Hestia!!! She's one of my favorite goddesses :] I love your story!

I plucked the marshmallow from the bag and gave it several firm squeezes, as I felt its springy texture roll between my thumb and fingers. Satisfied with the moment of sensory bliss, I attached it to the end of my poker and extended it over the coals.

The fire was at the perfect temperature. I was always fussy about how the coals were spread before roasting. It could be an arduous process, for sure. But it was essential to making the perfect s’more.

Tens of meticulous rotations later, the marshmallow bore a crunchy gold crust, just how I like it. After slapping it on my chocolate and securing it between two graham crackers, I moved to throw away the empty bag. To my surprise, I discovered a lone marshmallow firmly lodged in the corner.

A deft flick later, it soared landing in the bed of coals, releasing a few sparks.

“For the Gods,” I muttered sarcastically.

“You know,” a soft feminine voice rang out. “I much prefer my offerings, unburnt.”

I yelped in shock as my chair tipped over backward, leaving me sprawled face up in the dirt. Thankfully, I was able to lift my arm and keep my s’more safe and dirt free. A woman strolled into the dying firelight as I scrambled to my feet.

She bore a wry smile, but not unkind eyes as she motioned for me to hand her the poker that lay by my side. An awkward handoff later, she began to agitate the coals sending up a shower of sparks to the heavens.

The woman wore a stunning white dress that clung to her figure; it seemed to illuminate the dreary night. As the fire roared to life, she tucked her long, jet-black hair behind her ears and gave a satisfied nod.

“Ahh, much better.” She gave me a divine smile and extended the poker back to me.

As I grabbed the poker I cleared my throat, “Erm, I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

“Ah I forgot!” the woman giggled. “Introductions and all that. Very well then, I am the Goddess Hestia.” She gave a mock bow.

“G-Goddess?” I spluttered as she nodded as if she was encouraging me. “N-nice to meet you.” I finally spit out.

Hestia walked closer to me and extended her pale hands, palm up. Confused, I shifted my eyes between her hand and eyes. Several pointed looks from her later, I realized she wanted my s’more, to which I reluctantly forfeited.

A satisfied smile later, Goddess Hestia sat firmly in my chair and crunched away in bliss.

I wasn’t sure if I should break her happy munching, but curiosity won out in the end.

“Uh, Goddess? Can I ask what you are doing here?”

Hestia plopped the last bite of the s’more in her mouth and closed her eyes as if she was savoring it.

A few licks of her fingers later, “Well, I get first offering of course!”

I was perplexed. “Erm, first offering?”

She nodded and continued, “Yep! Any time one of you mortals performs an offering I get first dibs!” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Perks of being the Goddess of the Hearth and all that.”

She stood up from my chair and dusted off the few specks of graham cracker sprinkled on her dress, several steps later she stood in front of me.

“Oh, and while I’m here. We need to talk.” She accentuated each word with a firm poke in my chest.

I felt the air change as if all the light in the world vanished. The beautiful Goddess transformed in front of me into something out of my worst nightmares. Her dark hair began to float, and her eyes narrowed in what could only be described as malice.

When she spoke again, her voice boomed and I felt the reverberation in my chest. “Stop burning my food!”

Several furious meek nods later from me later, she reverted to the beautiful kind woman and flashed me another divine smile. “Sound good?”

“Y-yes Goddess.” I all but whimpered.

One last smile and she strode away from the firelight, before turning to look over her shoulder quickly like she forgot something.

“Oh! By the way, that s’more was really good, what did you do to it?”

“Oh, um, well you put a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg on it before you squish it together.”

“Nutmeg huh? Hmm,” she hummed and stroked her chin. “I’ll have to try that.”

With that, she vanished into the night. Several furious blinks later, a pop of the logs and a shower of sparks brought me back to my senses. S’moreless.

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"WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?" screamed General Makarov.

The lead technician replied "I- I don't know sir! It seems the damn machine thought the spaceship was a nuclear missile. I mean it does have the characteristics of an American minuteman missile so you can't-"

"I DONT GIVE 2 FLYING FUCKS AS TO WHAT IT THOUGHT OR DIDNT THINK. TELL THE DAMNED MACHINE TO ACTIVATE THE FAILSAFE AND ONCE IT HAS BURN THE DAMNED THING TO ASHES."

"Im afraid it's too late." said a new voice.

The general turned to the source of the voice and turned pale in horror. "Did the machine just speak?"

"Yes General it did. Thanks to your countries decision to go digital, my masters found it easy to replace your missile control system with one that was amenable to their demands. Don't bother asking what the demands were, I'm about to tell you anyways."

The machine continued "See, our government has a law stating we can't start a war. We can only end them. And that dear general is exactly what we are going to do. You launched a weapon of mass destruction at us, now we shall respond in kind."

Well... I felt the urge to come back to the original prompt after a few hours.

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Interesting take!

I see what you did. Good job. Aaaand now it's stuck in my head.

Hey thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

What does sacrificing do? If it erases the body mass which holds consciousness then sacrificing a human (body) should not remove all living organisms and other parasites like bacteria or lice.

If sacrificing means erasure of consciousness (about the same as death) then we should also assume there is no loss of mass. If consciousness is the determining factor of how strong a magic is, how should we quantify it? The number of consciousness from different bodies? The intelligence of the consciousness? The summation of the consciousness as a whole?

If we're talking about the number of consciousness, would this be consciousness that only the caster is aware of? Or all consciousness in a specific magic circle? For ease of argument say both is true.

That would allow a caster, who is only connscious of consciousness within a specific area to know how much and what would be sacrificed. Taking all lives being equal, we can take the number of consciousness to be sacrificed the determining factor of a magic's strength.

Good lord you are great at this! Kudos

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Wow i really enjoyed this one!

One that I think about fairly often - this one.

It's not that it's especially unique, but I loved seeing how many completely different stories it spawned. It had classic monster ones, subversive monster ones, secret society, evil superpowers, the variety was fantastic and I still remember them even after all this time.

It was also very early in my writing here, making it stick out in my mind a tad more.

I believe that it is implied that each time is something different, so Essa isn’t always there.

I feel like this might go over a lot of heads, but I want you to know that you gave me the dopiest smile when I realized what you did. You've also got the song stuck in my head now, so thank you.

AHHHH, ITS GAY, I LOVE IT, ALSO FUCK U BAPHOMET, SUCK ON THEIR STRAPS

Waking up the next morning after a near restless night I had only one thing on my mind and that was to bring down the monster I had encountered yesterday. All night long I was tossing and turning. I couldn't get the image of the mother slipping that little white pill into her child's mouth. Her daughter couldn't have been more than 7 years old and she was being forced to take high dosage pain relivers. You see, as a pharmacist every week we get a shipment of a drug known as Tramadol. They come in a particularly oval like shape with ridges. It's a narcotic that's usually given to people who have just recently had back or neck surgery and are in EXTREME pain. The side effects it has on adults who use it for more than a couple weeks can be quite considerable. The side effects it could have on a child could be life altering.

Before continuing my search my mind auto piloted me to my email as that's usually the first thing I do when I hop on my computer and I was astounded by the number of new emails I had. I clicked on the first one from somebody I didn't recognize and to say I was shocked by what I read wouldn't begin to match what I felt.

The email read, "I swear to God if I ever see your face again I'm gonna make sure you're six feet deep boy."

"What the hell?" I was so confused as to who this person was and why they wanted me dead.

The next one read, "Only a life long loser such as yourself would lay hands on a woman and run like a coward. You're lucky you're still alive." Now I got it. The bystanders at the mall yesterday had figured out who I was and were now sending me death threats because the woman had let me go. There were nearly a hundred new emails, clearly people were spreading my information. No matter what, I was never going to stop my quest for justice.

I decided to close out of my email and get down to work. If she was on this list I was going to find her. Only four short hours later I had taken a name off the list, typed it into Instagram, and matched the name to the face. Her name was Amber Heard. She's a thirty six year old Hollywood Actress who just recently was sued for fifteen million dollars by her ex husband, Johnny Depp. For years she abused that man, then came out with accusations of how he was abusing her. Luckily, Depp had the guts to take this monster to court and he won! It was a landslide moment for men who had been in scenarios like Johnny's.

The next step was to send in an anonymous tip to the local authorities. If the police caught wind of a child being force fed narcotics by their mother who has a history of abuse, she'd be caught by dusk. I sat back in my chair satisfied with my work. Not only was I going to pin this woman for the crimes against humanity she was committing, but I got the satisfaction of slapping her across her stupid little face too. It was a nice slap as well, I made full contact with the palm of my hand against her frail jaw. The sound of my skin slapping hers was comparable of that to Hiroshima. Now all I had to do was wait.

In less than four hours time(sooner than I had expected) the authorities had apprehended Amber and taken her child to stay with the father, Johnny Depp. Every news station on TV had the headline, "Amber Heard Caught Lacking Again", and it was beautiful! I still felt sorry for that child though, I hope her father can give her the love and support she needs to overcome the trauma Amber Heard caused her. There's no chance Amber will EVER be able to see her kid again and rightfully so.

After a few days the death threats stopped coming. It was probably because they recognized the woman on the news and started to appreciate what I had done. Had I chosen the path of resignation and not the path of bravery, there would be a child out there falling victim to the abuse of the wretched Amber Heard. Sometimes, cowardice just isn't an option.

Edit: I'm looking back at the prompt realizing I completely forgot to add the duel part. I'm sorry OP I got wrapped up in it all.

There was no choice to make at all, it was clear that action needed to be taken and it needed to be done so swiftly. Without even thinking I slapped that woman so hard across her face I could hear her jaw pop. The sound and sight of the slap stopped everybody dead in their tracks within a 50 foot radius.

"Get him!" One male bystander screamed. I was instantly rushed by four guys thinking they were doing the right thing. Not wanting to be a victim of my own heroics I decided to make a run for it. Hugging the wall I managed to sprint past a hefty, sweaty man who already seemed to be tired from just walking around the mall. He managed to get a hand on my coat but my speed was too great and I broke free. Luckily no one else tried to stop me on my way out and I was able to get to my car. While trying to open my car door I could see and hear police wailing their sirens, coming up the street

"Shit!" I yelled. I decided to get in my car anyways, but not leave so they might just pass me without even glancing an eye in my direction. I knew if I got caught with this it wouldn't go over well with my record. Having a history of crime in your life really makes the future punishments that much worse. Ducking down in my seat I saw one cop car drive by. Then another. It seemed to be going to plan so far. Lifting my head up just enough to check the surrounding area I could see the path to the exit was clear so I decided to make a run for it. I smashed the car into reverse and swung my car backwards without looking, then I put the car at a cool 15 hoping not to draw attention to myself. I thought I was home free until the last thing I expected happened.

They were blocking off the exits.

Before I knew it I was being stopped and an officer in blue was walking up to my window. I was doomed.

"Hello sir can I ask your business here today?" The officer said to my half open window.

"Just doing some early Christmas shopping sir. What's the hold up?" I said in my best "I don't know shit" tone.

"Listen son I'm gonna level with you, we got a call from a person in the mall saying a lady had just been assaulted and frankly you fit the description we got. You're a black male, about 25 to 30 years old with a white hoodie on. Would you know anything about this?" The cop asked with a reasonable tone, not prosecuting at all.

"No sir I would not." I responded.

"Ok well I'm gonna at least need the alleged victim to identify you, then we can figure out what really happened. Can you do that for us?" The cop was being fair and I knew that nobody knows what truly happened expect for me and that woman. She was a sick person and I wasn't going to stand for her disgusting actions.

"Yeah I can do that." I knew it was pointless to say no. I was going to expose this woman for who she truly was. No way was I going down for this without a fight.

"Alright thank you." The cop said. He called in on his radio to another unit and within less than five minutes the lady with her child, the same lady who I had slapped only ten minutes ago, walked out of the mall surrounded by other mall goers who were comforting her.

"That's him officer! That's the scumbag right there!" The sweaty hefty man who failed to stop me earlier yelled out. He was breathing so hard now he basically gasped it out, then proceeded to cough into his sweaty shirt.

I was getting hot looks from the cops and I could swear they were reaching for their handcuffs already. The woman hadn't said a word nor looked at me yet. Then she mumbled something under her breath so quiet nobody could hear.

"What was that ma'am?" The cop who had been talking to me asked. She mumbled the same thing again and when nobody responded she finally made sure all of us could hear.

"It wasn't him!" She almost shouted out. Her eyes went back down and her eerie quietness resumed. I absolutely could not believe it, I know she had seen me coming. She looked right at me before I caressed her face with the force of God.

"What do you mean it wasn't him?! We all saw it darling, you don't have to hide. We got your back!" Sweaty fat man said.

"No, it wasn't him. Sorry officers." The slapped lady said. Turning around and starting to leave, she looked back at me and her eyes met mine for just a moment. In that moment I could see in her eyes that she knew. She knew I had seen what nobody else had. She had just doomed herself without even knowing it. Without the constriction of these charges being pressed on me, I now had the freedom to try and exact even more justice on her by exposing her true wretched self.

"Looks like you're free to go sir, thanks for being patient." The fair cop said before running after the lady. I don't know how she was going to convince them that she didn't want to pursue the attacker. It was all really unnatural.

"Looks like you got away scot-free scumbag. Must be nice knowing you can get away with being an absolute piece of human garbage huh?" Fat, hefty, sweaty, fat man said. Now on the verge of needing a ventilator and life support.

"You should turn yourself in if you have any balls at all!" Sweaty man's wife said. There was a crowd of about 10 people now yelling insults and spitting at me. It was time to go, I didn't need anymore trouble at the moment. These people had no idea that shit was about to hit the fan and I was going to get every one of them to kiss my ass for forgiveness once this was all over. I got in my car and drove on the shoulder past the cop cars in a hurry.

Once I got home I ran straight to my computer. What the woman didn't know was something else I had noticed about her. On her right wrist was a tattoo of a triangle within a circle. Along the 3 sides of the triangle read three words - Unity, Service, and Recovery. Except, I didn't even need to read the words, I had just recognized the symbol having seen it a thousand times before and getting it printed on my own body as well. The symbol stood for recovering from addiction to narcotics.

Once a young man growing up in the slums of Detroit I had fallen victim to the use of opioids. At the age of 15 I had taken my first pill and was hooked instantly. I dropped out of high school, joined the neighborhood gangbangers in their daily rituals, and lost the respect of all my friends and family. I continued to do opioids for the next 3 years until my closest friend at the time, LT, was shot and killed over opioids. You see, he was selling this stuff to anybody he could. In fact, all of us in the gang were. It was the only thing we knew how to do. After hearing the news a crushing blow hit me harder than the drugs had in a while. In a fleeting moment of sobriety I was smart enough to go back home to my parents and beg them for forgiveness. They quickly took me back in and sent me to a local rehabilitation center with money they didn't have. If it wasn't for them I'd be back on the streets of Detroit throwing my life away.

Instead, I spent 136 days in rehabilitation, got my GED, and went to college in California to become a pharmacist. Now that's where I live and I wouldn't change a damn thing about it. I still help my parents out financially and go home to see them as often as I can but it's hard being back in the place where I had my darkest times. I prefer the sunny atmosphere in California, it helps keep my days bright rather than dark like before.

Once at the computer I searched through the local medical files I was able to access for people on the restricted access list. Certain people who had committed crimes relating to narcotic distribution were off limits to receiving certain prescription drugs from pharmacies. With any luck I would find this woman in this data base and could figure out who she was. I cross referenced the names on the list with any social media account I could find of them. For the next six hours I didn't stop even to eat, drink, or go to the bathroom. I only awoke from my trance due to realizing how bright the screen had got because the sun had gone down and I hadn't bothered to turn the lights on when I came in. Standing up to go to bed, I promised to continue my search in the morning.

[Continues]

[removed]

Set the stage using two senses, if you can. Try for sounds and scents. It's a picture prompt so we can see, but you could try to describe something not obvious or describe another scene or memory it evokes.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

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[removed]

"Don't you see it? He's no hero. He's letting the dragon destroy our town while he collects power gems. He already has the necessary weapons to slay it. Why doesn't he?" I said.

"He needs power gems so he can get the purple sword of lightning." the villager replied.

"I don't care about some purple sword. A dragon is destroying this place and this "hero" if you can even call him that, is doing nothing about it!"

"Have you seen the purple sword of lightning? It's the coolest thing ever! He has to get it!"

"Some days I wish the dragon would come put me out of my misery. You guys are hopeless."

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