torlibram

[torlibram]

reading terry prattchet is so crazy, cause you'll be reading about a character called something like plinko plonko and their zany exploits, and then he'll just drop a paragraph that goes so insanely hard like -

and then I just have to stare at the wall for a bit.

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The pregnant evil queen smirks as she places a hand on her swollen belly. "Now hero, you won't kill the mother of your own child, will you?" "Lady, I am female, infertile, and never had sex before, so that lie is not going to work on me."

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We had put everything we had into this assault. The last chance of stopping the armies of Darkness. They had a single-axis failure condition, of course: destroy the Archnasty and his legions crumble and decay without his will to animate them. The problems were two: how to get to him through said legions and how to actually defeat him.

We had done our best. Done all the research. Quested after artifacts to prise open his defenses, everything. And still it hadn't been enough. My brain ached with the effort of separating power to heal my comrades. It still hadn't been enough. Touman and his thrice-blessed sword had cut him once, twice and was shredded to ashes before his third blow and it hadn't been enough. Calloway had sliced away defensive spells with thin red lines of raw fire and it hadn't been enough. Jaratha's whirlwind of attacks with her enchanted sickles had been flicked aside like so much chaff. She landed at my feet with a sickening thud.

His Arch-Darkness, Lord Karathor the Grim loomed over me. His dead voice husked from the ornate mask. "Any final words, little priest?"

I blinked away tears. One splashed on my hand and fizzed gently as it touched the plain ring on my index finger. Then I knew. I knew what it would take, what I would have to do. This had damn well better be enough.

"Funny thing, being a healer," I said, more to Jaratha than to him. "You have to split the magic as it goes through you: use the Light part to heal, disperse the Dark part into your surroundings so that nothing gets a dose strong enough to affect them." I gently closed Jaratha's eyes, I didn't want her to see this next bit.

"Except, I didn't do that. I didn't like the idea of polluting the area where I healed someone, so when I parted the magic, I started storing the Dark, holding it until I could find somewhere to properly discharge it. Only I never did. Every old mineshaft had a daemon lurking at the bottom that would have gulped the Dark down and gone on a rampage. Couldn't fire it into the sea, we would be up to our ears in kraken. I just held on to it. Poured it all into this ring." I held it up to show him the plain golden band. "Decades of healing people and storing up the proportional Dark energy in here." I began to unfold the enchantments on the ring, runes began to glow around its circumference. "I don't know quite how much there is in here, but I'm out of options and I'm betting that all your fancy spellwork won't protect you against pure Darkness."

Karathor actually took a step backwards. His gaze was fixed on the ring and its runes that were blazing now.

"Why bother with Dark defenses when you are battling the forces of Light?" I asked, getting to my feet. "Now, in years to come, there will probably be a monument or something with a pithy sermon about hubris. Maybe once the ground stops glowing. Because I have no idea what this is about to do, but if you're backing off, it's going to be worth doing."

I unbound the last of the wards on the ring and in my last action, pointed at him. A roaring vortex of sheer darkness shrieked forth, enveloping Karathor with a thousand demented screams, tearing at him and knocking him down. He tried to absorb the power, but there was too much. It overwhelmed him the way a flash flood rips a waterwheel from its axle. It melted my arm clean off as well, but I didn't mind much, stopping Karathor was the important point. I held the mental focus of the blast on him for as long as I could, until all that was left was a bubbling patch of tar and the ghost of a scream.

In the sudden silence that followed, someone began to clap. I looked up to see Jaratha, wreathed in wisps of Light floating in the air and applauding. Beside her, Touman and Calloway drifted gently, as pale as she. I raised my hand in farewell to them - wait, didn't I just melt that arm? - and realised mine was as white and ethereal as theirs.

"You've been carrying that all this time?" asked Calloway with a grin. "Really could have used some of that mojo on the southern giants, you know."

"Is that why I could never get my sensory enchantment to work?" exclaimed Touman. "I always thought I had cast it properly, but I could never pick up evil in our vicinity. You were drowning it out!"

I shrugged. "Better than wilting all the plants around you every time I had to put you back together after you failed to dodge a club."

"That was one time," Touman began, and the others laughed.

"Do you think there will be statues?" asked Jaratha, as we faded from the material plane.

"Probably." I said. "But not there. That was not a place of honour."

You were the healer—the last light of your party. But now your final ally dies in your arms, and there’s no one left to save. The enemy jeers, calling you useless. You look up, eyes hollow and black. The light is gone. The Void answers. You're no longer a cleric. You're something far worse.

[torlibram]

You were the healer—the last light of your party. But now your final ally dies in your arms, and there’s no one left to save. The enemy jeers, calling you useless. You look up, eyes hollow and black. The light is gone. The Void answers. You're no longer a cleric. You're something far worse.

[torlibram]

The adventurers looked down at their fallen comrade. Now that they had had time to arrange him in a more restful position, the little thief looked, well, not composed exactly, but at least like something that would fit in a coffin.

Ostin had been trying to sneak around behind the lich in order to strike at its weak point: the cervical vertebrae. Unfortunately, the lich saw him and flicked a blast of lightning his way. It had shattered his skull, badly burnt his arm and body and the subsequent fall had broken both legs.

"This isn't right." said Firuthor breaking the silence at last. "He shouldn't be dead."

"He has gone into the Light," pointed out the cleric, Fontesn. "For all his faults, the Light will have accepted him for his efforts in this battle."

"It is not right." repeated the wizard.

"What can we do, though?" asked Tohg.

"There is a ritual... very old," said the wizard distantly. "A magic shunned by most practitioners in these latter days. A way to synthesize damaged flesh."

"Half him head gone," pointed out Tohg. "Your magic regrow brains?"

"I don't know." said Firuthor. He looked at Fontesn. "Perhaps if we combined efforts? I repair the physical damage, you call his spirit forth?"

Fontesn looked dubious. "That kind of thing will require some serious piety on his behalf."

"We'd best find a temple then." agreed Firuthor. "For my part, I am going to need a significant portion of our treasure to construct the armatures needed to shape the magic..." he trailed off as though expecting an interruption, but of course the usual interjection would have come from their dead comrade.

"How much?" asked Tohg bluntly.

"I'd have to see how much i can barter the craftsmen down, but at least six thousand in gold for the raw materials."

They all looked down again at the thief, Ostin. Firuthor, as much convincing himself as the others, declared:

"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him: we have the thaumaturgy. We can make him better than he was. Better, faster, stronger."

"Tohg settle for breathing," muttered the barbarian.

When a mage is badly injured, magic sometimes "fills in the gaps"—growing an arcane hand or leg. You suffered brain damage that would have killed most. Magic filled in your mind.

[torlibram]

When a mage is badly injured, magic sometimes "fills in the gaps"—growing an arcane hand or leg. You suffered brain damage that would have killed most. Magic filled in your mind.

[torlibram]

Happy Star Wars Day! I’ve decided to make my Skywalker comic into one easily rebloggable post.

[torlibram]

Happy Star Wars Day! Here’s my other Skywalker Twins comic all in one post!

[torlibram]

The Van Has Officially Declared It Spooky Season

---

I've got my parent's van for the week and it seems determined to establish my status as The Local Cryptid by terrorizing an innocent 7-11 clerk.

...I might need to back up a bit.

My mother is an eminently sensible woman who knows herself well, and when The Plauge hit, she knew she'd need some sort of mentally and physically engaging craft project to keep herself from going insane and massacring the local zoning and water management boards (even if they have it coming). So she and Dad acquired a utility van and converted it into a camper van because while they love camping, they're past the age where their joints and immune systems will tolerate sleeping on the cold ground in a nylon tent.

They did a terrific job of it and my mom taught herself woodworking and carpentry and now the van has it's own cabinets, fold-away dining table, and removable queen-sized bed with memory foam mattress. My Dad was already a computer engineer, but he learned the dark magics of automotive software and electronics to install after-market backup cameras, a media player that would take a terabyte hard drive and a solar-powered battery and outlet so they could wake up and just turn on the kettle and griddle for breakfast without having to exit the van into a cold morning on an empty stomach.

Truly, the height of Camping Luxury.

My parents are both in their mid-seventies and my primary life goal is to be at least half as cool and hale as they are when I get old.

Anyway, they take it out at least a dozen times a year and it works fabulously, but, being as I am on good terms with my parents and also finishing the process of moving house, I've been borrowing it to move large and cumbersome objects that will not fit in the back of my equally lovely but minuscule Honda hatchback.

It's a Great Van. Very easy and comfortable to drive. Stunningly good MPG for it's size. The best cruise control I've ever had in a car.

It's just also. Quirky. Mischievous, even.

---

If this van has a fault its that it bears the unfortunate affliction that all lightly used white utility vans have in that the combination of an utter lack of branding features and the large dent/scrape I accidentally put on it while trying to escape a Denny's last Thanksgiving means that this vehicle is one addition of a Badly Spray-Painted "FREE CANDY" on the side away from being the sort of vehicle you see in an edgy horror movie.

It's got the same issue that Doberman Dogs have where they look like the sort of creature that likes to snack on toddler's faces whilst actually having personalities made of marshmallow fluff. This vehicle is unnecessarily menacing and I think nothing short of an airbrushed Epic Van Wizard will correct this. People see this van pull up and lean over and squint suspiciously at me when the driver's side door opens, and then look moderately confused when, instead of Charles Manson, a small, potato-shaped creature with neon purple hair and a statistically unlikely assortment of dogs emerges.

My own two dogs, Herschel the Hanukkah Goblin/Corgi and Charleston Chew The Taco Dumpster Dog, Do Not Like The Van. Even with the bed in it, they have a tendency to slide and roll around in the back, and both WILL chew through dog saftey belts or other attempts to secure them in there.

On the other hand, my house mate's dog, an exceptionally tall standard poodle whom we lovingly call "The Creature", loves the Van because SHE wears her doggy seat-belt with only mild complaining and gets to sit up in the passenger seat like A People.

Also like A People, The Creature likes to stand and walk around on her hind legs. It doesn't hurt her and it's entirely voluntary, but every so often I will feel a hand on my arm and instead of my husband or friend, it's a canine that's taller than I am on her hind legs who wants to stare at my face with soulful, concerned eyes. The Creature's favorite thing is that she is exactly the right height for me to hold her arm in Genteel Fashion and walk around the pet food or hardware store with her like I'm a count escorting a debutante around a royal ball.

---

As it stands, I am set to inherit this vehicle whenever my Honda gives up the ghost, and I fully intend to paint an Epic Van Wizard on it when that time comes.

The other peculiarity of The Van is that while Dad did manage to successfully install all his after-market electronics, not all the electronics get along. Sometimes, they fight for Dominance. The Terabyte Music Player and the Backup Camera have a particularly contentious relationship, and turning on the music has about a 25% chance of turning on the backup camera as well, and turning on the Backup Camera is equally likely to turn on the music.

Firthermore, The Van has a favorite song.

I am not kidding that Dad filled an entire terabyte hard drive with music and the software to sort it via the radio controls, but of all the Early Boomer Dad Rock (Kingston Trio over The Eagles) and Irish Folk and Symphonies and the entire discography of Weird Al Yankovic, The Van's favorite song- The one it picks to play as victory music every time it beats the Backup Camera at their weird electronic game of rock-paper-scissors -is The Liberty Bell March by John Phillip Sousa.

You all know this song already.

...but in case you've forgotten the tune:

Yeah.

The Van's favorite song is the goddamn Monty Python's Flying Circus Theme Music.

It does not play this song at a normal volume.

Every time I turn on the Backup Camera and it manages to turn the music player on as well, The Van insists on absolutely blasting this nonsense on at the maximum volume it's physically capable of producing, which I know is loud enough to be heard from the Denver International Airport's Pickup zone when they Van decided to start playing it from the economy lot about half a mile away.

Perhaps it's The Van's way of honoring the aesthetic sensibilities and sonic enthusiasm of Mr. Sousa.

...I can't help but wonder if the purpose of an Epic Van Wizard is to control this sort of faerie-like malarkey, and channel these chaotic energies into things like Spell of Don't Break Down In Nevada or Enchantment Of Always Have Good Parking.

---

So last Friday the 13th, I get a call from my friend and housemate, at said airport.

It's roughly 11PM at night, and I have already retired for the evening. I am in the exact minimum of clothing required to be a decent housemate and not scandalize the neighbors should I happen to walk by a window. My feet are up. There is a cat in my lap and fictional British people murdering each other in highly inventive fashion on the tv. -But my friend has returned from her friend's wedding,and either American or United Airlines has managed to lose her luggage, including, among other valuable possessions, the keys to her car. ...So she cannot just drive home as originally planned.

There are, as luck would have it, her spare set of keys not eight feet from me.

Being a good and decent person, I agree to bring the spare keys to her so she may get home before daybreak and not spend a semester's worth of tuition on an uber across the greater Denver traffic jam.

Being also that she Loves Activities, and it's her mom we're going to pick up, I elect to take along The Creature.

I am primarily focused on remembering how to get to the airport and not leaving my friend's spare keys on the counter, so I throw on a pair of flip-flops, step outside, remember that it's AUTUMN and my minimal evening attire is not sufficient thermal protection, step back in, grab the first coat in the closet I lay hands on, pull it on, check that I have her keys again and leave.

The trip to the airport is largely unremarkable, save that it becomes necessary for me to put on sunglasses to drive, despite it being nearly the witching hour and almost entirely darker than the inside of a cow.

It's necessary because this blissful darkness of night is violently punctured by a startling number of cars that seem to have installed miniaturized but no less powerful lighthouse bulbs in where their headlights ought to go so the oncoming traffic and sports cars that insist on tailgating me in the slow lane alike illuminate the road and my mirrors with the kind of radiance I'd normally associate with the arrival of a Seraphim.

I arrive at the distant highly discounted airport car lot where my housemate is waiting, deeply apologetic. It's nothing. I say. Once I see that your car starts up, I'm gonna go to that 7-11 across the way that I parked in front of, get a slurpee or something and I'll see you at home.

While she is retrieving her vehicle (an equally eccentric but much more stately Subaru that is old enough to be elected to congress) I rifle through the loose change in the glove box and discover that I have exactly $6.66 in small bills and coins. The Subaru, continuing it's long voyage into vehicular immortality, immediately starts up.

Upon her return, we all remember that my friend had all her camping gear in the backseat of the car and there is no room for The Creature to ride home with her parent, so I again assure her it's nothing, and will just take The Creature into the 7-11 with me. She is trained as a service animal and needs the practice after the plague.

I wave my friend off and turn to enter the 7-11.

I promptly trip over the jutting back bumper of The Van and fall, cartoonishly, face-first onto the sidewalk.

Fortunately, I have a lot of practice falling on my face, and have learned not to throw my hands out but instead cover my face, so my unexpected self-inflicted attempted curb-stomping lightly scrapes my hairline and nothing else -my sunglasses even stay in place- and I get up and resume my quest for a slurpee.

It's well known that the airport is a lawless place, and the 7-11 across from the discounted airport parking at the stroke of midnight is no exception.

I know it's the stroke of Midnight because there's one of those Audubon society bird-call clocks that makes bird noises, and my arrival is heralded by the twittering call of a Summer Tanager. I am almost charmed enough by the unusual choice of chronological device to excuse the exorbitant Airport-adjacent mark-up of Slurpee prices. I stand at the machine for some time, trying to decide on a size for the price and guess what the fuck "Blue Lighting Blast" is supposed to taste like.

The Creature is being Very Polite but is somewhat agitated, I assume because she *just* saw her mother for the first time in three days and then she LEFT with no explanation, so The Creature is on her hind legs, staring woefully into my eyes, asking to be escorted around the 7-11. Even though that's not what she's not supposed to be doing, there's nobody else in here, so I let her hang off my arm and discuss various Slurpee Flavor options with her.

We eventually decide on an experiment in which I try a Small Blue Lightning Blast, and discover it tastes a bit like licking a nintendo cartridge but in a pleasantly satisfying way.

I go up to pay and realize something is amiss.

The Cashier is a young man staring at me with wide eyes, one had over the register and the other wrapped up in his rosary.

I look down at myself.

In my haste to reunite my friend with her spare keys and service animal, I had left the house in the following accoutrements:

Flip Flops. Not matching. It's below freezing outside. That last part is not particularly odd footwear for the weather in for Colorado, but it's an important detail for the rest of the ensemble.

Assorted scrapes, bruises, cuts and welts on my arms and legs that come with doing outdoor work and living in a house with three dogs and a fully-clawed cat that all want to be in my lap all the time. It's cold out, so vasoconstriction has pulled the blood away from my skin, a trait that served my ancestors well during the last Ice Age, but leaves me with pale skin to contrast the various wounds and I look like a corpse that fell out of the back of a pickup truck.

The black Bootyshorts with "CRYPTID" painted in bright red gothic font across my ass, that @theshitpostcalligrapher gave me for my wedding present.

A peculiar but extremely comfortable garment that straddles the line between "Lacy Camisole" and "Industrial-Strength Sports Bra" like the Ever Given straddling the Suez Canal. It is also Bright Red. with black accents.

The Jacket I had grabbed out of the closet, which is in fact, a black Velour Dinner Jacket.

The Tokyo-Ghoul inspired reusable anti-covid mask a friend made me with the set of Coyote Teeth.

My sunglasses, which are shaped like a Halloween Bat. The lenses are the wings and the body is the nose bridge. It is ALSO bright red.

A Very Large and remarkably Humanoid Poodle that I have been audibly affectionately calling "Dear Creature" who is hanging off my arm like she's my Prom Date.

The Very Large and remarkably Humanoid Poodle is ALSO dressed up in a black Dog Sweater that has white bones printed on it to look like its an X-ray jacket showing off her skeleton.

I look like I am taking my Very Fancy Werewolf Girlfriend to a particularly casual Dinner Party for Vampires, but the thing that's really selling it and probably alarming the kid the most is the fun accessory I acquired in the parking lot not five minutes earlier:

The "Small Scrape At my Hairline" is actually a painless but PROFUSELY bleeding head wound that I had somehow entirely failed to notice covering my face, neck, decolletage and magnificent cleavage with blood like a Tarantino Film Extra.

This does explain why The Creature has been delicately trying to use her bodyweight to push me down onto the floor for the last ten minutes. So I don't injure myself while we wait for the paramedics she hoped this kid called to arrive, you see.

The Creature has such a High and Naive Opinion of humanity.

I decide this social situation is already fucked, and the only way out is through, and with haste, before I start dripping on the floor.

"Hi there!" I say cheerfully, to indicate this is a visually alarming but not terribly serious situation. "Just a Small Slurpee!"

The Cashier has entered the relevant code into the register before I finish the sentence. His gaze flicks off me just long enough to look at the total, and he grips his Rosary harder.

$6.66

"Oh cool! I have exact change!" I say, taking the money out of my as-yet-unsanguined pocket without looking and slap it down on the counter. "You have a good night and be safe out there!" I wave, leaving.

I get in The Van, mortified, buckle The Creature up, and as I make to leave, I have to put it in reverse, which automatically turns on the backup Camera.

It also turns on the music player.

I make eye contact with the cashier as the dulcet tones of John Phillip Sousa boom from the van hard enough to make the windshield and the windows of the 7-11 rattle for the nine-and-a-half seconds I have to wait to be able to turn the volume back down. Not knowing what else to to, I give him a thumbs up, and leave.

Anyway, now I know what my Future Van Wizard has got to be dressed like, and what their familiar is.

---

If you enjoyed this story, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or Pre-ordering my Family Lore Funny Stories book on Patreon

[torlibram]

The Queen stood at the window, smiling down at the city below as she watched a half-dozen ships set sail with the ebbing tide. Four more stood at anchor out in the bay, waiting for the flood to bring them into the docks. They would be unloading all night, she knew, because they were flying the colours of the Hesperan grain cartel and her husband's bakeries were hungry for their cargo.

Roberta turned to look at him and marvelled again at the twist of fate that had led to their life together. His father, the old King Ley, had had four sons and then died without naming his heir. Each son had his claim to the throne: the Dawn Prince had the backing of the merchants guild, his brother North had control of the military. The Prince of the South had the mines in the mountains.

All three bickered incessantly, none willing to cede the throne to his brother, until the court Vizier had brokered a deal. The throne would go to the fourth brother, the youngest, the sunset child. Grudgingly, the elder three agreed to this and the new king was duly crowned.

His reign had begun as a disaster. As the youngest, the sunset prince had never been seriously schooled in the art of leading a country, and he fumbled a number of decisions. His brothers all but ruled in his name, furthering their own goals at the cost of the nation as a whole.

Roberta, then a Countess, had half her lands stripped from her in a convoluted legal deal by the Dawn Prince. She resolved to go to the capital and kill the young King Ley for letting things get to this state. She infiltrated his court, ingratiating herself with the hangers-on and influence-peddlers to get into his inner circle. She saw at first hand how weakly he ruled and how easily his brothers manipulated him.

It came as a shock when he summoned her to a private audience. It came as an even greater shock when, as soon as they were alone, he asked her to marry him. "I don't know how to do this." he had confessed. "I never wanted this. But I am King, and I want the best for my people. When you came to court, I asked about you. The dossier that the Vizier produced showed me that you are an extremely capable leader. If I give you the authority of the throne by marriage, I will do the best that I can for our people."

It had taken her a full five seconds of thought for her to say yes. A further five seconds before she had removed the knife she had planned to bury in him and dropped it on the floor.

Now, Queen Roberta Ley looked at the former Sunset Prince fondly and closed the curtains against the last of the light. As they prepared for bed, she said, as she always did:

"Good night, West Ley. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning."

A king who doesn't really want to and isn't able to run the kingdom properly catches wind of a noble woman who wants to kill him to take over and he realizes she is extremely competent so he decides to propose to her to save everyone the hassle and they have a surprisingly healthy relationship.

[torlibram]

Let me tell you something. You know, while I have your attention, what with the chains and everything. And before you start planning your escape: yes, I have a tendency to monologue, and yes, I am still very much alive and well, and yes, those are the desiccated bones of the previous set of heroes to try what you did. So hush a minute and listen.

Have you ever thought about why I set myself up like this? About what my eventual goal is? I'm not Evil with a capital E, I'm just painted that way by those with a vested interest in the status quo. Seriously. The big wigs at the Ministry want me gone because I am a challenge to their rigid thinking and blinkered mindset.

It was all my parents fault, really. They had it in their heads that I was going to be the greatest wizard ever, head of the Ministry by the age of twenty-five, all that nonsense. So they had me reading runes before I could read ordinary Westling. I could conjure air spirits at the age of five, if you can believe it. Oh, mock all you like, I could do it.

They tucked bits and pieces of regular education in around the magic stuff wherever I had a spare minute. Nine, sometimes ten hours a day, six days a week from the moment I was old enough to hold a wand.

I never knew any different, of course. I never had time to go out and meet kids my age. I never knew what it was like to be normal. It was memorising spells and learning techniques and practicing gestures and fifteen uses for newt livers in everything from poisons to phantasmal conjurations. It got to me, I won't lie. All I ever wanted back then was to make them proud.

It ended when they wanted to do the grand unveiling. Revealing their protégé to the unsuspecting world. Sending me off to the Invisible College to wow the staff there and start my ascent to greatness.

It all backfired when I met my fellow students. They were just starting out. They couldn't have summoned a wet fart after a big curry. I didn't believe it at first. How could they have gotten a place at IC without the merest cantrip to their name?

Some time in the library showed me what my parents had done to me. To my life. The rage that gripped me when I realised that everything had just been for their benefit: so they could be the gracious, smiling, loving parents who had helped their darling boy achieve the greatness for which he was so clearly destined.

I stuck it out for one semester. Used that time to get everything I could from the library, every advanced technique and spell that the undergrads aren't supposed to know even exists. I picked the brains of my tutors, too. Oh, don't look at me like that, I don't mean literally. I asked some leading questions and learned where to focus my research is all.

Then I left. My parents got all upset about their son disappearing and there were searches by the King's men, but I was well away to the north.

I got my start with a troll. One of the old fashioned lads from up in the mountains. He jumped out from under his bridge and demanded a toll. I offered him a few castings of a sculpting spell I knew, help repair the bridge a bit, and before I knew it, I had an actual friend. First one in my life and it was a troll! Talking to old Belag, I saw the rough deal that he and his people got and I thought "I could really stick it to dear old mum and dad if I start championing the little guys, the underdogs."

So that's what I did. After Belag and his bridge, there was an orc tribe going through a constitutional crisis that I happened across at the right time to get myself installed as the new chief's adviser. From there it was straightforward to nudge the tribe into better trade relations with neighbouring tribes, better treatment for the slaves that did the agriculture (which meant better crop yields and less lashing-to-deaths) and so on.

King Knob-Cheese, excuse me, King Nhobesh, the orcish turn of phrase does tend to rub off on you, was against all this, of course and so sent out adventurers to end the "orcish threat". My magic saw them off before they had their swords out. The next lot managed to get half a sentence of self-righteous declamation in before the acid storm took them, but I saw the way things were going. I advised the chief to pack up and move north of the mountains to make it harder for the King's men to find us. Took a lot of arguing, but I got him to agree in the end. He finally admitted he didn't want to end up with his head on a pike and rallied the tribe to move out.

Setting up this side of the mountains was tricky. The local tribes didn't fancy a bunch of southerners moving in, so I had to crack a few heads by levitating damn great boulders over them before their deputies saw sense.

After that, it was plain sailing. The northern tribes got the hang of things quite quickly and evolved into socialist communes inside a decade. Belag had a word with his cousins, who talked to their friends the stone giants and we had this place blocking the major pass to the north practically before the King knew there was anything going on. I was kind of specific in the design of this fortress. Yes, we want to keep the men of the south out, I said, but we should keep the option to open the way wide to them if they ever grow up. And so grew the tower of Broad Door.

Look, is all this history boring you? Because we can go back to the injecting molten lead into the marrow of your bones if you like? That's more the Ministry's sort of speed, isn't it? No? Ok, tell you what: you seem to have a halfway sensible head on your shoulders, unlike some of your erstwhile comrades. The northern collectives can always use a sensible head with a good sword arm. I'll turn you over to our recruiting department and they can show how much better life is this side of the mountains, what do you say?

Why? Because there is no better revenge, nothing, than knowing that my dearest mummsy and daddikins have to disavow all knowledge of their son, that my every act will shame them in the eyes of their peers, that I have subverted so many alleged heroes to my cause by just common sense and social justice. When I think of the ulcers I must be causing them because they can't bring themselves to admit the Dark Lord of the North is their fault, why it warms my heart on the coldest of nights.

Learning magic is an arduous journey, requiring sacrifice and dedication. Your parents made you give up your childhood to study magic—only after completing your studies do you learn that most other mages actually choose to start in adulthood.

[torlibram]

Esmerelda Weatherwax is literature's greatest Witch. And it is not even a little close.

What other Witch could so shrewdly bend the very story she was in to her will? To take the tropes and clichés and to weaponize them against those who were wrong in defense of those who could not defend themselves?

What other Witch, when faced with the Good Fairy Godmother, would rip the story from her very fingers and set things to right?

What other Witch, under vampiric assault, could turn the famous bite around and, instead of becoming a vampire herself, through force of sheer will Weatherwax the vampire? What does that even mean?

What other Witch could give a child a gift so powerful it would override narrative convention and let the long lost prince refuse to take his rightful crown in favor of pursuing his dreams?

Indeed, what other Witch would resist the crown when it fell into her lap?

There have been untold millions of Witches in literature, but not a one of them could sit demurely at a social gathering, doing absolutely nothing, and drive everyone around her to near insanity through sheer nervousness?

No one else could be so proficient at both Magic and People that she would barely need or want to use the former because of how effective and predictable the latter could be.

And all of this, ALL of this, while going against her own narrative nature as 'The Bad Witch'. To resist your own role in the story so completely that you transcend expectations and settle into legend as one of the ultimate forces of righteousness on the Disc? That requires more power, more cunning, and more skill than any, every other Witch. Combined.

And she did it by knowing people. By watching them and knowing things and by understanding, better than their own mothers, how to talk to everyone and precisely pass along knowledge. How to command respect, even if they don't like you very much. How to be indispensable, while dispensing with the pleasantries.

She didn't do it alone, but she wouldn't admit that within earshot of Gytha or any of her numerous brood (So, she would never admit it). She benefitted by her associations with Nanny Ogg, with Magrat, with Agnes, with Tiffany, with Ridcully (allegedly), and even with Death.

Who else would earn time for her candle to flicker in the wind, and a warning by the Grim Reaper himself, for the right she had done in the world.

Right. Not good. Not nice. Right.

She was the vessel Pratchett poured his every indignant thought at the inherent injustice in the world into, and she brandished those white hot notions against every part of the stories that tried to make her into something she did not want to be.

Esmerelda Weatherwax is literature's greatest Witch. What more could possibly be said?

[torlibram]

Night Watch- Terry Pratchett

[torlibram]

ourgh discworld is still so good

[torlibram]

I think this is my favourite spell I’ve ever written. I’m not sorry.

[torlibram]

Spent 20 minutes editing the Casino Royale poker scene to be chutes and ladders instead of finishing my English homework.

[torlibram]

There was a young man from Peru

Whose limericks stopped at line two