Deal A Better Hand

There was a flash of brimstone, and the demon appeared.

"Puny Mortal! You Dare-"

"I've got some adventurers coming up the pass, how do I take care of them?"

The demon's face dropped, and it's voice was filled with sarcasm.

"Oh it's you, Oh Grand One."

"Yeah, yeah. Answer the question."

The demon glanced at the scrying portal.

"Apocolypse everything."

"The deal was quite clear, actually useful advice only."

The demon let out a long, low breath, and focused on the party properly, before smiling.

"You'll need to make a new deal, if you want my help. They already did."

The One

I was about to head back in when he messaged me.



Now, I'm used to his dramatic side, but this was a new one. I messaged back a gif from that psychologist sitcom.



I messaged back a gif saying it could be worse.

Then he sent me a selfie of him and presumably the girl.

I didn't reply, unsure how to tell him she was waiting for me in bed.

Stasis Souls

Going into stasis is supposed to be easy. You fall asleep in one place, you wake up (hopefully) millions of miles away.

But there's a reason why a psychologist is supposed to be there when you wake up. Because sure, lots of people are fine upon waking.

But for a few, stasis felt like death. Like they feel their souls leave their bodies upon freezing. Waking up from that can be stressful.

Assuming, of course, that they wake up. Actual death is possible.

As is the possibility that those who wake up feeling fine aren't the same soul that entered.

Generally

Generally, once you get past the people whose job it is to go "Hey, you, stop!" in a building, people assume you're supposed to be there.

Generally, once you're able to demonstrate a working knowledge of the inner workings and the terminology of a building's inhabitants, people help you with directions and opening doors.

Generally, once you reach a point where you need to show identification to proceed, people are supposed to be prepared for attack but often aren't.

Generally, once you upload a specially designed program into a mainframe, people expect it to work.

But specifics let you down.

Fetching Armageddon

With a cackle only the truly mad with power could deliver, he opened the portal with his final breath.

We readied our weapons, awaiting whatever apocalyptic monster would appear. The warlock reminded us that he had 20 gold on it looking innocent.

When the small ball bounced out of the portal and began to bounce slowly in the middle of the chamber, the warlock crowed about being richer.

But then the ball rolled to a stop. The warlock, slowly, reached down and picked it up.

He squeezed it, it squeaked, and then we heard the growl of its owner coming.

Fire Escape

Her hand reached out to mine from the ladder up to the fire escape.

The last hour had been... Busy. I'd always assumed that those movies where some amazing woman just dropped into a guy's life and changed it was just a fantasy of boring nerds.

But after starting with her jumping into my lap to get some drunk guy out of hair, I'd maxed my credit card, become viral, and was now here, with her offer clear in terms of what she'd do for me.

I've stopped wondering what it would have been like if I'd taken her hand.

Safely Ignored

The signal was ignored for a long time. A long series of irregular beeps, dismissed as white noise from a binary star systems' complicated pulsar belt.

The occasional crackpot would pop up and claim it was proof of whatever theory they already assumed was true, but they were safely ignored.

Until a bored astronomer set up a program to record the beeping as a learning exercise, then forgot to turn it off.

And then the three year long pattern was discovered, and everyone began scrambling for analysis.

Bit too late, given the warfleet was already en route, per the message.