Scalebound System

Say hello to Eira, everybody, the mysterious 4th headmate who finally grew her wings!

Thanks as always to @RoxannaRachnid@yiff.life for taking something straight from our brain to the page 💙

(Art by @RoxannaRachnid@yiff.life)

Rith yawned wide and pinched its noseridges, exhausted. "We've been at this for hours, Meph. Anything in your pile?"

"No Miss Rith, unless you want to send me back to Hell as a pile of ashes?"

"Don't even joke. The only acceptable outcome is that you're free - both from Hell and from me."

Meph sighed. "I don't see it happening, Miss. That contract was some of my best work, and while Meph isn't angry you reversed it back on him -"

"I'm still sorry anyway, for the record."

"- I don't see a way out other than breaking it, which means eternal damnation for one of us."

"Mrrp."

Meph looked confused. "Did Miss just say 'mrrp'?"

Rith shook its head. "No... Mel, are you here?"

It looked down - poking its head out of a drawer was a little catlike creature, black as the void, its outline a little strange as if it had been sloppily pasted onto reality.

"Oh hello, little one! Meph, what's this?"

"Ooh, that's a manavore, Miss. They're scavengers that sit on the edges of reality and nibble away, cleaning up rifts and spell misfires. Sometimes they appear in real places where there's lots of potential food."

"Like a shop full of magic items?"

"Exactly!"

"Will it destroy our goods?"

"Only if they're faulty, Miss. They're not interested in whole spells, only wisps of arcane carrion."

"So a cute kitty, a janitor and a stock assistant all in one?"

The manavore looked up at Rith. "Mrrp."

Rith smiled back, rubbing its ears. "Welcome to the family, Manny."

"Mrrp!"

Eva un-holstered her pistols. "You better stand down, or you'll be on the wrong end of Weal and Woe."

Mel turned to look at her. "Did you give your guns names?"

"Oh. Yeah?"

"That's so fucking metal!"

"Thanks!"

The cape waved. "Sorry, aren't we in the middle of something?"

Mel brushed him off. "Yeah, 2 secs, dickhead. Do you think I should name my whip-blade?"

The greyhound rolled her eyes. "Obviously! What about... Ivy?"

"Oh, like that game! Fuck, that's perfect!"

The hero growled. "Done?"

Mel flicked her wrist, uncurling the whip from her arm. "You will be."

#tootfic #microfiction

A sharp "rat-a-tat" knock on the door at dawn had Meph scrambling from his nest.

"I'll get it, Miss!" he said eagerly, sprinting to unlock and open it.

A hare in a well-tailored suit stood on the threshold, looking straight ahead before realising the kobold was 2 feet below his eye-line.

"Ah, hello young man," he said in a well-practiced sales tone. "Is your father around?"

Meph smiled slightly. "No sir, you would definitely know if he was up here. How can Meph help you?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to buy some of books of the occult?"

Meph eyed them curiously. "Meph does not recognise these tomes. Who authored them?"

"Well, I did, of course! These represent years of my work! But a little birdy" - he tapped his nose knowingly - "told me that you were working on binding demons, so I'm here to offer my knowledge at a very reasonable price!"

Meph stared. The hare looked unnerved, fidgeting.

"Er, for example, to bind a cambion, you would need some ghoul essence, which I also sell f-"

"Salt," Meph said.

"S-sorry?"

"They can't cross salt. Doesn't have to be real salt, if they even think it's salt they can't cross it. Sir."

"O-oh, what a smart boy! Then do you know about the boto?"

"Yes, if you shine ultra-violet light on them, they turn back into a dolphin."

"Oh. Well, my patented murkroot p-"

"No."

Exasperated, the hare snapped. "Is there anything you don't know, you little shit?"

Meph tilted his head and smiled. "There is one thing. What happens to the souls of mortals that are devoured by demons?"

The hare looked relieved. "Oh! They are eventually excreted into wisps, which combine to form gestalts!"

Meph's smile turned into a grin, fangs showing. His horns glowed red in the low light and fires ignited in his hollow black eyes.

"𝔚𝔞𝔫𝔱 𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔯𝔶 𝔦𝔱 𝔬𝔲𝔱?"

The hare dropped his books and screamed, sprinting back down the road.

Rith noodled out of the back room, yawning. "Meph, are you tormenting salesmen again?"

"Yes, Miss!"

"Good lad."

#tootfic #microfiction

Rith was feeling thoughtful.

"Meph, I think we're immortal."

Meph nodded. "Yes, Miss."

"Are we going to run out of things to do?"

Meph pulled his phone out of his belt. "YouTube gets 750,000 hours of new videos a day. Meph will be fine."

Rith stared. "Where did you get a phone?!"

"Internet!"

"I hope you're not looking at porn on that."

"Miss, I am at least 500 years older than you..."

"THAT WAS NOT A NO, MEPHISTOPHELES, WAS IT."

#tootfic #microfiction

"Hang on a second", Relic suddenly thought. "I thought the Shop doesn't really go where you want?"

Rith nodded. "Yeah, it's like that."

"But Mel can request a pickup whenever they need it?"

"Yup. Shop has a soft spot for them. I think it's because they eat all the termites when they come in."

#microfiction #tootfic

Relic was looking at Rith strangely.

"I just realised - you don't have ears."

Rith looked up at her. "Pardon?"

"I said you d- oh no."

The wyrm went back to its research. "Fucking got your ass."

#tootfic #microfiction

Rith slept, and slept, and slept.

Mel sat at her bedside. "What's wrong with her?"

The arcanist read through his notes. "She's a being made entirely out of solidified candesca, and she used nearly all of that power in less than a day. It's surprising she still exists at all."

"Well, how long until she's better?"

"A second? A year? A millennia? It varies from being to being, and from the data the last time she built up from nothing it took 600 years. She'll wake up when she's ready to wake up, we just have to hope we're all still alive for it."

The sergal sighed.

"C'mon, sis. You have a family to come back to now, and they're all waiting for you. They believe in you."

They wiped a tear from their eye, leaning in to whisper.

"I believe in you, like you believed in me when I couldn't. I love you."

#wip #writing

So, a little announcement. We're going to start being a lot more open about being a plural system and that means how we post here is gonna change a little. There'll still be unmarked posts on behalf of all of us, but we're all going to get to send stuff when we have things on our mind. For the record, each of us:

🟦 Hi, I'm wyrm, the first one of us and big it/its lizard monster. Kind of a dragon, sort of not. 40+ years old and feels a few centuries older than that, deep down.

I'm probably posting about current events, sport (maybe), video games and writing.

🟪 Hoy, I'm Mel. I was here third, I'm a sergal, they/them. Appeared because wyrm came up with an OC too awesome to shut the fuck up.

I'm the most politically active of us, so that'll be my focus, but I'll also talk about video games a bit too. I swear a lot, if you don't like it, too fuckin' bad.

🟥 Hey, I'm Meph! I'm a kobold that used to be one of Hell's demons, he/him pronouns. I also appeared because wyrm's creations have a tendency to take on a life of their own. Wishing makes it so, apparently!

I'm the book-ish one, I'll probably talk about that, writing, theology, that kind of thing.

⬜ Hi, I'm Eira. I'm the most recent addition. I'm not a character from anything, I think I'm just here because of trauma. I remember everything bad that happened to us and make sure we learn the right lessons.

I'll talk about that, psychology, sociology, and being kind to ourselves.

Rith was curled up tight on its pillow nest in the back of the Shop. Mel poked her head in.

"Y'alright, sib?"

It shook its head. "The problem with my body is it's sensitive to ebbs and flows of mana. It's like... when you get a headache because there's a storm coming."

Mel nodded, "or getting cold toes because it's going to be foggy."

Rith blinked. "Does that... happen to you?"

The sergal rolled her eyes. "Of course not, I thought we were trying to outdo each other's stories as usual."

"I don't think we've done that before."

"That's why I always win!"

#microfiction #tootfic

Rith was at the pub with Eva and Mel, the latter recounting a story of their first week in the Korps.

"...and that's how I got the code-name Havoc."

Rith nodded. "Makes sense, you're literally a chaos vector. Eva, how did you get the name Balance?"

Eva muttered something into her pint.

"Sorry, I missed that..."

Mel gleefully spoke up instead. "She fell out of her chair at the first training session."

Eva coughed up a mouthful of beer. "Did you have to tell it that?!"

"Of course I did, it was fucking hilarious."

"I hadn't slept, I was too nervous! But... it stuck."

"Why didn't you push for a different one?" Rith asked.

"Because you don't get another until you've proved yourself. Anyway, it grew on me, and since my new braces, my balance is perfect, and Mel's isn't. They tripped and fell into Karen's tits."

Mel scowled. "YOU TRIPPED ME!"

"Prove it."

#tootfic #microfiction

Kipo sat on the tunnel entrance. "Are you sure this lead is good?"

Havoc smiled and surveyed the road, a sheer drop on one side and mountain on the other. "I know Rith complains about me a lot, but I can be reliable, promise."

She looked skeptical but nodded as a truck came around the mountain bend.

"There!" Havoc yelled. "Do your thing!"

Kipo hopped down onto the side of the road, stretching her fore-paws around the barrier on the other side, blocking the tunnel. The driver honked and slammed the brakes, losing control - trailer sliding sideways and cab dangling off the edge.

Kipo secured the driver while Havoc disintegrated the trailer wall. As she came back to the maned wolf, she looked in and her jaw dropped.

"Is that-"

Havoc grinned. "413,793 KitKat bars."

Kipo danced on all four paws. "That'll keep us going for a while!"

"Unless the bottomless wyrm finds out."

#tootfic #microfiction #korps

New short story!

EVA NEEDS TO GET OUT MORE.

Since the creation of a new Korps outpost near Glasgow, Eva has been burning the candle at both ends. After Mel decides that Eva needs to keep in fighting shape, will a night on the town shake some of the rust off?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/83532931

#shortstory #korps #fiction

Chapter 2 of Hindsight is up! Eva gets entangled in a police investigation into Korps activity - but is she biting off more than she can chew?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/83118446/chapters/223081631

Hindsight Chapter 3 is up!

After the successful robbery of South Yorkshire Police's evidence lockups, Rith is left with a black box device with seemingly no way to activate it. Unwilling to take any drastic measures, is she at a dead end, or does her sibling Mel hold the key to unlocking this mystery?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/83118446/chapters/225388421

Signed off for another three weeks. Medication has to be reviewed by a psychiatrist so I have to wait.

Not sure why I had to come back in 24 hours later to be told that, but okay.

Now I'm extremely burned out from doing two things in two days.

A friend is starting a business called Helping Hands where she is providing free deep cleans and decluttering for those who can't, entirely funded by Patreon and social media.

To do this, she needs to get her passport renewed and an enhanced DBS check.

Please help if you can!

https://gofund.me/f0c98daaa

Ehh. That last story isn't getting any traction. Time to move on.