#I'm sorry I did my best

[drhu0806]

20 – “This better be good.”

Fandom: Baldur’s Gate 3 (fanfiction) Characters: Tav/custom player character Rating: G Warnings: questionable understanding of geology and chemistry, none

The druid lays the bar of metal on the anvil. Holding a hammer over, the chant of a Heat Metal spell falls from her lips, and the bar grows scorching white hot. The first blow comes down with a thundering twang, then another, and another. A subtle aura of magic permeates the immediate area; the smith’s lips never stop moving, a steady, quiet litany of Druidic that shapes the metal just as much as the hammer.

Kainé stands to the side, enraptured at the sight. As the blade takes shape, the smith puts her tool aside, a hovering hand replacing it. She closes her eyes, and the magic swells. Her hand glides slowly over the molten alloy as it cools, and it shimmers and wriggles as it sharpens and its core hardens. A dagger takes shape, silvery and sleek, its razor edges lined an inky black.

After the blade is finished, the hilt is fashioned next, and at the end of it all, the smith finishes the piece etching a symbol into it, her personal signature. She regards her work, satisfied, before giving a smile towards Kainé.

“You’re free to take a closer look and ask questions if you like.”

Eyes brightening with childlike fascination, she practically scampers over. “I’ve just never seen anyone like us work with metal. They usually…”

“Dismiss it? Lump it in with the blasphemous machinations of man and the perversion of nature?” the druidic smith laughs knowingly.

“Yes! And I understand where they’re coming from but… We can shape stone and move earth but not this kind of stone? Sure, we can make poultices and medicine from various plants and herbs and those would also never naturally occur in nature, but we can’t do the same for ore? It just never made sense to me.”

The smith’s smile only grows at her words. She reaches down and hands over a small yet fairly heavy sack. Upon opening it, Kainé sees that it contains rough, unrefined rocks of various colors and shapes.

“I have to admit, it’s quite nice to meet another of our order that actually appreciates my work. Most other circles barely tolerate me. Do you travel a lot?”

“No, I just… I know what it’s like to not fit in all the time. Besides, I find the more ‘unusual’ topics quite interesting.”

The smith laughs. “A kindred spirit. For that, I hope you’ll forgive me if I try to impart a lesson that you might enjoy. Reach in there and take the black one. Uh, no, not that one, there’s another—yes, that one. Take a look. What can you glean from it?”

Kainé peers at the small, dark slab, threading her druidic energy through it. She’s surprised to discover an organized structure, possessing a latticed and stacked framework. There’s something internally pure about the rock, and she can’t help but feel something strangely familiar about it.

“Now… Take a look at this blade.”

When she places her hand on the newly forged dagger, she expects the granules of iron throughout, but interwoven and strengthening them is the same material she senses in the dark rock.

“You feel that lattice network? It’s called carbon, in its purest form. It tempers iron to form the steel within blades, and if you pay attention, you’ll notice it’s present in so much of nature and life, even the air itself. If you strive to understand anything about the natural world, make it this.”

Kainé regards her with skepticism. “This… You can find this in plants? The air?”

“It is what connects so much of life on this particular plane, you’d be surprised. This particular form is found in volcanic rock.”

The tiefling’s eyes practically sparkle at the thought. She can’t help but imagine the burning deluge of lava trailing slowly the side of a mountain, the giant plumes of ash that engulfs the immediate sky above, capable of drawing up the most intense lightning storms. Her fingers inadvertently tighten around the stone; what other wonders could be found in a place like that?

The smith winks, placing something small on the hilt of the dagger. It’s a diamond, polished and cut so that its facets gleam under the light of the forge’s fires. With another magical chant, it’s embedded within the weapon. She offers it out to Kainé with both hands.

“A gift, for indulging me. And a wish as well, for you to never stop learning about the wonders of this world, regardless of the opinions of others.” She gestures at the diamond, a mysterious smile playing at her lips. “Make sure to take a look at that when you can. I’m sure you’ll be very intrigued at what you learn.”

Below the surface of the earth, Kainé brushes her hands over the stony walls of an underground chamber, not so deep where sunlight can’t filter in from openings above, but enough where climbing out is out of the question. On the far side of it is an outline for an exit etched in the wall, yet no discernible way to open it. All they have is a raised dais with a small slot carved in the middle of it, and a cryptic riddle carved into a slab nearby.

“Bask in the Morninglord’s splendor, and let its seven paths guide you…” she mutters to herself.

The chamber leads into other smaller enclaves that the rest of her party has gone to explore, leaving her the only one remaining. The short riddle continuously turns within her mind: the Morninglord’s splendor is obviously a reference to sunlight, but she can’t think of what the seven paths could be referring to.

Shaking her head, she approaches the dais again. Her initial inspection of it yielded little, but it’s not like she can think of anything else to try. Pulling out her chosen dagger, the one she received weeks ago from the druid smith in the grove, she begins to prod the stone dais, desperate to find something new.

Up above, slim beams of sunshine fall into the cavern. As Kainé pokes and prods, the gemstone seated within the hilt catches the light, forcing her to blink and cover her eyes for a moment. But when she looks again, she sees something: flashes of rainbow reflected off the diamond’s facets, and suddenly something clicks.

Seven paths..!

She holds the dagger out, trying to hold the gem against the sunbeam in just the right way, but the light doesn’t refract the way she needs. She spots the slot within the dais and realizes the gem in her weapon won’t do.

“Where am I going to get another diamond…?”

Her hand brushes over it, recalling the words of the smith who gifted it to her. It felt like a lifetime ago even though it hadn’t really been that long; with so much happening, she never found the time to take another look like she suggested. Seeing little else to do, she sinks her magic into it.

Cubic, repeated structure. And something very, very familiar.

In the next cave chamber over, Shadowheart hears an echoing call.

“Hey! I’ve figured it out!”

They’ve been in these caverns for what felt like ages, and after all that time in the Underdark, she’s had more than her fill of underground caves.

“Oh, this better be good…”

When she re-enters the main chamber, she can sense the whirl of divine magic in the air. Kainé has her hands flat against the stony walls again, brow furrowed in concentration.

“What are you…?”

“It’s carbon, it’s all carbon,” the druid mutters. “The mountain nearby is a dormant volcano. All this rock it formed and left behind… Okay. I got it. I just have to…”

The stone beneath her fingers shifts. Kainé weaves her magic through those lattices, slowly drawing them out. Within seconds, a black, ridged slab forms within her hand. She turns to Shadowheart, turning it in her hands.

“We know diamonds are made from a lot of heat and pressure which is why they’re found so often near volcanoes,” she continues to muse to herself. “We just never figured out what they were made from, until…”

Heat balls up within her palms, and she closes her hands over the rock. She conjures images of molten, flowing rock, of the unfathomable, crushing weight of all that churning earth. Her hands squeeze together, closer and closer as pressure and heat build.

With a final crack that resonates throughout the cavern, the magic dissipates. Slowly opening her palms, a small, translucent diamond sits within. Rough and not fully cut like the one in her dagger, but it would do.

Kainé nods at the cleric. “Get the others. I think I can open this.”

As Shadowheart leaves, she walks over to the dais and examines the slot in the middle. There’s a trail of sunlight that falls exactly into it; Kainé slides the gemstone in, and she sees the white light coming from one side fall out from the other side in seven different colors. A rainbow beams out from the gem and lands in the middle of the outline within the wall. It shifts, and then it gradually slides open, revealing another passageway.

Sighing, she gazes at her dagger, wondering where that druid is now, praying that she’s safe from the armies of the Absolute.

“Thank you.”

[wwillywonka]

SPOCK | STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES - 1.27 Errand of Mercy

[christadeguchi]

you think YOU had a bad day at work?

bonus: sid shrieking "no!!!! NO!!!!!" loud enough to be heard in the stands and on camera

[mellxncollie]

PAINLAND WEEK - DAY TWO - MYTHS/LEGENDS → Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh — tablet XII, lines 87-95

[khaotunq]

gif request | Anonymous asked: Can you please make a FirstKhaotung best kisses gifset?

[clonesuperiority]

falling to my knees begging for fives crumbs

Instructions unclear, I drew thighs

[collophora]

@devinsisland apocalypse AUs, but it's just chill gardening between two raids outside to scavenge seeds

[silverware-is-interesting]

i've never really made a comic before, well, i have, but nothing i had intention to show anyone else

[starflungwaddledee]

this is probably why meta knight moved the conversation to the hallway

based on @das-a-kirby-blog's comic based on my comic. comic inception. colour palettes are from das.

[egophiliac]

As someone who hasn’t played the twst game very long I just got into it. I wanted to know about events? Like do some not come back? For example do the Masquerade, Port, Beanfest, Ghost bride, starsending events. Do those come back? I hear people say how they missed their chance to get this great card like as if it won’t ever come back and then someone on Reddit will say something like “Oh beanfest happened twice on the JP server” so which events have gotten reruns so far? I would ask about more recent ones like the Easter one but idk if it’s too recent to know if get rerun or if they clarify that it won’t come back? I was really sad to find out about the Silk outfits I missed out on when they visit the scalding sands. I also was really sad to find out i missed out on the anniversary cards because I didn’t play the game yet. I wish they would add the anniversary cards to the store at least…I want to be apart of the celebration :’)

I was looking in the shop and saw all the different groovy items you need to groovify event cards and this question just came to me so I had the urge to ask someone…

welcome to Twst! 🎉 it is a bit confusing to jump right into, especially because. they're not always consistent. :') it sounds like you're probably playing on Eng, which I'm less familiar with, but I'll try based on what I know! (I also don't always remember everything, so somebody please correct me if I get something wrong!)

first, I do recommend the Twst wiki.gg, which seems to stay pretty up-to-date on events for both the Eng and JP versions! it's a great resource for when you want to see if/when an event ran or rerun. in general, I believe that the Eng version only does reruns that have already happened in JP, so if JP has a rerun that hasn't happened yet in Eng, they should get it too eventually! on the other hand, I don't think either version has ever rerun an event more than once. :( BUT this doesn't mean you're entirely out of luck, because:

anniversary events (March for JP, January for Eng) will usually offer a chance to get both an older event SSR and an older birthday SSR in the shop, via buying a special item with exchange currency (which you get by doing pulls on the anniversary gacha, I think you need to do 100-150 pulls for enough currency to buy the item to exchange for an SSR). only SSRs though, and you're limited to one each (one birthday, one event). so if there's an SSR you REALLY want and it's already had its rerun, it's probably worth planning to save up some keys for!

as for actual reruns, they seem to come in a few different flavors:

straight-up rerun, no changes or extra cards

unchanged event story, with a new SSR of a character who wasn't in the story (e.g. Applepom Jamil)

slightly rewritten event story that includes a new SSR (e.g. Ghost Marriage, they don't seem to do this anymore though)

completely new event story that acts as either a sequel or alternate-universe version of the original (e.g. Beans Day part 2, Fairy Gala IF) (though this is pretty rare and might actually count as a separate event, rather than a rerun?)

Master Chef/Culinary Crucible events have never gotten reruns (though they might start now that we've finally gotten through all the characters in JP, time will tell). birthday and Halloween events will also rerun the previous version in addition to the new one -- for instance, Eng should be getting a Glorious Masquerade rerun this year, followed by the new (Playful Land) Halloween event. and a birthday campaign will, in addition to the new card, have a separate pickup for the previous year's birthday card.

for the specific ones you mentioned -- I think Beanfest, Ghost Bride, Fireworks, and Starsending have already rerun in Eng, so those most likely will not be rerun again (at least not anytime soon). Masquerade should be coming back for you guys this Halloween, and Portfest JUST got its rerun in JP, so that should be coming too sometime in the future! (no new SSR though, alas, I was really hoping for a little marching band sailor boy Leona. 😔) the Easter event is the White Rabbit Fest, right? that one hasn't gotten a rerun in JP yet either, so it's still on the table!

all that said, it's entirely possible they'll change the rules at some point and start doing more reruns/chances to get older event cards, especially since the game's been going on for a few years now and some cards haven't been available for a pretty long time! there's only one card that they said was for-realsies limited-time-only and wouldn't ever be available again -- Platinum Grim, since he was to celebrate the 100th anniversary -- so. there's always a little bit of hope for everything else. :D (fairy gala Ortho PLEASE COME BACK SOB)

[strhwaberries]

seonghwa // crazy form (231216)

[shannonsketches]

thinking about gohan and vegeta and how their bond is underrated

the difference in their reactions to each other 😭

Gohan being the first one to step between Vegeta and Certain Death, twice, without an ounce of hesitation, and Vegeta saving him back despite his feelings about battle intervention.

Vegeta knowing Gohan's the best of all of them

Vegeta and Gohan both born prodigies assigned an unfair amount of responsibility to be Great and be a Saiyan Messiah(tm) way too young by a stubborn and proud if not (relatively) well-meaning father who didn't see any other option and I just think Gohan doesn't get enough credit as like. The first serious muscle behind Geets' personal growth.

[koiartie]

the fallen angel

[wmnylander]

Feb 14, 2024

[beastsovrevelation]

Crowley in Good Omens (1.03)

[somnimagus]

did some vesperia chibis, i always forget how happy i get drawing these guys. i love them dearly

[id in alt text]