#I only knew they stole eggs and yeah he only tried to steal a fake one but still | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

arsonforcharlie · 5 years

Photo

tonight was the fuck squad critmit (it’s like christmas but christianity isn’t a thing in eurolia, but i wanted to use christmas shorthand- WORLDBUILDING) special, because the main plot was not going anywhere nearly consequence-free enough for the tone we wanted to nail down. it featured presents for the squad- little brooches based on magic items everyone’s character has that came with little notes from the shop owner where they got the item. (from the left, rhonia’s magic lunchbox, the bag of trading, sergei’s impervious rod with the lightup orb attached, the diadem of brothority, and maddela’s serpent fang dagger)

we also had a lot of cheese and caramel-filled snickerdoodles and chocolate and wine to the point where i made an impromptu decision to run the session theatre of the mind because we absolutely weren’t going to clear off the battle mat. (you can almost see it under the second cheese board up there. that wasn’t even all the cheese.) tonight’s adventure involved a lot of homebrewing because i couldn’t find stats for pretty much anything i wanted, and also i wrote a knock off night before christmas that i read in my best reading-to-wee-chiddlers-by-the-fire voice from this expertly-crafted prop book in between segments. they seemed to have a good time, fortunately! god i love my friends. recap and full poems under the cut

Twas the night before Critmit, and all through the inn While Jasper was putting the trash in the bin From his holiday party, an annual bash Where all of our heroes got totally smashed. He wiped up the spilled beer and swept up the glass From the breaking of windows that had just come to pass. The fuck squad was nestled all snug in their beds While visions of beautiful dresses and jewels, or hedonistic orgies, or Reaper in a bit of leather and not much else, or huge plates of mac and cheese, or hedonistic orgies again but this time a little bit closer to the ground danced in their heads. Alone or with partners, they started to snooze And settled their brains in to sleep off the booze. But then, just as slumber began to take hold, They awoke out of doors, dressed, armed, startled, and cold. The snowdrift they lay in was not one they knew And the landscape was foreign, cold, barren, and blue. A cottage ahead was the only respite From the miserable weather on this harsh winter’s night.

partway through my first reading of the poem i realized a button of my shirt was just straight up undone and busted out with “oh my shirt just popped the FUCK open” so that really set the tone for the night

(directly after i finished the descriptive verse) Sergei: “Then you see him, Shia Laboeuf!”

frankly i’m surprised we went this long without any shia laboeuf references

the fuck squad go into the cottage to warm up, and inside find an old dwarf in a red and white robe with a long white beard, drinking from a mug of hot cocoa by the fire and checking over a list. he introduces himself as klaus, and tells the fuck squad that he needs help. rhonia immediately asks “DO WE NEED TO SAVE CRITMIT” and frankly i think we could all use that sort of initiative. he says yeah, he needs help, usually he brings presents to all the chiddlers of the world-

rhonia: “WHAT????” “chiddler. it’s slang. bobbie uses it. go away.”

- but unfortunately, this year, the mean old Grunch has stolen his sleigh and his reindeer, so he can’t give out presents! the Grunch put some sort of spell on it so he couldn’t bring it back to his house with a snap of his fingers, but if the fuck squad could bring it back, he’d definitely put them on the nice list- and that’s something a few of them deffo need. he also condones a little bit of accidental murder if they need to.

sergei: “i’ll take care of the reindeer!” saida: “I’ll take care of the murder!” rhonia: “If the reindeer die I’ll turn them into skeletons and bring them back!” everyone: “NO!”

they take fur coats that are hung by the door and set off along the road towards the eggnog sea

it’s a sea made of eggnog. maddela fills her flask. rhonia starts drinking just, like, with her hands. meanwhile, sergei, saida, and yoni begin asking me where the sewage goes. i, of course, do not have a satisfactory answer because why the fuck would i, it’s a fantasy dreamscape, so that ended poorly

Saida: “RHONIA DRANK POOP! Shit-slurper.” “you know, it’s great how i don’t even need to write down your names when i’m taking these notes because each of you are so damn identifiable.”

they’re interrupted by five odd creatures, shaped vaguely like humanoids but made of an odd hard biscuity substance with what looks like icing outlining their facial features, who demand to know who they are and where they’re going. when they say they’re going to go stop the grunch, the gingerbread guards draw their weapons. before anyone can try and calm the situation, maddela just leans forward and tries to take a bite out of one of the guards. (she does later successfully get a chomp out of one.)

(i mention something about one of the gingerbread men having a hole in them after they were stabbed) sergei: “heh it’s a glory hole” “IT’S NOT A GLORY HOLE” yoni: “it’s the Eurolia version of american pie!”

frankly i’m just happy yoni remembered the bad continent name i made up pretty much on the spot so i could justify having a fake fantasy eurovision

Saida: “if any of you fuck a figgy pudding i’m leaving” Sergei: “Don’t worry, I generally try not to fuck food.” “Not since the incident.”

Saida: “That doesn’t count, everybody fucks a little food when they’re thirteen!”

saida uses the memory gauntlets on one of the gingerbread guards, another thing that i was not prepared for. despite getting a lot of suggestions that i dismissed as horrifying (the beard suggested going back to the intolerable temperatures of being baked to life, rhonia suggested when he got his eyes piped on, that sort of thing) she instead saw this gingerbread man hugging his twin sons, tiny tim and tiny jim, and telling them that he was happy they’d be able to go to college because he was working as a guard. apparently that was worse. whatever.

me, out of hand, discussing rhonia’s armor of bones, “You could make a full body bone strapon.” rhonia: “COULD I????”

doesn’t say she can’t

the beard, interjecting: “Just curious, is the gingerbread man, like,a DILFY gingerbread man?”

saida, returning to the important question of whether rhonia drank poop: “What if they poop royal icing? Because if they poop royal icing that means they can use it todraw little features on each other like lil gingerbread scat enthusiasts?” “SO YOU KEEP WALKING ALONG THE ROAD”

yoni puts a bit of gingerbread into the bag of trading, and when i roll on the table, i get the “bottle of ale or wine” result, so i rule she gets some rum so they drink that with the egg nog.

saida: “I’ve had dreams where we were all together. In Todd Howard’s house. Which was also a social science facility.”

“the road veers away from the coast of the Eggnog Sea, towards several rounded mountains on the horizon.” saida “AYYYYYYY TIDDAYS”

it’s not tiddays, it’s the sugarplum mountains, but that sure doesn’t stop them from making a bunch of lewd comments about the geology

“the road leads to a field, with a weird-looking snowdrift across the middle, that looks almost like one you’d see growing against a wall.” sergei: “it’s not vaginal, is it?”

still don’t know where that one came from

“fast and the furious, vaginal drift”

there are a few snowmen past the wall, and they begin throwing snowballs at the fuck squad, who join in the snowball fight eagerly.

maddela: “can i put rocks in the snowball?” saida: “wow, you were a little shit as a kid, weren’t you?”

but maddela meant a specific rock, because she had a thunderstone. she missed horribly with it, but i commend the effort.

there was a surprisingly long discussion about what food would be best to throw at these snowmen before they found out that they couldn’t throw food past this wall of force.

“alright, sergei, you’re up, what are you doing?” sergei: “i’m doing a pressed ham!”

this is a new term for me, but apparently it’s when you moon someone and press your whole ass up against the window.

why

like why in general but why in particular would you do that with a weird magical barrier

anyway he does it and takes 6 cold damage directly to his ass

“alright, so this snowman’s aiming right for your asshole i guess.” sergei: “what? he can’t see my asshole!” “I assumed you spread your cheeks.” sergei: “why would I do that?” “instinct.” sergei: “fair.”

“okay, let’s say if i roll a crit he hits you right on the asshole.” sergei: “do your worst!” and that is when i rolled my first and only nat20 of the night.

sergei: “i just took like sixteen damage to my ass, i’m not wagging my dick at them.”

they defeat the snowmen (which was indeed an encounter that i think i inadvertently stole the idea for from one of the TAZ liveshows but i realized after i statted it out so i used it) and move on without any more discussion of that

the road takes them up Mount Killjoy, where the Grunch lives in his cave. in the cave, they find a snow globe with a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer in it.

they try to take it, but the Grunch comes out with his dog mark and tells them they can’t do that. before he can explain why, a bolt of shadow comes from the entrance to the cave and destroys the snow globe, knocking it out of sergei’s hand

A dwarf walked on in tracking fresh fallen snow- The same dwarf that they met only hours ago. The miniature reindeer, before the squad’s eyes, Now freed from the globe grew to regular size. More rapid than Sergei, his coursers they came And he cackled, and giggled, and called them by name. “Now, Gnasher! Now, Ripper! Now Grinder and Pain! On, Killer! On, Chiller! On Scratch and Elaine! We have nightmares to cause, and a Critmit to steal! And soon these poor suckers won’t know what is real!” His face it was shifted, past our comprehension, The unnatural show too unnerving to mention. His flesh flopping flatly like meat from a deli With his midsection roiling from chest to his belly. “Ho ho!” said the monster in the Grunch’s house, “Your mind is your prison! I’m Sanity Klaus!”

did i make this whole adventure based around that one pun? yes, yes i did. i’m a serious dungeon master.

maddela: “are the reindeer in a, uh, 20 foot cluster with nobody else around?” “that’s real specific and makes me think you already have a plan.”

“yeah, you can’t use that without hitting sergei.” saida: “well you can do that, you’ve done that once and it’s fine!”

rhonia: “I will also let you know that I have 12 hit points right now.” yoni: “I don’t care, I want to hit things”

they fight with sanity klaus and his eight reindeer, who mostly bite, and also possess a power to turn their noses into flaming hot coals. everyone is surprisingly competent at fighting when they’re in a dream and not scared of using up resources, though, and they defeat him with very few injuries except rhonia being aged up through the use of Sands of Time

where’s that gif from the remake of jamie lee curtis holding her face and going “i’m like the cryptkeeper!” because i imagine that’s rhonia when she discovers she’s 30

maddela: “They have free will! They can do what they want!” “And what they want is to bite.”

the grunch thanks them for helping him defeat sanity klaus. it turns out, on festive nights like this, it’s easier for people in the plane of dreams to cross over to the material plane. usually the grunch does it to deliver presents every critmit, and spends most of the rest of the year working to keep sanity klaus in check, but this year he got the bright idea to get someone else in to free his reindeer and try and kill the grunch for him so he can cross to the material plane and work to spread madness there

so, the fuck squad saved critmit, and they’re definitely on the nice list despite all the innocent creatures they killed

yoni flapdragon puts the base of the snowglobe into the bag of trading, and gets a huge diamond, just, like, as big as both fists. just then, the grunch claps and they all wake up.

As the fuck squad awakened that bright Critmit morn, They were healed up, restored, bit hung over, but warm When they went down for breakfast, to all their surprise Our friend Jasper had glee in his smile and his eyes He held up a sack, that merry old bloke, Labelled “Gold to replace windows that the fuck squad broke.” “Someone left me this bag, down there, under that pine, And there are also some gifts down there that are not mine!” A teddy for Sergei, one that might fit a bear And a headdress for Maddela to go in her hair Rhonia got food and a pillow for naps, And Saida got a lavalliere- that’s four elf claps! For Yoni, a collar of intricate make With amethyst stones, that would fit her wee drake. As they opened their presents, they heard in their minds A voice that the waking world rarely would find. The Grunch calling out, his voice merry and bright “Happy Critmit to all, and to all a good night!”

#the fuck squad #fuck squad recaps #murray critmit to you and yours

32 notes · View notes

mysunfreckle · 6 years

Text

An Unusual Hoard

Baby dragon Enjolras for @courfox, featuring Enj’s adoptive parents.

For Love of Lore fantasy AU, ~2.2k

George and Marianne Enjolras were three things: very happily married, very fond of adventure and, at the moment, running as fast as they possibly could.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” George panted, looking over his shoulder.

“No,” Marianne agreed breathlessly, hugging the large egg closer to her chest. “Are they following us?”

“Not yet,” he replied.

Their footsteps thumped as they hurried back towards the blinking lights of the town. Nobody seems to have seen what they did and it really seems like no one is following them, but they don’t slow down. Because they just stole a real life dragon egg and there is no way they are giving it back.

The travelling sideshow that had set up a little way outside of town was mostly a colourful sham. It promised to give visitors a rare glimpse at ‘the wonders of the magical world’, but all it had was parlour tricks. Rabbits with wooden antlers tied behind their ears, horses with their manes dyed and braided and their hooves stained with gold, magicians that pretended to be true users of magic. All amusing enough, but not real. The large, red and gold egg lying in a basket among a pile of fake glass gemstones had been real though.

Both Marianne and George thought it looked suspiciously realistic right from the start. It was warm to the touch and the rough, scaly texture of the shell felt so strange and wonderful that they had stroked it. Neither of them had really meant to, it just felt like the right thing to do. So they did. Just one stroke. Just because it seemed like the proper thing to do.

That was when the egg purred at them.

By now that was about fifteen minutes ago. Because it had taken exactly eleven and a half minutes for George and Marianne to decide that this egg was not only alive, it was also extremely rare and extremely badly cared for. An egg, after all, was a baby, and babies should not be exhibited like cheap props. It wasn’t right. There wasn’t even a blanket in the basket the egg was lying in. And it had purred at them. Not even a blanket.

So now they were running, George looking over his shoulder at every turn and Marianne cradling the egg in her arms, trying not the jostle it too much.

“Manou,” George panted, looking back once more. “Manou, slow down.”

Marianne slowed to a trot, breathing hard.

“I think,” George said, gulping down air. “I think they really haven’t noticed.” He could hardly believe it, but there really was no one chasing him. No cries of theft or outrage behind them. And they were nearly out of earshot of the fairground already.

“Well,” Marianne huffed. “So much the better.” She stood still for a moment, trying to breathe thought the stabbing in her sides.

“Is he heavy?” George asked concernedly. “Shall I carry him – it – the rest of the way?” What was he supposed to call the egg?

“Please,” Marianne nodded, but she still felt oddly unwilling to let go of the egg. Still, she was only putting it into George’s arms, so that was alright. “Have you got him – it?” she asked.

“Yeah,” George muttered, an involuntary smile dawning on his face. The egg was so warm… “Do you think he’s cold?” he asked, looking up at Marianne.

“I have no idea,” she said. “But let’s not take any chances. Come on.”

They hurried home, as fast as they could go without running or looking too suspicious. When they reached the town, Marianne took off her jacket and draped it across the egg just in case. More to hide it from prying eyes than for warmth, but it couldn’t hurt.

When they finally closed the door to their home behind them, they both breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment they just stood there in the dark hallway, huddled close together, the egg in between them. Then, slowly, Marianne said:

“George…we stole a dragon.” She felt a bit lightheaded.

“We stole an egg,” George corrected her weakly.

Marianne nodded. “Yes,” she said. “A badly cared for egg.”

“Very badly,” he agreed hastily. “Very badly indeed.”

“They probably didn’t even know what it was,” Marianne added, putting her hand on the warm shell. It seemed to hum under her fingertips.

“Very possible,” he nodded, rocking the egg slightly in his arms. “And it looked cold.” Not even a blanket, how dare they.

“Yes, very cold,” Marianne said firmly.

There was a short silence.

“He’s ours now,” Marianne said, just to be perfectly clear.

“Yes,” George said, addressing the world in general rather than anyone in particular. “Yes, he is.”

Another silence followed, a slightly more tense one this time.

“So…what do we do now?”

As it turned out, it mattered very little what they did. Both of them tried very hard to remember if they had ever read anything that might be of help and George very much lamented the fact that it was too late to go to the library. In the end they settled for wrapping the egg in a woollen shawl and placing it in front of the fireplace, in which they lit as big a fire as they deemed safe.

All these preparations, as good as they were, were largely useless. Because just as they had begun to discuss whether making hot steam might be better for the egg than the dry heat of the fire, there was a decided cracking noise.

It is doubtful if any parent is ever fully ready to be a parent, but it is safe to say that Marianne and George, having had exactly three hours to prepare, were certainly not ready. Within seconds they were both on their knees beside the egg, their eyes wide with affectionate panic.

“It can’t be hatching,” Marianne said. “Not already!” This was a rather nonsensical statement and she knew it, because they had no way of telling how old this egg was. They didn’t even know how long dragon eggs took to hatch.

“Maybe it’s because it is safe now?” George stammered. “I’m sure I read somewhere that-”

There was another loud crack and Marianne and George winced in the universal shared pain that all humans are capable of, but that is particularly prevalent in parents. They both reached out to the egg without realizing it and under their hands, as if it truly knew it would at last be well cared for, the dragon hatched.

The egg had been big, but it was still a surprise to see a whole creature crawl out of it. There were red scales, and little claws and a tail and a warm body that curved into their hands like a cat would do.

“Oh Manou,” George breathed. “Look at him…”

“I am,” Marianne said hoarsely.

The little dragon had blue eyes. Blue, brilliant eyes that looked from one parent to the other with such a human expression that they were both nearly speechless.

“Hello little one,” George breathed, stroking the dragons back.

The creature purred and looked up at him.

Marianne held out her hand and the baby dragon turned his slender neck to look at her instead. Then he looked at her hand and put out his paw. His tiny claw spread against her palm and Marianne felt a lump in her throat.

The dragon bent his head and it seemed to George that he was studying how his own paw looked on Marianne’s hand. Almost like he was-

Marianne let out a cry of surprise and a second later George saw it too.

Right in front of their eyes, the little dragon, red and scaly, with a twisty tail and little, folded wings of creased leather, started to change form. Bewildered, George and Marianne watched claws turn to fingers and scales turn to soft skin until what they held in between them in front of the fire was no longer a creature, but a child. A small boy with big, blue eyes, soft hair reminiscent of spun gold and a skin with a slight warm tan to it. They stared at him, in dumbfounded admiration, until he smiled and they both broke down.

“It’s a boy,” Marianne cried, wrapping him up in her arms. “Look at you, you’re a- George we have a son. A dragon and a son.”

“Hello,” George just managed to say, one of the toddlers tiny hands in his. “That’s a neat trick you just did, I didn’t know you could do that.”

The toddler looked rather pleased with himself and was certainly quite content to be cuddled and have his hair stroked. Both parents inspected him carefully and they found that he really looked completely human, with the exception of rather long and slightly pointed ears and a dusting of red scales lining his round cheeks.

Marianne thought she was going to spill over, so full up with happiness she felt. “You-” she muttered against the side of the boy's head. “-are the most wonderful thing we ever stole.”

“You make it sound like we steal things all the time,” George protested, an immovable smile on his face.

“Well,” Marianne said thoughtfully. “We-”

“We haven’t even introduced ourselves properly yet and you’re already making a bad first impression,” he interrupted her chidingly.

Marianne grinned at him and George wondered vaguely if it was his imagination or if his wife and the boy in her arms really did have the same sort of light in their eyes.

“Am I a bad influence?” Marianne cooed, touching her nose to the toddler’s. “I don’t think I am. Remember, your mother only steals things if they need to be liberated from where they currently are.”

The boy blinked his blue eyes and suddenly he laughed. Not a gurgle, a real laugh, it rang out like gold pieces clattering on a marble floor and both Marianne and George felt a tugging at their heart.

“You are definitely a bad influence,” George informed her. “And we still haven’t introduced ourselves.”

“Should we give him a name?” Marianne asked, gazing down at the golden-haired child in her lap.

“Maybe he has a name,” George said. “Do you have a name?”

The question made the boy look up. He fixed his blue eye son George with a seriousness that should not exist in a child so small and because he could think of nothing else to do, George made an exaggerated movement with his hand and bowed his head. “Welcome, your dragon-ness,” he said. “I am George Enjolras.”

The boy gazed at him questioningly.

“That’s right,” Marianne said, smiling warmly at her husband. She gave a wave of her hand herself. “And I’m Marianne Enjolras.” She gave the boy a gentle look. “We’d like to be your parents if we may.”

The child made a sound that was almost a hum and suddenly he smiled, raised a chubby little hand, made a vague attempt at a wave and said, with a voice that was very young, but surprisingly articulate: “Enjolras!”

The sounds that escaped from both George and Marianne’s mouths were far too emotional to be any sort of coherent.

“Alright,” George said, voice trembling. “What a pleasure to meet you, Enjolras.”

“Our own little Enjolras.”

Neither of the new parents (and more inexperienced and overwhelmed parents there had never been) had any attention left over for anything besides their son. Enjolras seemed to light up the room and warm the air around him with no more effort than simply existing.

It was not until later that his parents found out this was indeed a thing he did. Enjolras might look human, he had dragon fire in his soul and it radiated all around him like the rays of the sun.

They still had a great deal to learn about baby dragons and were at that moment still completely unaware of quite how steep a learning curve this was going to be. They would learn soon enough however, that bewildering as it was to raise a child, raising a dragon came with special challenges. Like the time Enjolras pushed a freshly made pie out of the heated oven to climb into it himself. Or the first time his parents tried to give him a bath and he boiled the water, steaming up the entire bathroom and drenching both his parents. Or the time he was lost for an hour because he had dragged all the blankets off his bed and gone to sleep in a nest in his closet instead. Not to mention the countless objects, big and small, that fell victim to the dragonish hoarding tendencies of a child that, while extremely intelligent and well-spoken for his age, was certainly not less impulsive because of it.

No, at this point in time Marianne and George were blissfully unaware of all these trials to come. All they knew was how happy they were and how hard they were going to work to make this boy, their son, Enjolras, as happy as they possibly could. Of course such feelings were too overwhelming to leave room for anything else, which is why they must be forgiven for thinking that on this wonderful night they had stolen a baby. Because of course this was not at all what had happened. On this wonderful night, a young dragon had started his first treasured hoard. It was a hoard of two. Two parents.

#dragon!enjolras #for love of lore #enjolras #this took me a very long time #but i had a lot of feelings about this and i wanted to get it right #thank you giinny for your lovely accidental prompt #and thank you talia for helping out as always #sunfreckle's stories

43 notes · View notes