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Challenge #04688-L304: Miracles For Midwinterfeast

"Greatfather Langeven is a childhood god. He only sees that which is good in the world, and so comes for the children who believe they have been good. Which is terribly unfair to those who've been told they're wicked their entire, brief lives. But that's a different story for a different time."

The youth had always been kind, had always done their best to help others, even though they, themselves, were constantly being told they were evil, wicked, and, sadly, thoroughly believing it, often punished themselves almost more brutally than the cruel ones that were raising them. Then another child begs Langeven to stop seeing only the ones who believe they have been good, and start seeing the ones who are ACTUALLY good. -- Anon Guest

[AN: Dear Nonny, there is another childhood god who comes for the ones who are good but believe they're wicked. It's just that Greatfather Langeven can't see them... because they are the Shadow Teufel. But this can be a Midwinterfeast story for a much earlier era.]

Simple Zera was a wicked child. Everyone around hir told hir that ze was, and since they knew more than hir, ze believed them. Nevertheless, ze tried hir heart and soul away to be good. Zera did all hir household duties without complaint, trying hir best to do them well, and only got a drubbing for hir trouble. Ze foraged herbs for sick neighbours, but never got a word of thanks. Zera even worked all day to be sure everyone ze knew had enough firewood for the winter, but only ever got rocks thrown at hir. Ze only had one friend in the whole world, and that was Klare.

Klare was good, kind, and sweet, and everyone said so. She was well-mannered and scholarly, and kind enough to befriend Zera when no-one else would. She even thought it unfair when she learned why the town thought Zera wicked.

Hir mother was a Hellkin who lived in a witch's cottage in the woods. That had to make hir wicked by association.

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Challenge #04687-L303: The Price of Prophecy

Divine clues convince a town that a boy and his friends must complete a daring quest to avert world ending disaster. That may be true. But the Hero’s parent knows the children will face potent foes none could survive without aid. So the parent, willing to pay well, begs Wraithvine to watch over the young heroes from the shadows and keep them from harm without being seen. -- Deathsead419

Langdon was born with the blaze. Prophecy declared that the boy born

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Challenge #04686-L302: The Fool's Choice

What’s better after a night barhopping than an impromptu car race on the rain-slick city streets? Why, doing so before seat-belt laws! -- Deathshead419

There was a time which had much more freedom, compared to the modern day. Less freedom when compared to certain other times. Like, say, the paleolithic era. But those had their own caveats. Rampant disease, early death, that sort of thing. But in this era, the age of rock and roll, or the sock hop, there was

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Challenge #04685-L301: Slaughter Underwater

Well drat, Wraithvine’s unexpected island vacation will have to end sooner rather than later to help free the merfolk from having to make sacrifices to the Whijioght, though ze will likely have to get very damp doing so in this follow-up to:

https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-04588-l204-a-knack-for-finding-trouble -- Deathshead419

Obviously, whatever Whijiought was, it needed to be stopped. Sacrifices to something that needed a pronounciation guide were never a good thing. Wraithvine used every atom of hir acting skills to

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Challenge #04684-L300: Unfeeling Love

I do not understand emotions, although my library has the definitions I do not truly feel them. Although, it is not written in my code, there is an unfinished task in serving my master. I am missing a part if I am not with them. Is this… desire? -- Anon Guest

I am Min-yun. I am made to serve. I am a thing of cogs and gears, run by crystals and magic. My master-maker-mother commands me and I obey. I am good

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Challenge #04683-L299: Help the Helper

They were a hellkin, but their horns never grew in. They had the tail, the dark red skin, black fingernails, though not claws, but no horns. As an adult they wore fake horns to try to be more like others of their type. Until another told them, "Horns don't matter, your kindness is in your heart." -- Lessons.

The basic Hellkin "starter set" if you wish to think about such things, is thought to be horns, teeth, tail, and weirdly-coloured skin. Red

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Challenge #04682-L298: Own Employee Rights

Why were you arrested? /"I severely overworked my employee to the point of collapse while not seeing to their needs."

Wait... I thought you were self employed and had no employees. /"You're right, I don't."

So which employee did you overwork if you don't have any working for you? /"I guess I was the employee."

Okay... that's odd. /"Yeah, I don't belong here." -- The New Guy

[AN: This prompt had to be adjusted for line brevity]

The Galactic Alliance didn't believe

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Challenge #04681-L297: Sage's Advice

They begged the old hellkin to teach them to fight. True the apprentices were no masters and could teach as well, but he had been the first to actually be KIND to them. He didn't exactly teach them to fight.. as much as he did teach them how to accept life. -- Anon Guest

Everyone knew the daft old cheesemonger with a goat he called a dog. To be fair, the Hellkin's miniature goat certainly believed she was a dog and nothing

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Challenge #04680-L296: Objection Lessons

There's a reason I'm called Patience. When someone calls me a 'teuf', I don't, normally, hurt them. And I will NEVER hurt a kid. However, I will teach why it's NOT a good idea to call one of my kind such. Sadly, some lessons do hurt, but I've never, happy to say, killed anyone. Though some wished I had before they finally learn. -- Lessons

Sometimes, they asked. "Why is it such a bad word? It's just the short form of a

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Challenge #04679-L295: Just So, No Snow

The war against the Northern Kingdom has not gone well. Now the remnants of the Southern army ready themselves behind the walls of their final castle, hoping for a miracle to break the siege. -- Deathshead419

They had fallen for one of the classic blunders - never get involved in a land war in the Northlands. Their worst and cruellest general was the very winter itself. Freezing boiling soup before it reached the bowl. Freezing men in their tents. Freezing breath so

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Challenge #04678-L294: Strange Submarine Staccato

Things have not been going well for Ludwig and U-634. An English depth charge knocked out the water pumps, the radio is on the fritz, pumping out static in strange, rhythmic bursts, and there are strange scratches and taps on the sub the Skipper swears is the hull scraping against ice. Yet the bizarre patterns, almost like arcane writing he finds when they surface for air, hints at something deeper, and those noises only grow more insistent by the hour… -- Deathshead419

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Challenge #04677-L293: Nein to Nine

Every night for nine weeks a queen dreams of herself being surrounded by nine hooded figures she almost recognizes in the deepest sanctum of an abandoned castle. Each stabs her once until the ninth drives his blade through her heart. Terrified, she begs Wraithvine, and anyone ze might need to help, to find the truth of these nightmares haunting her sleep. -- Deathshead419

It had to be a portent. Every night for nine weeks, the Queen Chrysanthemum had the same dream. A

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Challenge #04676-L292: Deepest, Darkest Secret

An airplane vanished over the Amazon rainforest, never to be seen again. The authorities did a perfunctory search, but came up empty, declaring everyone dead. But one child of a businessman lost on the flight isn’t so sure. And so the child sets out alone to find the truth of the disappearance and, perhaps, a parent alive… -- Deathshead419

[AN: I misread this and instantly thought of this thing {Offensensitivity warning for flashing imagery} and now I have to divorce myself

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Challenge #04675-L291: Minding a Larger Flock

What a coincidence! Prince Philip has found a young shepherd boy who looks exactly like him living in the countryside. Even better, the young man is willing to trade places for a lark. With the talk of the cafes turning increasingly murderous with regards to Philip’s family, it would certainly be a good time to be a Shepherd Boy rather than a prince, though, the boy doesn’t need to know that… -- Deathshead419

Once upon a time, there was a

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Challenge #04674-L290: There Are Rules

A painter has been gifted with a wondrous, dangerous power: Everything this artist draws upon changes to match the image at dusk. Paintings come to life, stones become gold, hills cleanly vanish into valleys, even bodies shift shape.

The usual suspects are trying to steal this painter away to make weapons, fortunes, give assassins impossible disguises, ect. Perhaps Wraithvine can help hide this artist before those unscrupulous schemers use this human as a tool. -- Deathshead419

Whatever the gifted magic, it has

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