you know the rules; once you sacrifice something here, you don’t get it back!
[image description: a digital portrait inspired by the ‘Suffering Game’ arc of The Adventure Zone podcast. The scene features two liches, Lydia and Edward, looming over Taako, Magnus, and Merle, all set against a diamond-patterned background in vibrant purple. The trio is being yanked around like puppets on strings while the liches smile wickedly down at them.
Lydia and Edward are identical elves with long, pointed ears, deep green skin, and fuschia hair. Lydia’s hair is styled to cover her left eye and Edward’s covers his right. Both outfits feature a fuschia base but Lydia’s outfit includes large yellow shoulder pads while Edward’s includes a yellow coat with white fur trim. The pair is depicted only in bust, positioned shoulder to shoulder, and remains half shrouded in shadow as they maneuver marionette strings attached to the trio of adventurers below.
Taako’s strings are held by Lydia and he stands below her in typical late-Victorian garb: a white, ruffled longsleeve shirt and short britches. His large wizard’s hat matches his knee-high boots and his red, knee-length cape stands out nicely against the neon pink spotlight shining upon him. Taako is a slim, lanky elf with deeply tanned skin and blonde hair hanging down, loose, to his waist. He stands with legs shoulder-width apart, one hand clutching his outstretched Umbra Staff and the other raised limply in a spellcasting position. His face is turned upwards to Lydia, away from the viewer, and tears stream down his cheeks.
Merle is still positioned beneath Edward, who holds his strings, despite having been yanked off the ground entirely. Merle is a short dwarf with large, round glasses and dark brown skin, offset by his white hair and full beard which have been pulled into a bun and three twist-braids respectively. His bun is adorned with green leaves, which match his beard ties and heavy boots. These boots also match the bottom half of his two-tone vest, while the top half is a much lighter shade and bears white embroidery along the seams. His minty green shirt pops against dark brown pants. Merle managed to keep a hold on his Extreme Teen Bible, as well, and his Bureau of Balance bracer is visible on his left arm, reflecting a green spotlight from above.
Magnus stands directly between Lydia and Edward, who share his strings, and slightly behind the other two adventurers. Magnus is a tall, beefy man with auburn hair and light brown skin who sports thick hair on his forearms and a scar across one eye. His mouth is bleeding and there is a bruise on his cheek but his expression remains defiant as he stares straight at you (the viewer). He wears a plain, sleeveless brown shirt and cream pants tucked into his dark cloth boots. The boots fold over at the top, revealing a gold trim along the edge. These boots match the gloves on his hands, which are worn over a plain white fabric. The fluffy white trim on his collar is turned yellow by the spotlight above. Magnus holds his arms straight out from his sides with both legs bent at the knee. Railsplitter is visible, still attached to his back by a four-way harness and clasped in the center of his chest with a golden buckle.
appARENTLY astral projecting and running your ghost directly into ELDRITCH INK WITH A CONNECTION TO THE MASKED MESSENGER, MIGHT PUT YOU, IN CONTACT WITH THE MASKED MESSENGER
I would say Jack is Making Poor Choices here but the truth is… he just didn’t know enough. He didn’t know the danger in letting the Messenger figure out what he wanted most (to help…), and he didn’t know how to resist
Here’s a little drabble about being scared of the dark, but it sorta goes another direction that I wasn’t expecting when I first set out to write this? So y'know, that’s fun. Includes my OCs!! There’s some phobia of the dark in this! No spoilers, but uh, yeah- Enjoy :D
Everything was too much.
No one was here. It was night. Darius was safe in his room.
Yet he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the door. So much so that his eyes had begun to water. The horrible, shifting darkness that slipped through the crack in the door was unbearable. It was creeping towards him. It was coming for him.
Though he was already sitting in the dark, the darkness beyond the door was different. It clearly wasn’t, but.. something in his mind was screaming at them to run. Far away. Jump out the window and hide in the bushes out there. Anywhere would be safer than here.
He felt silly for feeling that way. He was a grown man and a Knight, wasn’t he?
The urge to pull his blanket over his head, squeeze his eyes shut and try to forget that it was there until the sun appeared again was overwhelming.
He slowly began to do just that, but then he heard it. A creak-crack of sorts. He thought it was the floor at first, but that had never creaked before. It was new, after all.
Then Darius realised it was the wall just outside of his room. The thin walls felt like they would break when he even slightly leant on them, but the noise he had heard sounded like someone slumping against it for support. It sounded like the wall almost gave out.
“Hello?”
No. No, why had he called out? If there was something there it would know that he was here. Though it probably already knew, right? That’s why it was coming.
“..Darius?”
His mind overrided all fear in that moment. The man in that hallway was so much more important than his silly phobia. It was almost like it had never existed.
“Marcellus! Oh gods, wait just a moment! I’m on my way!”
Darius tripped out of bed, pulling on trousers and dashing out into the hallway. When his eyes laid upon Marcellus, he was overwhelmed with emotion beyond possible description.
He just sort of stood there, breathing urgent as he tried to figure out what to do.
Marcellus was bleeding. He could see that. So, the first thing he decided to do was to help him into his room and to sit him down on the bed.
Opening his bedside drawer, he pulled out a box of matches and lit one. Lifting it to the lamp on the wall, light flooded the room. It was only then that he realised just how badly his enemy was bleeding.
Sucking in air through his teeth, a strange feeling welled up within him. A burning pressure that made him want to tear apart whoever did this.
“I am not trained in medical care, Marcellus. But I do know someone.”
He hurried to the phone in the hallway, dialling the number quickly.
“Hello, Zach? I need your help. Come to my house. It’s urgent.”
