Not to give the league any breaks they tried there beat wich isn't much

I love the last quote.

Thanks! I'll look into these later. :)

“I’m not a bad person (or am I better described as an “entity”), I used to be a bit of a monster but that was a LONG time ago before I had a handle on my powers. Turns out that when you have the ability to drain life force and devour souls coupled with a requirement to feed in order to survive things get a little crazy. I spent some time leading Aztec sacrifices as Tezcatlipoca, the Egyptians called me Apopis, I lived in Greece under the guise of Thanatos, and most recently lost my cool in Romania in the 1400’s. Ever since then I’ve done a really good job keeping everything in check; and ever since the 1500’s I’ve been working on passion project… pizza.

There are three things I like to do, cause low level mischief to keep hero’s employed (charity work), attempt to perfect the worlds greatest food (pizza), and also monologue in my own head (which I am currently doing fantastically). You see I tend to get introspective when I’m dealing with a mental crisis and at the moment I’m furious. Those so called “heroes” who constantly endanger the population with their wild antics (unless I craft some easy to crack scheme to occupy them) have crossed a line. I’m all for messing with your rivals but they did the unthinkable; they messed with my people and my pizza.

A few minutes ago I was prepping some pepperoni in the back room when I heard an explosion. I ran out front and to my horror discovered the heroes had “raided” my “secret lair” and in doing so they blew up the front of my store. Those asshats failed to account for the fact that I employ a super sweet teenager named Jenny and she just got carted away in an ambulance due to shrapnel! These animals wouldn’t even let me make sure she was okay before they put me in chains and threw me in the back of their van. It’s been ages since I’ve held a man’s soul in my hands or brought balance to the world through reckoning; but perhaps I’ve been too lax. These beings have no care for the plight of others and they’re too divided, I think this world needs to be reminded what a real monster looks like.”

The one called “Jim” also known as The Reaper, The Scourge of Gehenna, and Ruin One True Horseman of the Apocalypse opened his emerald eyes. In one fluid motion he cracked his neck and tore apart the heavy lead chains that had restricted his body.

The whites of his eyes rapidly darkened to a hue so deep they resembled a black hole and the green of his iris gained a subdued and yet somehow blinding brilliance as if the cosmos themselves rotated in his orbital sockets. The air warped around him and multicolored bands of radiant light shot out from his hands to impale the three costumed men in the van with him. In a fraction of a second (too fast for the human eye to witness) the bands warped to become wrapped in skeletal claws radiating an aura of insatiability. The 3 men gave out chocked gasps as their bodies rapidly decomposed becoming blacked motes of ash in a matter of seconds. An instant later the van itself careened into the car in front of it as a rusted husk and the buildings around became to crack and wither. Ruin calmed himself and the dome of decay surround him retracted to envelope his body.

“There is no need to harm the innocent when the guilty are so plentiful, after all souls all taste the same, and goodness deserves to survive (at least for now)… for it is not yet time to begin the work and something that is clean is easier to Ruin!”

It’s not quite that, but Wizard for Hire has a good bit of luck/magic/fate, and is one of my favorite books. Not quite sure what about it, but your story reminded me a bit of Will Blank and the Imagination, so you might like that too.

[removed]

While yes, YTA, there's another tradition. With a little something called soul-viewing, you can see their true selves even billions of years down the line. This helps select the ones who will love you no matter what, through thick and thin, and will trust you with their big hearts. After that, you can both become pseudo-dhampirs by performing a ritual involving sage and mugwort upon your wedding night. After you finish the incantations and you both ingest the herbs, chewing them well, you must let her bite you first and drink your blood. Biting her and drinking her blood in return is optional. However, you both will have some vampiric traits which can be easily hidden as well as immunity to sunlight, garlic, holy water, crosses, and silver. Aconite is still a danger, though.

"Okay, Snake, Snake, Whale; that did it!"

The group tensed as the mechanism whirred, heavy iron bolts sliding back into the round door, each settling with a satisfying thunk. With an ear grating cacophony of dry stone upon stone; the door rolled away to open the tomb. Stepping through the entrance, weapons ready and torches raised; they approached the dais in the centre of the room that held the large black sarcophagus.

As they edged further, skeletal hands clutched the edges of the sarcophagus and tensed as the occupant animated and raised itself. Terror quickly turned to mirth as the first thing they saw was the knitted nightcap topped with a pompom.

Halfdan the Mighty stifled a giggle as the skeleton continued to rise, it was wearing a matching fluffy dressing gown and a small teddy-bear spilled out of the sarcophagus to tumble on the floor.

Vermithrax the Lich glowered at the group, its eyes blazing in each socket like a captured galaxy, unfortunately the effect was somewhat spoiled as the pompom bobbed in front of one of them.

"IS IT THE END OF DAYS?"

Vernithrax rasped, a cloud of fine dust erupting from its mouth as it spoke.

"IS IT FINALLY TIME FOR THE GREAT SUNDERING OF THE WORLD AND..."

"Um... No!"

Arnissa, the diminutive rogue giggled as she interrupted

Vermithrax reached up to adjust the pompom and with seemingly an afterthought; blasted the group with an arcing chain of black lightning, leaving only smoking boots where they stood.

"THEN FUCK OFF AND LET ME SLEEP!"

Yup, with conc. Nitric and sulphuric acid. And black powder ain't difficult yo make either. But had the heros did their research and did proper recon, they would have also noticed the other components coming in. Not just glycerin.

[removed]

You make nitroglycerin out of glycerin

Seconded on wanting a link to that thread, I've not seen that particular one and flower language is interesting as fuck.

[deleted]

Alison casually flipped through the channels of the television.

A bright blue sphere filled the screen. It was a woman in a round blue costume reading the nightly news. Gun violence appeared to be up in the primarily human neighborhoods in the South.

The next channel featured several men in large blue-tinted hamster wheels at the start line of a race track. The track lines were raised to ensure that each individual remained in their own lane. It was time for the summer world olympics once again. Alison wasn’t interested. Besides, Angola usually won anyways.

On PBS, fields of blueberries filled the screen. Yet another special on blueberries. How obvious could their pandering be?

Channel after channel featured blue spherical shapes interacting, singing, fighting. Allison mostly found it annoying, but would watch on occasion if she was bored enough. She often was.

Very few channels catered to human interests these days. Not since the influx of the Ovelut. An alien species that lives in the center of Hoag's Object. They were more derogatorily called “Hoagies”. Their species largely favored blue spherical shapes. Trade with the Ovelut provided earth with much needed resources and, in return, earth had in essence become an Ovelut playland. She walked over to fridge to grab something to eat. Since the Ovelut arrived, many farms found it much more profitable to grow Achi, a fast-growing, nutrient-dense round substance that could sustain Ovelut and humans alike. It was difficult and expensive these days to find anything foods that were exclusively human. It looked like she was out of Achi and would have to go to the store. She hoped none of her neighbors would be out. Her building was primarily Ovelut occupied, but the developers had to allot 10% of the building to humans. In many ways, she was lucky to have won that lottery, but it didn’t always feel that way. As she walked out the door, her neighbor down the hall stood languidly in the doorway of its apartment. It had no discernible eyes, but she could sense that it was looking at her. Fucking hoagie, she muttered under her breathe. She didn’t hate them. She just hated how uncomfortable they made her feel. Why did they have to be so creepy? Why did they have to live here with humans?

Stepping outside, Alison’s eyes glossed over the now-familiar row of blue spheres that dotted the sidewalk across the street. “Dotties,” people called them, though the Ovelut name was something more technically complex she couldn’t remember at the moment. Dotties were decent homes for human families, but they always reminded Alison of port-a-potties. Doctors lived in those, as did teachers, police lieutenants. With the Ovelut’s advanced technology, there wasn’t much use for most human professions, with the exception of the bartenders that served Pyglo–a warm, blue, gooey liquid served in fishbowl-shaped glasses at Ovelut clubs. She had thought about getting a job there, but most of the bartenders were PhDs and she wasn’t. You needed an advanced degree and a willingness to face danger in order to operate the machines and mix the chemicals that made Pyglo the most popular drink on the planet. Both the high it produced and its casualty rate was significant. But you never heard about that on the news.

Navigating the newly-renamed streets whose new names she hadn’t bothered to learn, Alison could hear Ovelut music on every corner, but all her human ears could pick-up was the familiar high-pitched beeeeeeeeep that stretched into infinity. That same noise had signaled the Ovelut’s first visit to Earth, when they arrived, radios blaring, immediately taking over every frequency on the planet. Only a few months later, the internet was filled with content for Earth’s new patrons, Ovelut devices displacing and replacing what had been there before. Human telecommunications was soon obsolete, no longer practical or profitable. Without the connectivity of the internet, Alison wandered the streets most days. There was another human in Alison’s building (had he been a Senator, maybe?), but his job as a bartender meant 20 hour days four times a week.So Alison spent a lot of time alone. She was used to it by now. Besides, they weren’t all bad. With the income brought by Ovelut trade, war had basically ended. There was no need to fight over resources anymore and, odd as it was to eat Achi and watch blueberries on TV, most people had their basic needs met. But there was something missing.

Alison was almost to the store when a man in the alleyway caught her eye. He seemed nervous and shifty. Just when Alison thought to look away, their eyes locked. He motioned for her to follow him and he slunk deeper into the darkness of the ally. The Achi can wait she thought as she headed toward the ally…

I think the idiot ment Nitroglycerin. It's a liquid based explosive. Usually mixed with Black powder. And yes the old during the era of TNT and Dinamite for tunneling black powder. Normal glycerin is a natural moisturizer used in winters. I know because I use it.

bro 😂

"How's the thing with your girl going?"

I looked at Philip with the most annoyed look I could muster. Did he really need to ask? One moment she's the terror of my existence, an absolute mastermind of torment that makes me dread going to class every day, and the next she's my girlfriend. For my own part, I tried to reject her, but I couldn't bring myself to.

"She's attached," I answered.

He raised an eyebrow quizzically. "And you aren't?"

"She's been my bully for over a year. I didn't even know college kids could get bullied, much less by girls." I bent down and grabbed a grape soda out of the cooler we were sharing. "How could I be attached to someone who's been so cruel?"

Philip pondered this for a moment. "You've known her since elementary school, haven't you?"

"Yeah, but we were never close. I never talked to her."

"You're one cold motherfucker, Alan."

I popped the tab from my soda and took a sip. "Shut up."

My thoughts wandered back to Adelaide, trying to make sense of everything that had happened in the past month. I remembered all of the pain she had put me through before vividly, and for a long time I had hated her for it. But things changed after I snapped.

"Why don't you just leave me alone?" I had begged her. "Can't you see that I absolitely despise you? You do nothing but hurt me all the time. You seek me out, memorize my schedule, all for what? To make me suffer? What did I do to deserve that?"

She had been speechless. "Alan, I-"

"If you don't have an answer, then just go. Please."

Then came the letter. Slid underneath me and Philip's door, asking me to go to the humanities building and wait for her on the rooftop. I figured she had awful planned, so, in hindsight, I'm not really sure why I went. Perhaps I was hopeful I'd finally be able to see things through? Or maybe it was her handwriting. Adelaide was always energetic, loud, and popular, but she had never seemed graceful to me. When I saw the neat, ordered rows of letters scrawled in blue ink on cheap paper (probably pulled from the communal printer), a part of me, I think, had a revelation that maybe there was more to her than just a mean girl.

She wanted me to meet her at six thirty, a half hour after she finished her evening class. It was November, so the sun had started setting around five, but I knew she didn't care. When I arrived, the temperature was below freezing, and I had a coat bundled around me to keep the blood from freezing in my veins. She had a coat on too, but she had a blanket and a large stuffed frog with her too, sprawled out on the concrete floor like she had intended to camp out for a long time.

I shut the door behind me, and I noticed she briefly let a smile slip before she suppressed it. Normally, her smiling made me nervous, but this time was different. Heartfelt. "I'm here. What do you want?" I asked. It was freezing, and I wanted to leave.

"I need to confess something." I realized she wasn't making eye contact.

"I'm already aware that you're terrible. Just get on with it."

Her next words caught me off guard, smacking me across the face and rendering me completely paralyzed in shock. "I'm in love with you."

Emotionally, I was cornered. I couldn't respond cohesively at all. I didn't even have the composure to let out my confusion with a, "Huh?" I just stared at her, and this gave her the courage she needed to keep going.

"I know we've... had problems. Maybe that's an understatement. But I want to make it up to you. I didn't realize how much I was hurting you. I'll do anything, Alan, so..."

Another thing: Adelaide was (and still is) a very, very, beautiful girl. Her hair was brown, but her eyes were pale gray. Her nose was slightly upturned, and her lips seemed constantly poised to widen into a bright, winning smile at a moment's notice. In the cold, with the only light coming from distant streetlamps, I think I lost my sense for a moment.

"Please don't hate me." She said the words so softly, so painfully, that my heart, which had frozen over to her a long time ago, thawed.

I remained firmly rooted in my place as she stood and slowly stepped toward me. I felt a flash of heat in my cheeks as she got close enough for me to see her breath in the cold. She grabbed my hand, which was an odd gesture, considering she was at least four inches taller than me. Since she had been sitting, I had forgotten for a moment. "If you want to try it out, I'll be your girlfriend."

To this day, I had no idea what I was thinking. I was lost in her expression of guilt, I suppose. It made me think that the woman who had made my life hell was someone worthwhile, after all. "Sure."

Snap back to the present, with me standing on the balcony with Philip, drinking grape soda. It was almost Christmas, and I was actually concerned about getting her a present. I knew she would get me something; she had been spoiling me since the day after we became a couple.

"I'll repeat my question, Alan, for all the idiots on the balcony. You're attached, aren't you? You see the way she looks at you and think back to the brief, little bits of interaction you had with her in middle school. High school." He sipped from a can of soda of his own. "You've been realizing that she's looked at you the same way this whole time, right? She looked at you with that love and loyalty when you were thirteen, coincidentally getting paired up and working on a project about the Romans together. She looked at you that way when you helped her get to her car on your senior prom night when your dates abandoned you both and left you alone, only for her to roll her ankle when her high heel snapped."

"How do you know about that?" I said, incredulous.

"Would you put your brain cells together for just two seconds, Alan?" Philip said, rolling his eyes. "She was just as popular in high school as she is now. She didn't have the best grades, but she realized where you were going and she landed eighth in the class so she could follow you."

"Answer my question."

"She's been begging me to teach her how to get you to like her, you dense bastard!" he yelled. "I know your relationship with her is complicated. She's a bitch. I get it. But she's been trying. She understands how she's been treating you, and she wants to do better. The reason you said yes, Alan? It's because deep down, you know that. So stop being a dick, go back in that dorm room, and apologize to her for using me as an excuse to ignore her call."

I stared at Philip, dumbfounded, and sighed. I didn't really understand how I was the bad guy here, but him putting it like that made me feel it at the very least. I opened the glass sliding door to the dorm and pulled my phone from my bed.

I had her number on speed dial. How long had it been there, anyway?

The phone only had enough time to ring once. "Hello?" the voice on the other side said.

"Hey, Adelaide."

"I thought you weren't going to pick up."

"Fooled you."

She took a moment before replying. "I'm sorry for calling so late, I didn't mean to-"

"Don't worry about it. You're not bothering me."

"Alright, then."

"What did you call about?"

"I just... I didn't get a chance to see you today, and I wanted to ask how your day went."

I didn't respond at first, not realizing that the statement was also a question.

"So?" she prompted. "How did it go?"

"Oh. It was okay. How was yours?"

I swear to God, her tone changed so dramatically it was like night and day. I'd never heard someone seem so happy before. "Better, now that I'm talking to you," she replied.

Before I knew it, the sun was rising.

The quick sentences in the action scene felt like a hockey commentator describing some crazy action.

Reading it like that made the action feel viscerally real.

Skill issue

Thanks! He has the power of luck. But to describe further it's more like he has control over his own fate and bend others fates and destinies to his will. There is a limit and a drawback if he uses too much. I always wanted to read a book on this kind of power. Saw this prompt and it fit.

P.s. if anyone has read a book with a similar power let me know. I will probably read it. Lol

Maybe physics/ others' powers manipulation?

Forgive me, but you sound young, so let me educate you. This is why its bad to mix the races. Humans are too... small to sympathize with vampires. I've lost more a hundred times as many friends in my 2000 years than it is possible to loose family in a human lifetime. The truth is, whatever losses she might feel in the short term, by her 300th year, they would feel as significant to her as the death of a gerbil. On the other hand, the sheer amount of work that goes into getting a growth license cannot be understated. I don't know how recently you've looked at the regulations, but last I checked, it takes 1000 years or a death in the family for a dynasty to get one. And you can only use them to do one thing: either to conceive or convert. One new family member every thousand years. And to give up that, for a woman who isn't even excited to spend eternity with you? Who doesn't respect your families sacrifice? It saddens me to see the extent to which our culture has fallen.

PSHAW!!!! My first wife was mortal. We loved with a burning passion. She was a beauty beyond compare and in my eyes a heart so pure I could not bring myself to turn her, yet in her dotage she begged me and I relented. I watched as my immortal kiss returned my love the beauty of her youth and i was pleased.

Years and decades passed and I watched as my loves pure heart turned cold and I am still, millennia later, cleaning up after her. She loves having an Elder as cleaner. I, not so much!

So to you youngling, I would think again about the responsibility of turning your mortal wife. You might bite off more than you can chew!

ps. Don't chew, it's unseemly

Yours forever,

Vlad.

"I cannot let you continue to massacre the world, day by day, village by village!" I exclaimed, my voice raw with emotion.

"Then bow, child. Bend your knee and join me once more. We were so good together, we were. We could rule the universe." The woman sneered. My lips trembled, I felt it. The woman was so cold, so callous, so brooding.

"Never!" I bellowed, "Never, even when my body is fertilizer for the soil, will I join you! I have seen what your wars do! They kill generations of families, of towns, of planets!"

"War?" The woman laughed, poison dripping between her teeth. "You do not yet know war, your bones do not even sit comfortably in your skin yet! You are a child who has tasted their first autumn frost and called it winter."

Her voice. My own mother's voice, so void of care. The same woman was the one who cradled me in her arms and sung sweet melodies to me in my night fits. She approached me and I felt her magic working its well, settling between my bones that do not fit and my skin. With the same motherly touch, she held my chin fondly and gazed into my eyes. Surely to a bystander, it looked like I was looking into the future. My mother and I, we share our scars and our hair, our skin and our eyes.

I felt my body work against itself and relax into her touch, only for her to rip her hand away and leave me. I assume she took my silence and relaxation for a white flag.

"Your magic does not work, Haizea, and yet, you expect to defeat me and my army. Bend a knee, it is not difficult. Life would be comfortable once more." Even her blunt tone was replaced with a motherly one, full of warmth and promise. She sat back on her throne and motioned to her guards to leave the room, leaving only me and my mother in the room. Even my army and friends were not in the castle, but out beyond, battling.

"So? What'll it be, Nituna?" She asked, drumming her long, slender fingers on the throne. I truly saw no reason to join her. It would be beneficial for those closest to me, and those who I had accompanied on the way.

However, a voice screamed in me to not do it, to carry out direct orders, to complete the quest I had been on for so long, to end this thousand-year-long war.

Her mockery of my lack of gift only fueled my anger. I broke from her spell and lunged at her, sword raised. She wore no armor, she had no need to. The woman could control an entire town without as much as flexing a pinky finger. The only reason I could break with very little struggle was our shared blood.

I lunged, and was met with a single statement.

"Roll a D20, Hailey."

I could feel the party's nervousness as I picked up my dice, the same one I had been using this entire session. The energy buzzed and I glanced at the DM with a shaky breath. My own mom, also my DM. God, was it a terrible thought.

I rolled, and watched as the dice spun and jumped before sitting still. Hesitantly, the party looked at my dice.

A Nat20.

Part 2, part 3, part 103, and more, please!