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Challenge #04713-L329: Unseen Miracles

A farmer asks Wraithvine and Birbrid to come fishing with him. He needs a few more hands to pull in the nets as he's stocking up for winter. Crops are almost harvested, and he'd need help with that as well. He'd usually have help from his sons, but many have caught very bad colds, and the season for snows is fast approaching. -- Anon Guest

The autumnal weather should have been frightful. There should have been strong winds, threatening storms, and an astonishing dearth of good fish. But it was a pleasant day and the winds took them right to a gigantic shoal of sardines. One that had somehow not yet attracted sharks, whales, birds, or other predators.

Grentyk Bauer was normally wont to store larded meat for the winter, but his usual routine had been thrown off by the family's late summer colds that turned into full Fall fevers. He and the missus could barely keep up with their ailments and the farm work.

The neighbours had been glad to pitch in with the harvests, knowing well that Grentyk would do the same for them in the same circumstances. It was his winter stores that were the issue. He needed meat, and though his cattle would survive the snows, they weren't ready for slaughter. So his only alternative was fish. Which needed strong arms and a barrel of good luck.

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Challenge #04712-L328: Guided Experience

Jay and Sunshine looked upon the shocked soldier who had made their first kill on the battlefield.

"The first one is always the loudest in your mind. They get quieter, but never let them go completely silent. Once that happens, you become like us." -- Anon Guest

[AN: War and armies aren't always necessary and do not mesh well with Pax Humanis. This has to happen in association with Greater Deregulation]

They called it a Double Blade Attack. One, the rapier, an

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Challenge #04711-L327: Patience of the Doctor

They called me freak and fled. I realized, it was not prejudice, it was fear. They constantly had bloody noses, and not from being struck. I had no choice, I gently sedated them and checked them. It's good I did, they were not long for this world. Now, they will be able to grow up into an adult. -- Anon Guest

[AN: This prompt was rearranged from being freeform poetry for space reasons.]

Life should never have settled in this place, but

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Challenge #04710-L326: Pray Responsibly

The last, aged priest of a God is searching for an apprentice to take on the scriptures and learn the proper rites before it becomes nothing but a curiosity for scholars rather than a living, breathing practice linking people over millennia. -- Deathshead419

Karkaul, High Priest of the Volcano God, was looking for an orphan, an unwanted child, or one in bad circumstances to take under her wing. The greys of age were already showing on her temples. She needed the time

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Challenge #04709-L325: Difficult History

Vholno, son of a traveling bard, always thought he was a normal human boy born to a wandering man. But when patches of green appeared on his skin, his father told him that he was born of a liaison with a dryad. Now Vholno ventures deep into the wilds in search of his mother and what fate awaits the son of the forest. -- Deathshead419

[AN: I see what you did there :) ]

Dad had taught the goat to dance for their traveling

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Challenge #04708-L324: From Menace to Midwife

Trudy the Goose-Girl has become obsessed with travelling to a mountain lake and will not take no for an answer. Alas, there is a terrible danger around the lake, one Henkar and Molys feel ill equipped to face on their own. So they seek out Wraithvine, begging hir to aid them in reaching this place of strange magic. -- Deathshead419

[AN: Most recent previous installation of Trudy the Goose is https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-04636-l252-girl-goose ]

Trudy the Goose did not remain

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Challenge #04707-L323: Money Makes Me Talk

The Thief Oxisa has been hired to steal the crown jewels of the Kordisce Kingdom. Only, the Kordisce has become a republic and the new government hopes to put those treasures in a museum. Oh well, so long as Oxisa’s fee is paid, she doesn’t care. Caring about politics is a great way for a thief to make a fatal mistake. -- Deathshead419

Everything is money, when you get down to the root of it. Power? Money. Property? Money. Even

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Challenge #04706-L322: Impediment Remedy

Their stutter was so bad they could only call the being "teuf". They would get to the f and the stutter would stop them from saying the full word Teufel. The being allowed the normally rude partial word because they understand the person couldn't help it, and helped them get their farm cleaned up and fixed regardless. At least the person was trying. -- Anon Guest

The woman in the straw hat and too-big boots had a jerky way of walking and

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Challenge #04705-L321: Navigational Hazards and How They're Dealt With

What happens when a ship of former human military that has gone into psychosis and turned pirate, meets up and goes after a pax humanis ship? Worse, neither side really cares about their own lives, and barely cares about anyone else's lives either. -- Anon Guest

[AN: Pax Humanis agents aren't usually allowed loose because they're all serial killers and inherently dangerous]

It would have been too cliche to rename their ship the Bounty, and they all agreed on that. What they

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Challenge #04704-L320: Midwinterfeast Tale

Two children, one human, one hellkin, were awake in their cold box-shelter when Greatfather Langeven arrived. They asked, please, to be taken in by him. "Let us help deliver gifts and help us find somewhere warm with love?" That is all they wish. -- Anon Guest

Traffic in cities flows like a river. All rivers have eddies and places were flotsam washes up. Some form something like a tosheroon. Others... hardly have a form at all. Dawn found Scrap on a midden

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Challenge #04703-L319: Red Waves in the Morning

"Crap! We have a red tide."/ Shall I get the chocolate?

"No it's not that time yet. I mean we have a dead zone rolling in. Need to find out what is causing it before too much damage is done to this tidal sanctuary."

For those who are unaware of what a Red Tide is, I present you with this.

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/redtide.html -- Fighting Fit

Working at the Shoreline Wilderness Sanctuary was usually just watching a bunch

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Challenge #04702-L318: High Volume of Problems

A small child tries to grab Bribid to carry off what they thought was a cute little gnome. The parental was distracted by trying to help two other children who were very sick. Fortunately, he and Wraithvine are very patient people. -- Anon Guest

"Small" is relative when including children. Gnomes tend to top out at three feet high, so their children are terrifyingly tiny when compared to -say- Humans and Elves. Or the large Harukh'a offshoot from the verdant valleys, the

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Challenge #04701-L317: Follow the Bouncing.... Orb

Some children try to get Wraithvine, Birbid, and anyone traveling with them to come play. They had balloons that one of the kids' parents had enchanted so they wouldn't pop, so they could play catch and bounce the toys between them. -- Anon Guest

[AN: Balloons take a long time to exist in Alfarell because latex takes longer to launch so I'm handwaving some magic]

Someone had cast several iterations Tinrak's Bouncing Orb in the plaza. The brightly-coloured bubbles easily rebounded off

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Challenge #04700-L316: Mercy For the Many

"They won't be changed or persuaded at all?"/ I'm afraid not, I'm so sorry.

"We both knew it might come to this."/ I know, but it's always sad.

"Don't worry, you know I don't make them suffer."/ If we want to save the people in those factories.....

"I know. Just, sometimes, there really is no other way. They'll simply fall asleep... and never wake up." -- Fighting Fit

It's easy to believe that ending the one badguy will solve a systemic problem.

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Challenge #04699-L315: The Green Revolution

Is the difference between mad science and genius the success of the project? That’s what one researcher believes, for a new breakthrough could solve global warming. Or it could freeze the planet. Success or failure, genius or madness. Only results will tell which is which. -- Deathshead419

The saying goes, If it's stupid and it works, it's not that stupid. Some people feel inclined to test such expressions to the snapping point. Some have a mad idea and would rather seek

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