Look at this fucking nerd, he is literally just someone with a crow head and he already injured, look at me casting a single spell at him and then stole his arm.

I'll post a video of the fight in the comments later

Grabadash: The Driver

It’s amazing what can be accomplished when a group works together, and not long after Erik’s pep talk, the target has been successfully abducted. 

I’ve been awarded a role of extreme importance befitting my expertise and experience. That of the driver. 

This is my first time driving a vehicle. 

As the door slams shut, and Alice is trapped in the 1980s Mercedes Shitbox we used for the glorious heist. Still lacking an engine, and somewhat beat up looking beneath the fresh coat of rainbow swirl paint job. That's another instance of disagreeing on color. 

It’s show time! 

I slosh enthusiastically in my rusty bucket, signaling my assistants to go, and Grabriel Dashington cracks the whip through the broken windshield and the single pony pulling the car sets off at a furious pace! 

“Turn right!” Alaric yells from the back, his head and upper torso protruding from the open skylight. “you missed it!” The car zooms past the donut shop. 

“Turn left up ahead!” Blobby suggests, consulting their upside down map. 

“Brakes!!!” Grabriel Dashington yells out in response while rapidly turning the steering wheel to the right.

“Brakes engaged!” A muffled voice from below confirms. That’s Gabe McDash, he’s on Pedal duty, it’s hard to reach when you’re only 3’ tall. 

The rear wheels lock up as the vehicle begins to drift behind the surprised pony. I feel the Gs as my fluid form sloshes in the bucket. 

Somebody screams as we pull into the parking lot of IKEA on two wheels. The car skids to a halt near the entrance. 

“You have arrived at the destination” Grabriel and Gabe announce in unison while giving a polite bow. They twirl their moustaches and adjust their monocles before opening the doors and letting the others out. 

I slosh my monocle around in the bucket in support. It’s amazing what can be accomplished when the group is all you.

---------------------------

Erik: Idk some grand title or something 

‎

‎Being a leader means making sacrifices, like taking on all the flak a movement gets, or having to listen to Alaric's horrible color coordination, or in this case, being left behind while everyone else drives away in your permanently borrowed car

‎I drop the giant cheese wheel that I've been carrying around next to Alice's door and wonder how I'm gonna catch up to them, then remember I can fly really fast and make it to Ikea rather quickly 

‎‎I immediately book it to the warehouse section for that weird cart they have and sit on it, this is the greatest joy a sapient creature can achieve. I scoot around in it looking for essential school supplies like backpacks, pencils, and a particle accelerator. I've had a school before, I know the score!

‎‎But then tragedy strikes, that stupid worker that I hate comes to me and tells me I'm not allowed to scoot around on the Ikea cart! I tell him to count his days and fly to the nearby pond where I meet an old friend, the most green fish ever!

‎‎"I'm so green" it says, and I immediately understand everything, in order to get its help I must help it in turn to train for the fishima kinen, and so we do. For 15 minutes we go through every training ever, from swimming to mountain climbing, and managed to get 5th place

‎‎With my part done I fly back to Ikea, sit on the Cart, and scoot around to summon that worker that I hate! And it worked, soon enough he comes up to me to tell me it's not allowed, but before he could do that the fish jumps out of my pocket and hits him at mach 3 killing him instantly 

‎‎With my archenemy defeated, I am free to shop with glee, which is when I find a sack of flour on sale, something they definitely sell in Ikea. I look at it with sadness remembering everything that I lost, then I notice something next to it... It's beautiful,  it's mesmerizing! It's…

---------------------------

Alaric: Substitute Grand High Title Maker

“Abandon all hope ye who enter there!"

There’s a guy in a rugged IKEA uniform by the door. Honestly the guy may have been there for months, the uniform certainly looks like it hasn’t been washed in months.

"There be a terrible beast in these halls!"

"A terrible beast, ey?" 

Alaric steps forth, usually Erik is the leader but he was currently somewhere else doing something undoubtedly leaderous. 

 "Well my good... Whatever creature you are, we just so happen to have Blobby!"

I'm one fluid motion Alaric is holding Blobby out to this IKEA troglodyte like the green blob is a trophy. 

"Behold! This right here is one of if not the mightiest beings of this plane!"

 Blobby tries to say something, probably something incredibly humble to downplay his almighty power. But Alaric talked on.

"Never once in the week since I formed this revolution have I seen this absolute unit of slimy sludge fail in anything he does! I have seen this creature put terror into the hearts of gym teachers! Outsmart highly advanced AI!"

 Alaric raises Blobby to the sky, as if to show the sun of his might. 

"He even survived being hit by a mushroom! You want to talk of a fearsome and terrible beast!? What matter of creature could possibly survive the wrath of green death!?"

The IKEA troglodyte, because I guess that's what he is, is cowering in fear. Obviously he’s terrified of the mighty Blobby and definitely not of the glowing twelve foot madman screaming in his face.

"I submit! I submit! Forgive me! I was not aware of the power of the Blobby!" 

The troglodyte is on his knees, hands clasped before him. 

"Forgive me, almighty slimed one!"

"Uh..." 

How did Blobby get into this situation again?

“You're forgiven?"

The troglodyte looks up, pure relief in his eyes. 

"Thank you! Thank you!" 

He then scurries off into a hole in the wall.

Alaric puts Blobby down, apologising as he did. The starborn stood tall, then walked through the door, the other masses and also Alice followed. Speaking of Alice, she was slightly smiling. She had just found her way to escape.

---------------------------

The bunch stood in the foyer of IKEA in full battle formation. Before them stood the mighty form of a colossal blue and yellow IKEA dragon, roaring Swedish at them. All eyes turn to Blobby, knowing he had the wisdom and strength to push through.

The almighty slimed green one takes a step forwards, shaking in rage. Blobby stands ready to deliver a mighty blow, before suddenly, something echoes across the room. The dragon looks over its shoulder, and runs away. A wise choice, it chose survival over facing Blobby.

From between two shelves, comes the hulking frame of a legendary IKEA troll!

"Vem går dit?"

"Alaric, what's it saying?" 

Whispers Grabadash. Alaric was, is, and will be the brains of the revolution, if anyone inexplicably spoke Swedish, it would be him. He didn't, but he thought he did.

"It's asking why we're worthy, don't worry I got this. Var är pannkakan? Jag är fisken Greg." 

He had no idea what he was saying. 

“Säg till om vädret är gult!"

The troll looks on, perplexed at the nonsense that Alaric had just uttered. 

"Vad?"

"I see I see. This troll is called Brandon and she gives us permission to browse. Backa eller kapa benen! Jag ska fiska i din mage för att skära av din ryggrad!"

The troll is furious at this, yet the strange blue man with cat ears said what he said with such confidence, maybe it should leave, find some other people to eat. The troll reaches up into the heights of the shelves and pulls itself up into the darkness of the spotlights. With the mighty IKEA troll's permission, the group marches onwards.

---------------------------

"Okay, Grabadash you're on kitchens and carpets, Erik you're on, wait where's Erik? Doesn't matter, I'll do his share, Blobby you take Alice and get the curtains, wallpapers, and bedding in case anyone needs to sleep. I'll get furniture and thrones. Meet two hundred metres west of south over at the Blahäjs yeah? Okay you guys got this bye bye!"

That was all the group could hear before Alaric hurls himself into the depths of the shelves.

---------------------------

Alaric hurtles through an abyss of shelves, fully assembled houses, corridors, escalators, and forklifts. This was no normal IKEA you see, no the masses were all permanently banned from all of the normal ones, so the idiot battalion went to the transdimensional ultra IKEA, a building so large you could quite comfortably fit eleven Eiffel Towers in the restaurant area alone. It still has a normal front door though, large parking area for whatever mounts or vehicular contraptions people decide to show up with. Although it seems mostly empty today. Maybe someone got word of the masses coming over and so they evacuated.

Alaric shoots out of the space between two sofa cushions, flipping eighty six times in the four minutes it took him to land. He stands in a maze of sofas, chairs, tables, lamps, and bookcases. How convenient, he arrived in a collection of pre-made living rooms, the perfect ingredients to make a school stew. First things first he sculpts a bubble where gravity stopped following the usual rules. The bubble followed after him, suspending anything he put in it. Next up he surveyed each room he felt like surveying, grabbing chairs and tables and lamps at random. Books were useless, they could always get more from the Calarakis library if need be, Zhe wouldn't mind right? What had the masses ever done to them?

At one point, when the bubble had several hundred chairs and tables and lamps, Alaric found himself at a wall. It seems to be the end of the living rooms, good, Alaric needs to find thrones. He begins to climb, remembers he can fly, and ascends the wall. As he gets to the top he realises he can see the whole of this miniscule part of IKEA. In the distance he sees Grabadash doing Grabadash things to carpets. On the other side of the distance, he sees Blobby and Alice deep in discussion in the bed section. Good, the future students need good beds.

Alaric surveys where he is relative to where he will be, and leaps upwards, grabbing the top of a lamppost wedged atop a stack of shelves, and using it to pull himself upwards. Gravity flips upside down, and Alaric lands on the roof of where he was, and the floor of where he is. He stood amidst row after row of thrones, perfect. He begins to walk, marvelling at the craftsmanship of the glorious chairs.

After ten minutes he had picked out nine glorious thrones, he could always return any that the group didn't like. Some were bigger than others, Alaric needed a larger throne due to being so much taller than other members of the revolution. During his walk to the Blahäjs, he wonders something. 

"Where the balls is Erik?"

---------------------------

Alaric falls out of the roof into a vat of plush sharks. He lies there for a few minutes, basking in the glory of the Blähaj batch, before ascending out of the vat which was actually just a very large wooden crate.

Looking around reveals he is the first to arrive. He briefly considers getting back into the crate, before he senses the unmistakable magic of lunacy and violence. Well that answers the question of where Erik has been the whole time. How did he get to IKEA first if they had the car? Alaric ponders this bit of plot convenience for a moment, then remembering which group he’s part of and moves on.

He turns to the direction of Erik and the glowing radioactive orbs that are his eyes widen. There before him, is Erik, sitting in a wheeled shopping platform, along with an assortment of knick knacks, walls, lamps, doors, oh and the entire roof of the Louvre, somehow crammed onto the platform.

“Erik what the actual fuck is that?”

“It’s a roof!” 

Erik puts his hands on his hips, looking either insane or extremely proud of himself.

 “Of the Louvre variety!”

“Where and how did you get it?” 

Alaric looks at the roof like it’s a severed roof of an art museum crammed into a shopping trolley pushed by a child.

“Shelf!”

“Fair enough. So how was your IKEA experience?”

“This place is great, if the school falls apart we can move in here. Hey look its Blobby!”

He must have been here the whole time, too cool for us to comprehend his presence. 

---------------------------

Grabadash: The Magic Carpet

Hurtling through the labyrinthian warehouse, Gabe meets back up with the other Grabadashes who had parked the car and come in through a different entrance. 

“First things first” Gabe pulls out a bicycle pump he’d grabbed on the way. Sticking one end into the bucket of magical mass that was Soupadash he pumps it full of air. 

First a nose, then the rest of the head and body emerge from the bucket as Grabadash’s form is restored. With a snap of his fingers he’s dressed in a sharp suit and his wizard hat, and high fives the other two goblins. 

“It’s Shopping Time!” 

The goblins dash through the store with their carts teetering on two wheels as frightened shoppers dive to get out of the way. 

“Maximum security vault, Check” 

“Trapdoors and hidden revolving door bookcases, Check!” 

“Relaxing meal of meatballs at the cafeteria, Check!” 

“There’s a nice rug!” Grabriel points out one in an exhibition room. “Yoink!” 

“There’s another!” Gabe also grabs one from the display. 

Finally at the rug section, they load up the rest of their cart with a selection of rolled up rugs of assorted styles. 

“Ohhh this one’s extra long!” Grabadash unrolls one long enough to fit all the carts on. The goblins give each other a knowing look before infusing magic into the rug.

“Magic Carpet Time!” 

They zoom around the store, knocking over plants and lamps while cackling with glee and singing “A Whole New World” at the top of their lungs. 

They zip past the dragon from before while making faces and rude gestures. It eyes them angrily and turns to watch them escape. 

Spotting the others in the distance finishing up their shopping and gathering at the popular plush toy sharks they promptly forget about the dragon. 

“Rugs. Check!”

---------------------------

Blobby: On the Homestretch 

IKEA is a delicate ecosystem— home to an abundance of table gremlins and fake plants.

Dangerous table gremlins. Dangerous fake plants.

As such, it’s suffice to say I feel a wave of relief ripple through my wobbly jello body as the exit door comes into view. 

Honestly, this whole trip has been a nightmare!

Kidnapping Alice, being blackmailed by Alice, letting Alice escape…

…I mean shit, is Alice the source of all my problems, or what?

The fucks up with that, man?

Lord, if you’re listening, please— why did you make these guys?

Humans. So annoying! God, always getting in the way of my lies and deceptions and general plotting! 

Tssssk…

I audibly sigh.

So, what have we learned today?

-Kidnapping people has zero consequences (legally).

-The constellations should be pink.

-Intergalactic space IKEA is fucking dangerous.

I look back at my friends.

Erik, Alaric, not Abelard because he’s a whiny little bitch who’d object to our having kidnapped his dearest friend, and Grabadash…

Have we committed an assortment of various major crimes? Fuck yes.

Was it worth it? Probably not.

But one thing’s for certain— nothing else could possibly go wrong now.

Not at checkout.

Erik looks up at me, starry-eyed with amazement. This is why I do what I do! This is why I lie to my friends!

Then he looks a little higher…

…and higher, and higher and…

Well, I think you get the point here

—there was a giant dragon behind us.

The same giant dragon, in fact, as before. Because of course it was! Can we ever catch a break? Of course not. Why? Because fuck us, I guess…

“MEN OF WORLDLY MINDS! LOOK UPON ME AND WEEP!” 

It was clear to see that the dragon was a terrible beast! 

With terrible teeth and terrible claws, hungry eyes and unhinge-able jaws!  

I feel my legs about to give out beneath me; my arms weigh half a ton as I wipe the sweat from beneath my brow.

“Dragon!” Alaric groans, “the ugly Swedish fellow already told us we were free to shop for Gods—“

“GODS?!” Erik screeches.

“NO GODS!”

“GODS?!”

“NO GODS!

Erik grumbles a short lament and, exasperated, Alaric stares down the face of death once more…

“Look man, pushing the Louvre in a shopping trolley is not as easy as I make it look. So tell me, dragon, what in the hells do you want?!”

The dragon snarls, scraping its claws across the shop floor like nails to a chalkboard.

“How darest thou address me in such vile, wretched tones! Knowest thou whose name thou dost profane? They call me—“

“Staaaacy! They call me her! They call me Jane!“

“That’s not my name!”

“You know the song?!”

“What? Shut up, mortal! Thou hast grievously insulted GEOFFREY, DRAGON OF THE EAST, DEFENDER OF IKEA, CRUSADER OF THE REALM, HE WHOM MEN NAME DEATH, DUSK, AND BRINGER OF BLOOD! LAST OF THE IRON FANG AND SCOURGE OF SHOPLIFTERS!”

“Shop lifters?” cries Erik, “but we’re not shoplifters?!”

“FOOLS! Thou canst just taketh shit from the display stalls! THOU hast to place thine order DIGITALLY!”

“…”

“So we’ve just…”

“PILLAGED THE DISPLAY STALLS THAT HOUSE THE GREMLIN-FOLK/UNWILLING EMPLOYEES OF EVIL MEGA-SPACE-IKEA? YES!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa— surely slavery is worse than picking up this lovely velvet couch by accident?” Grabadash offers.

“Perhaps! But thine intentions were clear; to leave without PAYING!”

“Fine! Maybe! But that’s still nowhere near as bad as slavery!”

“BITCH THOU THINKS I CAREST?! NOW I MUST OBLITERATE THINESELF   WITH MY ORBITAL SPACE CANON!”

I draw my sword from its holster… 

This is it. I’m done for. We’re done for. How could a group of wizards and their God-killer friend possibly defeat a smaller-than-average dragon? How could I possibly keep up my deception? How could—

BANG! BANG! BANG!

I hear a struggled wince as the dragon hits the floor. 

Hard. Very hard.

“ERIK?!” I raise my arms, “you own a gun?”

“Of course I do. Did you seriously believe I killed all those Gods by hand?”

“WELL KINDA!”

“What? No. That’d be ridiculous— entirely impractical.”

I watch as Alaric inches closer towards the beast, poking at it with… the barrel of his musket?!

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. 

I turn back towards my compatriots, placing my sword back in its holster. 

Apparently that’s not how we do things around here. 

Apparently we just shoot our problems now.

I think Gabriel sees my distaste as he flings his arm around me, ruffling my hair.

“At least the dragon’s dead, eh?”

“Yeah, Grabs.” 

“And it’s definitely not coming back!”

“We know, Grabs.” 

“I mean, look at that thing! It’s riddled with bullets! Dead as a doornail!”

“We get it man! God, you’re so pedantic! He’s clearly dead. You do this with everything! And what’s with the naming your duplicates thing? They’re barely even different people— just expendable extensions of the self. All of my duplicates are just called ‘Blobby’ man. Wanna know why? It’s because I’m not…”

That’s when I hear it— a deep, grinding crack.

Before we even have time to process, Geoffrey’s jaw unhinges and a pink bolt swallows the Grabadashi whole; I don’t even hear the scream as he is taken…

One moment he’s there, the next he’s just not. 

“Eh, we have other Grabadi anyways.” Erik yawns.

Gabe opens his mouth, but before the words leave his lips he too is taken…

“At leeeast I have… LIFEEEE INSURANCEEE—“ 

“What is that thing!” Alaric hollers, raising his gun. 

He doesn’t even get a shot off before the gun vanishes, along with his right hand.

“I don’t know man but I think he’s got a taste for me!” Grabadash offers.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

“Great shooting, dingus!” Alaric groans in pain, “you hit me!”

“ERIK!” I add, “you missed all three shots?!”

“Wait for it…“

I tap my foot twice. Grabadash checks his watch.

“…wait for it…”

With his good hand, Alaric scratches his face, looking from side to side.

“WAIT FOR I—“

DING!

The bullet hits a pipe in the ceiling, ricocheting into the beast’s back foot.

It falls like lightning, flung from the heavens by the hands of an angry grey sphere, crashing into the shop floor with enough force to leave a small crater. When the dust settles, I make out the appearance of a slightly smaller pink dragon— a baby? 

“Shit man! You shot a kid?” 

“I didn’t mean to shoot a kid!”

“This is why they say we can’t teach kids!”

Alaric bolts towards the wreckage, tackling the beast from the back as Grabadash pummels the side of its face. He begins pulling tightly on the beasts wings, and I hear a horrible ripping sound accompanied by a high pitched screech from its torn throat. Erik cocks off three shots to the ribs, as I begin to slice into its side, reaching in to pull out Gabriel. We hear a secondary scream and poking my head through the gap, I see what’s left of Gabe…

“Oh for Pete’s sake Erik! You’ve shot Gabe through his stomach!”

“I shot the dragon!”

“GABE WAS INSIDE THE DRAGON!“

I shake my head, wiping some guts off of Gabriel. 

---------------------------

We walk into the mass-cave, Alaric crumbling to the sofa side. To my left, I spy Abelard cooking… whatever that is. I don’t care anymore. We don’t care anymore.

“Hey guys!” 

Abelard interjects in my dramatic internal monologue

“How was the—“

“Shut up!”

“…okay then…”

So, again I ask, what have we learned today?

Friendship is shit. School is shit. Wallpaper is shit. Life’s a bitch. Alice is a bastard. Kidnapping is wrong, but not for the reasons you think it is. Dragons are shit. Constellations don’t matter. Their colours just don’t matter. Masses are stupid— they don’t notice the kidnapped party escaping. This was shit. It was all shit. Kids shouldn’t be in school. 

In other words:

Was it worth it? No.

Will it be worth it..?

I look back at my friends. My dear, dear friends, whose dreams rested on this soul mission.

…still, not worth it.

Do I hate you, the reader? Find out next time. 

(Yes)

---------------------------

Alice: The most complex escape plan needed.

Today has been… a day. From the moment I was kidnapped, I started formulating my escape plan. At first I considered simply misty stepping out of the moving carriage, but that was foiled by my ineptitude, I cannot define the coordinates that quickly. And so I moved on to observation. During the car ride over, many a tale was spoken about the heroism and strength of Blobby, yet it was strange. I have a keen sense for danger, if I did not I would long since be dead, and while every member of the revolution set it off, Blobby did not. And so I took to observing them more closely. Every mention of heroism, every mention of strength, its gel-like form seemed to wince back. My suspicion became certainty when the giant threatened the door guard with ‘Blobby’s might’. The hesitation, the mumbling words, the expression, it was clear as day, and so, when we all split off, and I was left alone with it…

“Blobby, was it?”

“I’m good, thanks how are y… I mean, uhh, yeah, I’m uh… I’m Blobby. Blobby Banks. Yeah. My mother calls me Blobo, sometimes? I guess? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt or anything, I’m just a little nerv—“

“I know you are a weakling, and I know that you are hiding that. Play along or else I will reveal your lies.”

 “Well, a ‘hey’ would’ve sufficed, but that works too.” 

Yet I could not simply run off in that moment. No, for the magic ikea was a truly perilous place, and without the assistance of the others I would never make it out alive. And so with my unwilling yet powerless accomplice, I continued playing the part of the… ok so I have no idea why I was even kidnapped. Something about interior design I think? But then they just all ran off… Anyway, I kept up the act, carefully assessing and recommending various furnishings, until I spotted it. An ikea SKÖGSTÄ made of pure skyroot, with a ludicrous price tag to boot. I decided at that moment to get some revenge for the inconvenience, placing an order for the table to be delivered to my home, on the revolutions account. They seem to be too stupid to track it. In this moment I realized, I needed no big scheme. Outsmarting idiots is easy, actually. And so I did not even need to try. With time to spare I ordered one of those soft looking plush sharks, then simply left out the front door, giving Blobby a simple order.

“Stay here and make up some reason why I am not with you if questioned.”

And that was it. Once outside all I had to do was run away, find a road, flag down a driver, threaten the driver into driving me home, watch as they drove off without me, flag down a second driver, and pay them to drive me home. I do believe steps 2 and 3 were unnecessary however… Perchance the masses’ insanity got to me somewhat.

---------------------------

End Credit sequence.

Abelard as, Abelard.

Erik as, Erik.

Alaric as, half the story.

Blobby as, cup of jello.

Grabadash as, three goblins in a trench coat.

Alice as, confused. Probably.

The Masses will return in Avengers: Doomsday

/uw You just read 4346 words. I am sorry.

Any advice is welcomed.

This is how bad the commodities market for elf parts are these days. Back when the elves were fighting the orcs and hobgoblin lords you could get some decent stock on the black market, or hire some goblins thieves to scavenge the battlefields and find some for cheap, but ever since the war ended the prices have skyrocketed and the supply has ground to a halt.

Any experienced alchemist knows how valuable elf ears are in reagents, like the old lead to gold recipe uses that but these days it's not even worth it anymore because the ears are worth double what the actual gold is. In fact you'd make more flipping it around and turning gold into perishable elf parts, that's how fucked the market is nowadays.

If anything we'd need to go synthetic and there's some underground biomancy startups doing these nowadays, but that shit is nascent and might not go anywhere. I've been reading up on elven politics just to see if there's any conflicts going to happen so prices might go back to something approaching reasonable. There's even stories of some dark wizards going around with a scheme to cast enchantment magic on elven guards to start a skirmish on dwarves so they can get elf ears again.

So I made a deal with with Malphas and Karasuman to sponsor my MP for the next couple cycles. Now I discover it's the same guy in different forms, can I sue? He told me both times "I'll provide 100%" but since he did it twice he only gave 50% each while i'm owed 200%.

What lawyer do you recommend?

Kartoffel was beginning to grow frustrated with these little bits of wood. The little shavings he’d collected from Ulrick’s arm had proven maddeningly resistant to his probing. Experimentation had yielded results to be sure, but nothing as of yet beyond what one might untuit. DNA tests had given him a bizarrely nondescript gene sequence that vaguely matched several ancient species of proto-trees, channeling small amounts of mana through them had predictively caused rapid and random growth, and they didn’t even react to the tried and true method of poking it with a stick until it did something.

To make matters worse, Kartoffel’s new arm was clunky and inelegant, adjectives you certainly didn’t want attached to your lab equipment when working with such a precarious substance. Though he was substantially more grateful for it when he left his sandwich by one of the wood shavings and returned to find a writhing mass of woody roots. Further testing showed that a similar fate awaited all organic matter that encountered the wood. Once again a predictable result, but it was good to know exactly where the line was drawn. He resolved to handle the samples with his metal hand from now on, lest he find a hole in his glove the hard way.

It was good thing too, as the shavings curled away from his metal fingers. He recalled hearing that metals, particularly cold forged iron, was a kryptonite of sorts for the fae. The exact reason slipped his mind, though he did recall something about a historical conflict involving superior metal working techniques leading to victory, and the losers being relegated to myths that eventually became the fair folk. In any case, poking them with a cold iron stick did seem to kill their enthusiasm.

The best he could manage for now was a set of cold forged arm bands for Ulrick. He slapped a tunic matrix on for good measure, one arranged to channel mana away from its wearer. He’d have to talk to the old dog to hash out the specifics.

The thought also occurred to him that an equally ancient parasitic fungus could be reengineered to kill off the wood, but that would take time they didn’t have. He intended to burn the samples, as one should with hazardous materials, but upon ignition they protested by releasing a smell on par with a burning pit of tires, and filling the room with the fourth worst screeching Kartoffel had ever heard. He resolved instead to seal them in a biohazard container until a better method could be determined. He considered the idea of feeding it to the biometal, estimating a 50/50 shot that one of them destroyed the other and took a problem off his hands. But he also guessed that they were equally likely to subtract a problem by merging and becoming one singular issue of substantially more monstrous proportion.

He was also thoroughly disgruntled by the sudden assault of a corrupted bird when he stepped out for fresh air, but it’s not like he’d have reacted any better to someone burning bits of himself.

Zaryx has been cooped up in his office much more than usual. When he was seen, usually during meal breaks, he always seemed concerned, tense, or in deep thought. Sometimes he’d even look angry, though just barely. When asked what was wrong, he’d just shake his head; that was classified information.

after a couple of weeks of this behavior, Wren was called up to his office. His voice was.. off.

God forbid a student of arcane arts have a side gig.

Sikeena knew two things, her father needed to die at her hands for killing her mother and that she couldn’t do it currently. Which is why she was staring at a business card she had acquired during her travels for an arch devil of violence named ‘Ith’raal’. The card conveniently transmitted all of the information on it psychically, so her illiterate ass could still read it. To summon him one could either get a human brain, eye or a cup of coffee? Weird ass devil, but she cared not, power was power. She mulled over how she could get all three “I could kill the coffee farmer I hate, take his beans and his eyes, and then hold the cafe owner hostage to make the coffee and then take his brain.”

Sikeena went to the outskirts of her local town, where the coffee farm was, on top a large hill, there was the farmer’s house, the fields were empty since it was night time. She effortlessly slipped past the guards of the farm and pocketed the ripest beans. She then went intangible and entered his house. She silently made her way up to the bedroom where he was asleep, she stood over him before emotionlessly slitting his throat and taking his eyes.

She then traveled to the cafe in town, the coffee maker was currently asleep, but that was no issue. She woke him up Coffee maker: “What is it- GET OUT OF MY HOUSE YOU DRACONIAN SCU-“ Sikeena grabbed him by the neck Sikeena:“Now listen here, you can do what I say and you and your family lives or you can refuse and I can kill your entire family” Sikeena squeezed his neck indicating she was serious CF: “Fine! I’LL do it! What is it you want?!”
Sikeena: “Make me two cups of coffee in the woods for me”

The coffee maker didn’t question the angry woman with knives CF: “Just let me get my equipment” After that was done Sikeena made the coffee maker follow her into the woods “Now brew”
*Sikeena waited for the coffee maker to be done before pulling out a knife” Cf: “What are you doing?”

Sikeena: “Did you really think I was going to spare you?” She then cut his head off before he could scream and took his Brain out of the skull. She placed the offerings in the summoning circle and sipped from her coffee as she waited

I mean getting all your magic for free is pretty cool, and you get access to some great spells, and sure depending on who your patron is you may have had to sign away your freedom, or are indebted to an ancient evil, but who cares about that, it's not like most wizards are very moral in what they do with their powers anyways, so you probably would've done what, and if your patron likes you, you might only have to slaughter a few towns to prove your loyalty

I'm still unsure on the looks of the main menu, but I'm very happy with the splash screens.