Blood Brother
By Cansas Wanderlust

The room was small—walls of mossy cobblestone. The air was wet and smelled of mud. Dakarai slowly regained consciousness. He tried to sit up and cursed when he discovered thick leather cuffs around his wrists, ankles, and chest, binding him to what felt like a metal table.

“Damn.”

He’d known the risk, but he couldn’t stand by while these monsters took his mother. He promised to come back to her while the gundulves were dragging him away. The look in her eyes would haunt him forever. Still, this was best. He’d gotten out of many tight spots since joining the Crimson Rangers. He was sure it was him they wanted anyway.

The wooden door creaked open. A tall man appeared, white hair swaying as he shut the door.

“Now this is a surprise,” Dakarai said. “To what do I owe the pleasure, great lord Malacom?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Malacom said flatly. “I’m only interested in the knowledge you possess.”

“If you wanted to know the best taverns, you only needed to ask.”

The ranger chuckled but Malacom stayed neutral.
.
Dakarai sighed. “What do you want?”

“You know what I want.”

“Always so cryptic, Malacom,” Dakarai gave a playful smirk.

A hint of annoyance flashed in Malacom’s blue eyes. “I want the location of the one called Stranger.”

“Str-stran-ger. Odd name. Can’t say I know a stranger. Everyone I know is either a friend or an enemy. Now there is a boy who plays his lute for the street cats, and he is a strange fellow.”

“I don’t have time for your games,” Malacom said, turning on his heel.

A moment after Malacom left, a young woman entered. Beads of iron decorated her blood-red hair. Dakarai recognized her at once as the ulven shadow, Dale Lykrus.

“Where is Stranger?” Her voice was sharp as a razor.

Dakarai closed his eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry mama. I break my promise to you so that I can keep my promise to my blood brother.”

The ranger opened his eyes, and said with a smile, “not a clue, my lady.”

A Purpose
By Twangyflame0

She coughed up blood as the acrid smell of ash filled her nose. She pushed herself up with her sword, looking around her. The balefire blazed as the dead shambled about with tactical precision. This was a catastrophe the goddess wouldn’t, that she wouldn’t allow.

She stared up at the creature before her. She had once heard that it was human, but she knew better than to allow those heresies to fester in her mind. She could make out the vaguely humanoid form by the bony carapace holding the creature’s slick, dark form. It was disgusting, something not of this plane, something that should be destroyed utterly in holy fire.

She held up her shield and pointed her sword at the horror. She began to chant the litanies she had been taught since her childhood. The words had been beaten into her, all disgrace annihilated, all her imperfection eradicated. She was a servant to the goddess and she would serve till death. She would not be made a mockery of.

She screamed and charged forward, sword flashing with the light of the surrounding fires. She blocked a blast of dark magic with her shield. She dove forward. She only needed one chance to skewer this creature and in the name of the Goddess she shall!

…

The warrior woman’s corpse shambled with the rest of the procession. Her body was hardy and good armor. She would break through the battleline once the useless corpses of peasants had been destroyed. She would skewer those that had prayed to her goddess and would do so at the flick of the wrist.

The “horror” she had so adamantly hunted watched his dread legion with a cold visage. Slowly, he commanded his legion to rest for the day and to bury themselves in the ground. It was also better to travel at night.

Once his congregation had completed their orders, he removed the mask that held his face. William Bracus looked out into the countryside and reminded himself of his quest for vengeance against the people of this land. All for his lost love…

A Teacher In Search… (Collab with Matthew (Handsome Johanson))
By Giovanna J. Fuller

“Ssssssssssssigh…..” I slithered dejectedly across the green grass of the quad. My books and handy laser pointer left behind in my classroom, I was free to move. Unseen by the students cramming for finals. It was quite a strange sight to see a snake pull a bag of books along the ground. No one had quite gotten used to it.

The year had been a disaster.

I had started the semester with high hopes and, perhaps, a little too high of expectations. My first class, a senior class, had ended with all the students screaming, a few, fainting, and one chair being thrown at my head.

Flattening out the upper half of my noodle body hadn’t helped at all. They had just called me a cobra and I was left with an empty room. All of them dropped my class.

This happened to all four classes I had been assigned and that youthful vigor to fill the minds of young college students with fascinating facts about my scaled brethren had dulled to despair. I was a failure of a teacher. What was the point of taking this position if I couldn’t even do my job?

“Sssssssssssigh….” I found a nice sunny patch of earth and curled up, resting my upturned snout on my coiled body.

I was just as knowledgeable about herpetology as the large, fleshy, bipedal humans.

I was just as eager to teach as a green professor.

If only I had the chance to prove myself.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

I turned my head in the direction of the dismayed cry. The distinct cry of someone overwhelmed with the burden of studying. A small sprout of hope rising in my chest.

“Did ssssssomebody ssssay ‘aaaa?’”

Promises
By: Larissa (Lari B. Haven)

He still recalled vividly their last hurrah, drunkenly walking the boulevards of Paris after their graduation, talking about the things they wished to do back home.

Stumbling in his own feet, Albert landed face first onto the pavement. They were so wasted that Leonard just dragged him to a marquee and laid him down on his lap until he felt well enough to get up.

Albert was pitching some jokes at his own expense while Leonard attended his wounds. They laugh, but Leonard seemed to force himself to laugh.

“Something it’s bothering you, isn’t it?” He lifted his head and looked into his friend’s eyes, capturing his nebulous thoughts.

Leonard debated with himself for a minute, but couldn’t lie to his best friend:

“I’m afraid, Albert. We’re making our oaths in a week. It will be real this time… What if I’m not a good enough doctor?”

“You’re being a great doctor right now and I’m honored to be your patient.” Albert smirked.

Leonard was not entertained.

“We’re men. Our choices in the hospital ward will inevitably be final, Albert. I don’t want to mess up.”

“All we do is final. Life is final.” Albert put his hands on Leonard’s shoulders and smiled. “If you trust in yourself that it will pay off, everything will be worth it.”

Leonard looked away for a moment. Albert knew his colleague could put on a tough facade, but he was always insecure about himself.

“If you ever feel you are uncertain about something, I will be there for you.” Albert held his friend’s hands together and proclaimed: “This is a promise, better yet, an oath above any other my friend. No choice will be hard enough for us to not take together.”

Leonard was flustered but couldn’t say anything. All his anxieties washed away.

They watched the silent streets getting ready for another morning. All the bohemians marched home while they kept in the moment, feeling something indistinguishable, but earnest.

As they silently accepted that promise, the future seemed less scary.

She ate his heart, and his corpse still wanders. (North Cendralia Cultists)
By IsaDragon

Jackson sighed, watching glassy-blue cubes fall from the sky.

He pushed up his sleeves, exposing thick black tendrils down his arms. He opened a battered flip phone, and let it ring.

“Katarina, I’m going to be late to our date tonight.” Jackson eyed the mammoth cube crawling from the crater in front of him.

“Wha—”

“Not by long. 15 minutes.”

“Earth is being invaded, and your concern is—”

“I’m working on it.” He snapped the phone shut.

Jackson adjusted his stance as the machine scuttled closer. He exhaled.

Jackson could not fly. He could, as a full grown hound of death, ignore the rules of life. Like, say, maximum speed without damage to soft tissue. One of the blessings of being technically undead.

He hit the invader like the broad side of a mountain, compressed to a person-sized point of devastation.

When the invader slid to a stop, Jackson threw his head back and howled.

A stilled heartbeat has a distinct sound to it. Since his adoption by the Great Hound, Guardian of the Catacombs Below, he had learned many types and flavors of silence. This one was a deeper shade of silence than the one he learned from his first foul rituals, when he first blackened and stilled his heart. This was a lack of noise he had learned when he chose The Queen, and she accepted.

The sound of where-there-was-once-life ripped the hull plating like tissue paper.

The silence echoed, and with it rose the shadows of fallen hounds, sworn in life, death, and after. His siblings, his ancestors, called to join the Hunt.

From his perch atop his conquered cube, Jackson felt a solar bombardment hit Northside, and snorted. Etheric Masters, always so flashy. He squinted at the sky, where the atmosphere had turned sharp, shredding those ships that had started attempting to flee. He had no liking for Tech-mages, but they were efficient…when they weren’t invading hell.

Finally he spotted a red, fleshy maw roaring challenge. He set off at a lope. It wouldn’t do to keep Katarina waiting, and… drat, he wrinkled his shirt.

Kindness at What Cost
by Carrie (Glaceon373)

“It’s fine, Sophia. I promise.” Gale looked at her with pleading eyes. “This is what I live for.”

“So what?!” Sophia slammed her fist on the nearby table. “You’re tearing yourself apart!”

“No, I’m not. Do you see their smiles? I made them feel better.” A smile danced across his face in the dim light of Sophia’s kitchen. It never reached his eyes.

“Sure, but it’s all I’ve ever seen you do for years! All you do is help people! Remember the first time we met? You saved Poppy from a tree.”

“I know. I’ve never forgotten.”

“And since then, only selfless things. You made sure I could feed myself when I got fired. When I got dumped on Valentine’s Day, you comforted me without being creepy. You even paid for Poppy’s vet bills when she broke her leg. And I know you do this for other people, too. Henry and John’s broken air conditioner, the Sanderson’s missing cat—”

“It’s the least I can do.” He never stopped smiling. His eyes never matched his expression.

“It’s nowhere near the least you could do! You’ve done more than anyone ever should! Ever! When are you going to take a break for yourself? Or demand to be paid back for the thousands of dollars you’ve spent on me alone? Even a fraction of it?”

“Serving others is serving the self.”

“Who the heck told you that?”

He raised his right arm. A chain-like green tattoo wrapped around his wrist.

Sophia squinted at the bracelet. “…what?”

“I promised I would serve the world.”

“…for, like, ever? No breaks? Not even one self-care day?”

“Selfish acts breach the pact.”

“Oh…” Sophia puzzled through Gale’s words. “Maybe…let me do something? For you? Just once?”

Gale laughed. “The pact forbids rewards.”

“Gale…you’re gonna burn yourself out. Spiral into something really scary. Please, Gale, take a break, or something!”

His phone buzzed. “Pardon me, Sophia, but apparently someone’s pipe burst across town. I’ll deliver you those cookies tomorrow morning.” He walked to the door.

“Gale!” she called as it slammed behind him.

“Oathbreaker”
By: ClockworkPigeonz

The heels of his boots clicked down the Great Hall to the tune of roaring wind and hushed breaths. Past the library where he had spent many an evening curled up with a book. Through the inner courtyard where beams of arcane light floated like fireflies.

He paused once at his classroom, placed a hand open the doorframe and drew a shuddering breath. Then carefully, he pulled a knife from his pocket and pried his nameplate from the top of the door. Before continuing between the gathered rows of mages.

Some pressed up against the walls with disgust in their eyes. Others stood silent with glassy gazes as if they couldn’t understand. Some reached out to squeeze his hand. Some spit in his path.

And some followed in his wake.

The Headmasters were waiting for him when he finally reached the entrance, they stood- heads bowed, hoods drawn save for Father Zeke. The older mage stepped down from the raised dais and pulled Seiko into a warm embrace.

Seiko could not help clinging to the man who had pulled him out of the ice and snow so long ago.

He could not see through his tears as a crystalline sword was pushed into his hands. A kaleidoscope of colors rippled over its surface and the golden light of strong magic shown from within. As weightless as a feather and yet it was the heaviest burden he’d ever borne.

Finally Zeke spoke, “My son, will you break your vow of peace and take this sword to protect your kindred from the darkness beyond our doors?”

“I will.” His voice shook, the words like a hot coal on his tongue.

“Do you understand that this means you can never return?”

“I do.”

“Then my son…this is goodbye.”

The entrance doors were thrown open, letting in the biting cold. Snow dusted the flagstones as Zeke tearfully pulled him into one last rib-breaking hug. His final words to Seiko rang in his ears as he stepped out into the cold with three hundred mages at his heels.

“I am so proud of you.”

Vows Unforsaken
By RVMPLSTLSKN (The Saga of The Deep One’s Wake)

Jabil-Tai, the eternal god-king of the south, was many things first: infant, young, warlord and shaman, but only one did Tai choose. Tai chose to be a shaman and that choice was the foundation of Tai’s identity. To be a shaman was to have great responsibility, to be strong of will, to have the strength to hold on to your freedom and dictate how you are accepted. When the dead are your daily routine, the experience of living flesh is wonderful.

Shamans stood between the living and dead, between the mundane and divine, to be an arbiter of vows in the reality of chaos.

Now to be a shaman was to be alone, for Tai alone remained. Tai’s people had gone and taken their spirits with them. They had left Tai during a battle of wills, like spirit’s erasure of identity, like a fire dying.

Tai was all that was left, until others appeared. The first was a cunning-woman, who wasn’t quite a shaman, but neither was she simply a wife. Tai found her with a petulant child who called her ‘sorceress’ and ‘child-thief.’

Tai felt the tug of duty at that, but even Tai couldn’t sooth the child’s aches, which flared up like a cauldron set alight.

Tai instead set to the shaman’s other duty and protected them from the spirits of the woods and sky, tents, cairns and wells.

All this is why Tai was alone in the night when a ghost finally arrived. It was a strong thing, but lamed and left forgotten. It was a crippled thing of pain and rebirth and unbirth. It had been a god and now was nothing more.

Tai tried to commune with it.

It lashed out.

Tai held it, knowing the physical can’t harm the spiritual, but the reverse is untrue. Tai killed it in a way known only to shamans, for such is the nature of their wills. Tai bound it and broke it and remade it. It became a vessel for the shaman’s future and Tai named it Hope. For Tai, hope was all that they had left.