know, you might could warn me before summoning one of those? I thought ye were just carrying some basic hurt upon them out there.", and he gestured towards the door.

They were locked in a closet in a castle keep. Archaeus and Haemar were two remnants of the broken and fleeing army of the Faer. The revolution had been burning, simmering for years, but until ten years ago it had been largely ignored by the mages, merchants, and other powerful members of The Faeran League, an alliance of might, magic, and money which, in spite of shifting allegiance and the rare upheaval among the upper echelons, had kept peace in the world for almost a millennium.

There had always been voices dissatisfied with how that alliance ruled though, who believed that the relative peace of the league brought with it a stability which was also a cage upon the creative energy of humanity. Concessions had been made in the last fifty years. The establishment of a Society of Rational Observation, dedicated to discovering the mundane truths of the world for the purpose of furthering the ability of the non-magical peoples to help themselves in the absence of magic users. The change was hotly debated, and for decades after its first proposal, generally ignored, but as word spread among the lower echelons that such a thing might even be feasible, it became necessary for the Three Councils to acknowledge the demand.

Five years ago, the explosion at the Primae Capitol of Ars Maleus had changed everything. The entire council, the entire Primae Capitol, and the entire surrounding countryside, was vaporized in an instant.

"You know... I've never said this to anyone, but I tell you, Malvina was right, and I believe that's what caused the explosion, and if I could just use it to cast this spell, we could summon a demon powerful enough to destroy the entire rebellion."

"I dain't know who Malvina is, but let's get a thing straight; you could cast this spell; I want nothin' and no part of what ye do here. Come now, I think it's time we acknowledge we've been beat. Maybe this new world of theirs won't be so bad. I know that sounds barmy coming from me, but I know when I'm beat, and we're beat, so what's the use in fightin' it?"

"Some dwarf you are; where's your stubborn-"

Haemar punched him in the shoulder, "Don't be that way; that's a sham notion an' ye know it. Haven't ye known me long enough to know better? Come on... Just cast some kind o' calmin' spell to make sure they actually capture us instead o' just murderin' us on the spot, and let's get out there."

Archaeus looked down at his last desperate attempt at resistance and muttered "I know it would sound crazy, but I swear Malvina was right... I swear her experiment caused the explosion..."

A minute later, they stepped out of the closet and into a dining hall full of rabble and celebration. It took a minute for one of the revelers to realize that the odd pair who stepped out of the closet was of a different cut. The dwarf with the General's insignia put down his drink and said "Hold it; that's a magus... I mean... They look to be surrendering, so I guess we'd better.. You know, take 'em in. Maria, see if you can figure out where they were hiding; there might be more."

Maria heard the order and stopped dancing, and put her drink down, inspecting the closet door Archaeus and Haemar had just emerged from.

"... Was there always a closet door here?"

The general inspected it briefly too, and said "Looks like a concealment spell... Gads, if they'd had any artefacts with any power in there, they could have really done us in. Someone stop the music, we need to check the rest of the Keep for hidden doors before we can let down our guard."

Maria looked closer at the table in the closet, "Looks like they were attempting some sort of spell. Thankfully they didn't have the strength to complete it though, looks like. I only know a little of the language of magic, but it looks like maybe a summon? Not sure what of though?"

The general blew on the circle of dust, creating a light show in miniature as the dust sparkled in the light from outside the closet, "Well it ain't goin' to get summoned now, whatever it was."

The revelry continued into the night after the castle had been checked for secret doors; two more hidden groups were discovered. One put up a fight; the other surrendered peaceably. The League had finally fallen. The dream of a century of labor and struggle had finally been realized, and the magic of the world could now be put to use for the benefit of all rather than to keep afloat an oppressive alliance of all the great powers used to hold one people in the control of another. It was a time of great celebration throughout the land, unless, of course, you happened to be a loyalist magi, a member of the Society of Capital, or a member of the Elodian Society.

There was admittedly some excess in the process of correcting the imbalances of the world. Magi who had done no wrong were punished at times simply for being magi, and in areas which had suffered particularly harshly at the hands of the old League, the new Council of Citizens was hard pressed to protect them and keep the peace. Redistribution of the productive implements of society sometimes took the form of punitive retribution against those implements' former owners, and again, the Council was sometimes unable to prevent these acts of retribution. And the last spark of loyalist resistance was not fully extinguished for another year. In the region of Amiraan, loyalist magi managed to condemn a whole crop to failure, and they, along with all the former members of the region's local Society of Capital, were gruesomely murdered and eaten that winter.

The new Council of Citizens' greatest problem though, came about slowly, insidiously.
Two months after the victory celebration and the raising of the Citizens' banner over the Stronghold of the Capitol Secundus, which had become defacto the Primae Capitol after the Great Explosion, a malady became known in the capitol. It began slowly, as a shortness of breath, but without a cough or any other symptoms. As it progressed, the shortness of breath worsened, and a few months after first noticing the shortness of breath, their eyes would begin to turn yellow and bloodshot. Two months in, there were 12 afflicted, including Maria and her commanding officer, and a number of prisoners of war. Four months later, it was known to be spreading quickly through the prison camp, in a single massive wave, but through what mechanism none could say.

It wasn't until 6 months after victory though, that the first great wave of affliction was noticed by the non-prisoner population. The Council began isolating those afflicted in the hopes of inhibiting its spread, but by the end of the year, they realized they had begun the isolation measure far too late.

What a twist!

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Imagine getting home and theres a bunch of strangers in both the house and in the mirror...

The sun shines through the window, the annoying beeping of the alarm blaring in my ear. Wait, I don't use an alarm clock. I look at the phone and the time reads 6:14 a.m. The sheets of the bed are a blinding pink, far from my preference of pale gray. The walls are splattered with colorful, cartoon flowers. I know this room. The window is covered in sun-drained curtains. The name Ellie is painted in bubble letters. Ellie Carter. The girl who used to be my friend. She left the state last year.

I grab her phone and let my finger tips paint in the password. I go straight to her messages and type in my name to see if she kept my contact. The photo of my real face smiles back at me, my then flat and dull green hair of the past reflecting to me. Ellie's hair, or I guess my hair, is frizzed and a rich brown. It frames the outskirts of my vision.

I type in a message, seeing if anybody would answer back. Three dots pop back in the bottom of the screen. A message appears. "Lizzy? This you?"

My name...

"Ellie? Yea, it's Lizzy." I type back. More dots come back. I wait. The dots disappear. I find myself hoping the person in my body responds.

"It's Ellie...good to talk with you again. Why is there a reminder for a test today...why did we have to switch today."

My heart rate goes up, finals start today.

"Finals- you BETTER pass for me. I'll march right back to my house if you don't and murder you myself," I type in with sweating hands.

More dots come back onto the screen as a notification comes down from the top of her screen. 2% left. She better hurry up typing. The message page keeps the dots up. 1%...

"No, no..." I mutter to myself, not expecting Ellie's voice coming out instead of mine. I frantically looking around the room for her charger, no cord in sight. The message finally comes up, and just as it does the screen goes black as her phone dies...

I could care less who was in front of me, even if it was the god of death themselves.