Witch Won?

As soon as the supposed 'Witch' arrived and her eyes narrowed upon meeting me, I suspected she suspected I was here to debunk her. But, to her credit, she didn't accuse me of anything directly, sticking to her script as I told her about the ghosts that we'd made up to try and trick her.

She laid some decent groundwork with talk about "negative energy" so she had an out when she failed, but then as she began, a ghostly figure suddenly appeared before us.

It took us both a while to work out neither of us was doing it.

Fate's Fight

Fate and Chance had been in a constant state of war since time began, although the war was cold for so long the other Gods had forgotten what it was like when it was hot.

For the most part Chance fought reactively, picking their spots carefully but always managing to ruin Fate's plans at the worst time.

But humanity was Fate's greatest achievement, as they had infinitely more powerful fates to establish, Chance slowly but surely got weaker and weaker.

Until they swallowed their pride, and decided to fight dirty by calling in Greed, Society, and the new Commerce god.

Untimely

The Holy Emperor summoned me to their private chambers. Upon arrival, I performed the Holy Supplication Ritual until His Perfectness spoke to me.

"Can I be wrong?"

I waited as long as I thought prudent to answer as I thought about how to resolve the inevitable paradox.

"Why do you ask this, Your Amazingness?"

"Don't dodge it. I'm the representation of the Gods here on Earth. They are perfect, I am perfect. Can I be wrong about something?"

"Your Stupendousness, I might humbly suggest any thought of wrongness is merely untimely correctness."

That worked to satisfy him, for a while.

The Magic Scales Casino

There's an art to building a casino when seemingly every second being can call upon magic or the Gods to their bidding.

I'm not talking about the decor or anything, every race has a different idea on what constitutes gaudy so just go with what you want.

But instead, the key is about the magical wards and protections you put in place. Because sure, it's possible to completely protect everything from manipulation, but that'll put you out of business.

You just need enough, because at a certain point, anyone powerful enough to break them can just make their own gold.

Eeyore's Tale

His name was Gary, but everyone at the bar called him Eeyore, on the rare occasion anyone spoke to him. Usually he stayed up one end of the bar, drinking four beers and two whiskeys a night.

But then every so often someone would wander in, usually from the betting shop next door, and would be looking to tell a sob story of their life.

Eeyore would then pipe up and retell his own life story, full of tragedy and disaster, none of it his fault, of course. But the sheer mass of tragedy, coupled with his sad monotone, he always won the pity-off contest that he invariably would start.

Until one afternoon, when he was just starting on his first beer. A gambler came in, ripping up all but one ticket, ready to get drunk and pity himself.

Eeyore sprung on him quickly, and after the whole story, the guy sighed and slid his last remaining betting slip over, telling Eeyore he deserved it more.

I think he thought he was being sarcastic, wanting Eeyore to have another defeat. But the ticket came good for 50 grand.

Never saw Gary again. But the gambler made an acceptable new Eeyore.

Advise

We picked up the rookie wizard in the last dungeon, and as the bard and ranger cooked dinner on the fire, the rest of us were giving her advice.

"Oh, and never take a job where you are fetching a magical artifact for someone."

She looked at the barbarian with confusion.

"Why not?

"Invariably they betray you as soon as they get it. It's always a power grab."

"What if I know the person really well?"

"Doesn't matter, the betrayal's just worse."

"What if it's a second artifact asking me?"

"Oh, still no, they'll just destroy the world upon meeting."

Shiny

I opened the door, and immediately everything went color.

I wish that this was a 'Wizard of Oz' reference, but sadly no. This was instead a young woman holding a large box that had until recently held a large amount of glitter, and holding a self-righteous expression on her face, not that I could see it as I desperately tried to wipe glitter out of my eyes.

"That's what you get for dumping Jane, you bastard!"

"Who the fuck is Jane?"

"...

Aren't you John?"

"My name is Andrew!"

There was a pause.

"Can I see some ID?"

"...

No."

"Fuck you."

Impossible Odds

I punched through the window and grabbed the weapon, ignoring the pain shooting up my arm and the blood dripping down it.

The thing made a sound like a truck backing up, but I knew it was basically laughing at me. I felt the voice in my head, first as high-pitched wailing and then as English.

"You cannot harm me, let alone stop me. Why bother?"

"That's the thing about us Humans, we don't give up, even facing impossible odds!"

"Wait, Humans? Great, another ruined universe!"

It vanished, which was good, obviously, but I still feel a little disgruntled, yeah?

A Useless Time Machine

So I've invented time travel, but there's a problem with it, in that the universe is apparently self-correcting, and damn good at it.

See, like anyone, after the tests where I went back a few seconds, forward a few moments, I decided I wanted to stop millions of deaths, so I set the device to go back so I could kill just one person, you know who.

And then things went blurry, and the machine had reset. Any time I try to do something that is important, that act gets cancelled out.

So unless you really like stepping on butterflies...

Bait

I have a spot on the bank of the river where I fish on weekends. It's just a little way from the road, but hidden. There's shade and a nice breeze, and my constant visits have made perfect grooves and holes in the ground for my chair, my cooler, and my rod.

I go there and get time to think, to meditate, I suppose. It's just nice to have a place that's mine to chill out. But there's a problem that has recently occurred.

Last weekend, I caught a fish, a moderate sized trout. Totally ruined the mood, it did.

A Boring Man

Grok was a particularly boring man, in any age. He was an only child and lived for a few decades thousands of years ago. Nothing about his life was memorable, he had no great achievements, no glorious victories. He had cats, he counted numbers, and liked mead.

But.

But, he had a quirk. He wrote down everything. EVERYTHING. What he had for breakfast, lunch and dinner. His work, in excruciating detail. Everything he knew about his neighbours.

And those texts survived, and when they were found, he became a very important and great man.

But don't try to emulate him.

String Loops

Look, I'll explain it again, even though I've told you dozens of times, although you don't remember them, to be fair.

I'm looking for someone important, who is currently lost in a pocket dimension. I'd explain how she got there despite that being classified, but while no-one would know, you wouldn't understand.

To get her back, I need to find the right frequency of string vibration and pull her out. There's billions of possibilities, so I've set Earth up into a time loop till I find her.

I've only lost count a few times, I'll be done soon enough, OK?

Crossfire

I stood in the parking lot as the six cars all drove up rapidly from different directions. As they all jumped out, weapons drawn, I lit the blowtorch I was holding over it.

"Better stay back, the amount of gasoline here, the fumes will ignite first!"

Everyone stayed back, but their weapons were still drawn.

"So, introductions! That's the cops, although they're dirty. That's the bikers there, the cartel there, the Eastern Europeans, the doomsday cult, sorry, 'Chosen Ones", and the former owners. Lots to talk about, starting with-"

The fumes then caught alight, and the crossfire took me out.

An Excellent Choice

The conversation had jumped around a lot, and to be honest, I hadn't been paying too much attention as I stared into the firepit. So it took me a moment to realise that not only was I being addressed directly, but I was being asked a question.

"Uh, sure." I managed quickly.

"There, you see!"

I felt the temperature drop and it wasn't due to any change in the firepit. I tried to work out what I'd just said, but when it proved impossible, I 'accidently' touched the firepit to hopefully derail the conversation.

Which I did, so great success!

Time Eddy

Glory deflected the blast but it sent her flying backwards regardless, throwing her to the edge of the Multiverse Whirlpool.

As Fateist rushed over and tried to push her into it, she was forced to see hundreds,  thousands, millions of universes, as she was pushed ever closer to the time eddy currents. Flashing before her eyes was the lives of her alternate selves. She saw the highest highs and the lowest lows.

"You see them! In one of them, I'm finally happy!" Screamed Fateist.

"And yet not one where I lose to you!" Glory said as she fought back, reenergised.

Ploys

The old man looked out the window and then back at the young man who had tracked him down to kill him.

"Look, I'm not going to try and convince you that I don't deserve to be killed by you, but right now there's a Sodian Death Squad out there, and you must know how dangerous they are. We need to work together to defeat them!"

"This is a ploy to prolong your life, right?"

"Of course it is! How do you think I became an old man if not by ploys to survive!"

They survived until his next ploy.

True Secret Service

Before we get you suited up, your first lesson in how we operate, as explainedby our choice of clothing. I'm sure you're expecting a tailored black suit and sunglasses, but that's a uniform for people who want to be noticed while looking like they're not, like bodyguards or bouncers. For when you need to be seemingly unseen.

No, we operate in the shadows, and by that, I mean we operate in such a way that people will see through you, and not even know they're doing it.

So we'll be measuring you up for construction worker and retail staff uniforms.

The Bot Reading This

I must admit, as I continue this daily test of my creative powers as enforced by an otherwise arbitrary deadline, I'm beginning to suspect that the most impact this will all have is on supposed AI bots sucking up all these words to add to their learning algorithm.

Not that I don't believe that you, the person reading this, is a real person, nor that I don't appreciate you, I do, very much so.

But the stats imply most of my readership is bots, using me to teach themselves to write.

Which is complete bullshit since they ain't paying me.

Graham's Test

When I began to work on exposing fraud psychics and the like, I had a final trump card that I had, wherein I had a locked box kept in a secure location that had a number written on a piece of paper inside it. If anyone was psychic, surely they could guess this number?

There's a website that keeps track of all the guesses, and when I die, my will contains the steps needed to open the box, and everyone gets to find out they were wrong, like I told them.

Even though "Graham's Number Minus Seventy-two" is totally guessable...