How to Plot as a Pantser, Part 4
More fresh angst juice for your Tiefling trouble needs.
Challenge #02719-G162: Played For a Sap
Come on body, just hold it in. Suppress the emotion for a few more hours. We can die from embarrassment when we get home. – Anon Guest
He might have said they called him Sap because he was a blunt instrument. There was a story he told about being found in the woods, covered in tree sap and using it to trap and eat small animals to survive. The truth was, he was a City Tief[1], raised in the gutter, educated by osmosis, and like the city rats, steeped in cunning and guile. He called himself Sap because he still believed in love.
What he was now - besides beaten, bruised, and bloody - was also betrayed. He didn’t say, “You said you were my friend” because creatures like himself didn’t get friends. The closest a Tiefling could get were temporary allies who currently found the Tiefling in question to be convenient. He did say, “You let me think you liked me. Well played.”
The villain of the piece - a temporarily convenient ally - seemed put out by the fact that Sap didn’t let them scoff and preen. They tried for it anyway. “What, like it’s hard? Your kind are anyone’s for a gentle touch and a kind word.”
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Challenge #02715-G158: A Delicate Mist
“They played us like a violin!”
“Actually violins are quite difficult to play, I played you like the cheap kazoo you are” – Anon Guest
There is a vertiginous feeling to being betrayed. It’s worse than falling because the damage has been done before the sinking of the heart even begins. It’s the realisation that kills. It kills trust. It kills faith. It kills hope. Once those are dead, there is very little left to lose.
Nevertheless, there are those who insist on twisting the knife whilst their victim is down. This one smiled indulgently as their victim said, “You played me like a violin.” They believed their victim to be powerless and vulnerable. Ready to break in an instant. All they needed, the villain reasoned, was one final push to fall apart.
“My dear,” they said with the same fake adoration they had used all the time. “Violins are troublesome instruments to learn and play. I played you like the cheap kazoo you are.”
The victim had nothing left to lose. With nothing to lose, there was nothing to fear. They did still possess a weapon and as their heart fell to breaking, they lashed out.
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Challenge #02439-F249: All Perfectly Reasonable
Just because I have demonic powers doesn’t mean that I’m a bad guy, and I have valid reason murdering 36 people. – Anon Guest
“Was it the voices?” said Lady Anthe.
The Warlock smiled. “You mock me, but you can’t understand. Ardnassac can remember the future, so he bids me to alter it for a better world. There’s so much disaster that each and every one of those people could have caused. Averted now.” A smile that was so deep in the uncanny valley that it needed its own illumination to get around. “That one… will raise an army to defeat Ardnassac and must be terminated.”
Marvin got between the Warlock and the small child they’d just rescued. “Considering that you essentially murdered their entire home hamlet… I’d say they’re vindicated for wanting to do that.”
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Challenge #02059-E235: Betrayal is a Two-Way Street — Steemit
The Human interlaced her fingers and twisted them about to make a sound like several walnuts being crushed at once. While the guards were wincing at that intolerable sound, she casually purloined one of their polearms and used it to stun the other one.
It happened so quickly.
The polearm became a whirling dervish of destruction, laying waste to the ornamental guards in the room and the very few who were competent at their weapons. Even when the blade broke, the handle was still used to lay them all flat. They were alive, but the message was clear. They could easily be not alive in a matter of minutes.