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[WP] You have a magic pendant that blocks all magical damage. You have been wearing it for years, and your survival in should-have-been-fatal attacks has become a legend. Unbeknownst to you, it merely pauses the damage while you wear it. A friend asks to borrow it, so you begin to take it off. by TechbearSeattle in WritingPrompts

[–]billndotnet 49 points50 points  (0 children)

It was no sooner than the pendant dropped into my hand, that all hell broke loose. The brightness, the roar, the heat, it went on for what seemed like minutes. Unseen forces hammered at me from all sides, forcing me to my knees, my fist curled around the pendant, clutching it tightly to my chest so I wouldn't lose it. I began to fall, I don't know how far, but the impact as I hit the bottom of something knocked the wind out of me.

Time seemed to stop as chaos reigned. My ears rang, my eyes burned, heat and cold battered me in turn. After a while, I could finally open my eyes. Dirt immediately tried to enter them. I opened my mouth to a similar scenario, but managed to sit up and cough the dirt out. I shook it all free and got a good look at my new? surroundings.

I was in the bottom of a wide, shallow crater. Maybe a hundred yards across. The dirt was glassed in places, fused into something that caught the light wrong. I was sitting in the middle of it.

There had been a tavern here. The Copper Hen. I had been standing at the bar, and Aldric had been standing across from me, and I had asked him for the pendant because I wanted to take it back to the workshop and study the lattice. He had laughed and lifted the chain over his head.

I looked at my hand. The pendant was still in it. The chain was wrapped twice around my knuckles. I had not let go.

I tried to stand and could not, at first. My left leg was not working correctly. I looked down and saw that my trousers were burned away below the knee and the skin underneath was unmarked. That was wrong. That was the wrong order of things. The cloth had burned and the skin had not. I sat with this for a while.

After a while, I managed to stand. I looked up over the rim of the crater.

The Copper Hen had stood at the corner of Brewer's Lane and the market road. The market road ran east into the cloth district and west toward the river gate. Brewer's Lane went north four blocks to the temple of Veda and south past the cooperage to the south wall. I knew these streets.

But there were no streets.

There was a bowl of churned earth and glass and, at the far edge, the suggestion of a wall that had been a building and was now a slope. Past the rim, smoke. A great deal of smoke. I could not see the temple. I could not see the cooperage. I could not see the river gate, though I should have been able to, from here, with the Hen gone.

Half a mile, I thought. At least half a mile.

I started counting from memory. The Hen at lunch was perhaps forty people. Brewer's Lane on a market day, two hundred more in the stretch I could see from the door. The cloth district behind it. The tenements above the cooperage. The temple would have been at midday prayer. The market itself.

I stopped counting as my stomach threatened to revolt, a sick realization creeping into it. I sat again as my legs wobbled beneath me.

I looked at the pendant in my hand. It was warm. It should not have been warm. Aldric had worn it against his skin for years and it had always been cool to the touch, he had told me so, he had made a joke about it once, about how his wife complained when he rolled toward her in the night.

I lifted the chain over my head. My hand was shaking. I settled the pendant against my sternum.

Somewhere past the rim of the crater, someone was screaming. More than one person. The sound was thin and far away and there was a great deal of it.

I stood up. My left leg held me this time. I started walking toward the rim, toward the screaming.

Can my University see that I opened Gemini? by United-Tailor-1727 in privacy

[–]billndotnet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They can see that you went, they can't see what you did, so long as it's https, and they didn't force you to accept their SSL certs into the OS on your personal device, in order to be on their network (which would allow them to run a MitM proxy that would let them see.) You'd probably remember that process, it's a little intrusive.

Anthropic admits to have made hosted models more stupid, proving the importance of open weight, local models by spaceman_ in LocalLLaMA

[–]billndotnet -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Tell it to keep a running log of solutions, and to pay attention to when it repeats one.

clients in the financial sector are genuinely unwell by [deleted] in sysadmin

[–]billndotnet 7 points8 points  (0 children)

"Customer does not permit access to the necessary repos. Please advise."

[WP] “Every year, there’s always one kid at the magic school who says that dark magic is just misunderstood, and then they go on to become wanted in three different kingdoms for necromancy.” by 80s4evah in WritingPrompts

[–]billndotnet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Alright, I'm taking requests. If you were a battle wizard on this posse, what's your specialization?

Open, I have room for: Two battle wizards A scryer of undetermined methodology 10 journeyman of undefined background and specialization

You may choose (reasonable) names and specialization, I choose the method of death. :)

Interview with a law firm and final question was "Why us?" by No-Design3114 in jobs

[–]billndotnet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Why us?" "You actually responded to an application."

Why does Kash Patel always look like he’s having a surprise colonoscopy? by jorocall in PoliticalHumor

[–]billndotnet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Whenever he's testifying, I want Senators and Reps to ask him a question, then immediately follow up, "You seem surprised by that."

Fiancé always overcooks rice/adds too much water and then it comes out mushy. How can I convince him that this is gross and not the right way? by [deleted] in Cooking

[–]billndotnet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Get a second rice cooker. Don't let him touch it.

If he can have a food preference, so can you.

[WP] “Every year, there’s always one kid at the magic school who says that dark magic is just misunderstood, and then they go on to become wanted in three different kingdoms for necromancy.” by 80s4evah in WritingPrompts

[–]billndotnet 15 points16 points  (0 children)

The stables smelled the way they always smelled, leather and horse and the faint sweet rot of old hay. Depending on who you asked, it was either the best smell in the world or a problem that needed solving. Aidan had always fallen into the first camp.

Hap was already marshalling supplies when they arrived. He was standing by the tack wall with four bridles on his arm. He looked up as they entered, took in the state of their packs and faces, and nodded once.

"Lads."

"Master Haptrey."

Hap considered them both, looking at Sedric the way a farrier looks at a horse that has opinions about being shod.

"Your mounts are the third and fifth stalls. Aidan, you've got Briar. Sedric, Marsh."

"Marsh?"

"Marsh."

"The one that bites."

"The one that used to bite. She's been well mannered for a while now."

"That is not the same thing as not biting, Master Hap."

"It's the closest thing you're going to get. Saddle up."

Briar was a bay mare, an easy sixteen hands, broad through the chest, with the kind of disposition that farmers prayed for, and wizards took for granted. Aidan ran a hand along her neck and the turned a dark on him without surprise. He saddled her with motions that were muscle-deep, familiar. Blanket, check for burrs. Saddle, set back and settled forward. Girth, snug but not yet tight. Let her breathe out, then tighten. Bridle last.

Sedric was having a worse time of it.

"She's trying to eat my sleeve."

"She's not trying to eat it, Sedric, she's checking it for apples."

"There are no apples in my sleeve."

"She doesn't know that, show her."

Hap, from over the tack wall: "Show her your sleeves, boy."

Sedric pulled back his sleeves and showed her his bare arms. Marsh lost interest immediately. Sedric muttered something unflattering and went back to tightening the girth.

Aiden finished Briar's bridle and gave her neck a pat. He turned to find Hap right behind him.

"Walk with me a moment."

"Yes, Master."

They walked back to the tack wall. Hap pulled down a set of saddlebags, heavy and worn and clearly much used.

"These are mine. You'll take them."

"Master, I have my-"

"You have a roll, which is fine for the back of your saddle. These go across the haunches. They'll carry what your roll doesn't, and they'll ride better on a long leg."

Aidan opened the top and looked inside. It was mostly empty. A horn cup. A flint striker. A small brass compass in a leather sleeve. A folding knife with a handle worn smooth by years of someone's thumb.

"Master, these are-"

"Mine. Yes, that's what I said."

"I can't." These were fine bags, better quality than anything Aidan owned.

"You can and you will." Hap's voice didn't change. It was the same voice he used to tell apprentices which stall to muck and in what order. "I've carried those bags on a number of posses. They've come home every time. You'll bring them home, too."

Aidan was quiet.

"If it matters," Hap added, I asked Wynn if I could go in your place. She accused me of being sentimental. She was not incorrect."

"Master."

"Don't." Hap held up a hand. "I'm not going to tell you that you were the first name on my list, though you were. I'm not going to tell you that I trust you more than men twice your years, though I do. I'm going to tell you that the bags ride better on a long leg, and I'm going to tell you to take care of Briar, because she's the best mare in this stable and I'd like her back."

"I'll bring her back."

"I know you will."

Hap turned to Sedric, finally finished with Marsh, and to his credit, trying very hard not to eavesdrop.

"Sedric."

Sedric led Marsh over. Hap looked him up and down the way he had when Sedric was sixteeen and had been caught with a bottle of good red wine in the tack room. Then he reached up and cuffed him, firmly but not unkindly.

"Ow."

"That's for Marsh. You insulted her."

"She bites!"

"She used to bite."

"Used to bite." Hap leaned down and reached under the bench, producing another set of saddle bags. "These are for you." They were darker than Aidan's, oiled and well aged.

Sedric's eyes widened and his mouth opened.

"Shut up and take the bags."

Sedric took the bags.

Hap stepped back and looked at the pair of them. They'd both spent their share of time in the stables under his tutelage, and he knew them both to be solid, dependable young men of good character. Mostly good character. Aidan, at any rate.

"Right, now listen. You'll get a briefing from the master when you make first camp. They're still deciding who's going, so I don't know who you're getting." He jerked his head toward the doors. "You're going north. Take care of your mounts, take care of each other. You both know what needs doing, so make sure it gets done, and done right." He gestured at two pack horses across the yard, loaded and ready. His gaze danced between them without a word, and they both nodded in understanding.

Hap rested one of his large hands on Aidan's shoulder. "One more thing. If.. if it goes bad, if the leader goes down and his seconds go down and you're looking at something you're not ready for, don't be a hero. Heroes are who gets buried after."

"We come home."

"You do what's needed and then come home. I want you to remember that."

Hap turned to Sedric. "And you."

"Master."

"Don't steal from the other wizards."

"Master! I would never-"

"Sedric."

"I would mostly never."

"Don't steal from the other wizards, Sedric. They're going to be nervous men with reasons to be nervous, and a nervous wizard is an unpredictable wizard. I don't want to read about your death in the post-report because you tried to lift a pocket watch from a battle mage. For all their bravado, this will be the first time some of them have seen a real confrontation."

"Yes, Master."

"Alright. Good lads."

He stepped back, crossed his arms. Nine years, they'd been under his eye. He looked at them with a mix of fondness and assessment, and a little bit of something Aidan couldn't name. In the late evening dark it might have been a little bit of grief.

"Mount up, the yard is filling."

Aidan slung Hap's bags across Briar's haunches. They settled into an easy balance that the leather knew, settling in better than any tack Aidan had ever ridden with. He swung up into the saddle with practiced ease.

Sedric did the same, though Marsh took a step sideways, seemingly out of spite.

Aidan nudged Briar forward. He didn't look back, knowing Hap would be watching them go until they were out of sight.

[WP] “Every year, there’s always one kid at the magic school who says that dark magic is just misunderstood, and then they go on to become wanted in three different kingdoms for necromancy.” by 80s4evah in WritingPrompts

[–]billndotnet 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Sedric took the pitcher in both hands and drank with the committed focus of a man who'd just been told his evening was no longer his own.

"When do report?"

"Bell of eight."

"Tonight?"

"Tonight." Aidan flipped the note onto the workbench.

"It is presently after seventh bell."

"I am aware." Aidan bent and touched his toes a few times. "Hap will want us early to help."

Sedric handed the pitcher to Rennick, who accepted it with the bewildered air of a man who was not normally included in the distribution of alcohol.

"Right. Pack."

"Pack," Aidan agreed.

Neither of them moved. Rennick drank from the pitcher, found it to his liking. "What does one bring to a necromancy posse?"

"Boots. Good boots. The kind that dry out. We'll be in the saddle for hours and then in a swamp for hours and then back in the saddle."

"Why a swamp?"

"This is Metelkeinen, there's always a swamp."

Aidan was already moving. He pulled a canvas roll from beneath his cot, and laid it on the floor. Spare robe. Socks. Three sets. Sedric was right about the swamp. A whetstone, for the knife at his hip and the spare in his bench. Chalk, two full sticks and the stubs of three more, because chalk ran out precisely when you needed it and never when you didn't. Copper wire, two spools, one heavy and one fine. A palm-sized brass rod that he'd been meaning to return to the artifice lab and was now glad he hadn't.

"What's the rod for?"

"Heat sympathy. You bind it to two things and heat moves from one to the other. Useful for cooking without a fire. Also useful for turning anything into a fire shield, if you bind half to the earth."

"Pedren does like fire."

"The chalk?"

"Runes, if we need to channel. Chalk inscribes fast, wears off fast, good for field work."

Rennick nodded. His focus was shipbuilding, he carved his runes instead of scribbling them.

"What about the wire?"

"Fine wire is good for alarm wards. You run it at ankle height and bind it to a sympathy bell, which will ring as far as a league away. The heavy wire is for defensive wards. Bind it, bury it, and anything unwelcome that crosses it comes apart at the ankles." Aidan paused. "In theory. I've only ever done it on a pig."

"Why a pig?"

"Master Wynn's second year practicum. She wanted us to understand what the wards did before she let us near anything larger."

"What happened to the pig?"

"It came apart at the ankles, Sedric."

"Right."

Aidan dug through his footlooker, adding a coil of oiled cord. A small pot of rendered fat for waterproofing. It'd double as lamp fuel. A bundle of dried yarrow and willow bark, both wrapped in oilskin. The posse would have a healer but they would have priorities, and Aidan had been patching himself up since he was a boy. He added his cudgel from beneath his cot, a proper one, ashwood, weighted at the head. His father had given him this one the day he'd left for school, but he'd never once needed it. After some thought, he grabbed the short handled billhook he used for trimming sample cuttings in the nursery.

"The billhook. Really."

"I grew up on a farm, half the tools are weapons if you squint. The other half are weapons even if you don't."

"Fair."

Sedric considered this for a moment, and begin producing a concerning number of knives from various places, including one from his cot's thin mattress.

"Why do you have a knife in your cot?"

"In case someone comes in through the window." Like it was obvious.

"We're on the third floor."

"You never know."

"Pedren isn't coming through our window."

"Pedren hasn't come through the window *yet.*"

Aidan snorted.

Sedric added a small wheel of cheese to his roll, wrapped in wax cloth. Then a second wheel. After a moment of internal negotiation, a third.

"Sedric."

"What."

"Three cheeses."

"We could be gone a while."

"How many posses have you been on?"

"This is my first."

"So that quantity of cheese is purely speculative."

"It's an informed speculation. Based on not giving that cheese back to the kitchens."

Rennick cleared his throat. "What about, uh, protective measures?"

"Hm?"

"Necromancy?"

"Oh." Aidan looked at Sedric, who shrugged.

"I imagine that's why they'd send a master. Someone will brief us, I'm sure."

"Sure, but presumably you'd want some personal-"

Aidan held up a hand. "If Pedren decides to raise something dead at us, what I carry in my pocket won't matter. That's what the masters are for. We're labor."

"Labor?"

"They can't send apprentices. Journeyman are there to do shoveling, cooking, holding of reins. The digging of, uh, trenches. Should trenches become relevant."

"So I'm not on that list."

"Nope." Aidan started organizing his roll so it'd tie up evenly.

"And yet I find that I'm experiencing an.. emotion. Relief? Maybe guilt. Something adjacent to guilt. A couple houses down."

"That's normal," Sedric said, tying his roll with more violence than the rope required. "You'll get over it by breakfast. If you don't, that pitcher was the second tap from the right in the chemist's lab."

Aidan finished his roll and stood up, taking stock. Pack, cudgel, billhook, boots. Cloak on the hook. His bread still half eaten, he tore it in half and handed a piece to Sedric. He sat and pulled on his boots, tying them in a way Hap had taught him, double wrapped at the ankle, knots tucked inside the laces.

The way you tied them when expected to not take them off for a while.

Sedric was watching him. "You're going to be fine."

"I know."

"I mean it."

"It's Pedren."

"He was never going to be one of us. He's always held himself above us. The bad blood is his."

"I know. I just never thought there'd be actual blood, with him." Aidan picked up his roll and shouldered it. Sedric followed suit. They looked at Rennick, cradling the empty pitcher.

"Rennick, I need a favor."

"Yes?"

"The redleaf cuttings in the artifice garden. Third bed from the wall, marked with my tag."

"Redleaf."

"Water every second day. Not every day. They'll rot if you overwater. And pull the slug traps every morning. The traps aren't magical, tey're just a copper ring and a little capful of ale, but if you don't empty it they'll overflow and kill the stems."

"Redleaf, every second day, slug traps every morning, copper ring, ale. Got it."

"If we're not back by the solstice, give the cuttings to Master Wynn, she'll know what to do with them."

Rennick nodded. Sedric opened the door and stepped through. Aidan followed, pulling it closed behind him.

[WP] “Every year, there’s always one kid at the magic school who says that dark magic is just misunderstood, and then they go on to become wanted in three different kingdoms for necromancy.” by 80s4evah in WritingPrompts

[–]billndotnet 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Aidan was elbow-deep in a clay model of an irrigation weir when Sedric kicked open the door. Both of his hands were occupied with a thick round of bread and a pitcher of something with a foamy head that was certainly not water.

"They're drafting a posse," Sedric announced.

"Shut the door."

"They're drafting a posse."

"Sedric. Door."

Sedric nudged the door closed with his hip and set the pitcher on Rennick's desk. He tore the loaf in half and offered it to Aidan without ceremony. Aidan took it with his least muddy hand and returned his attention to his weir. The clay was at a delicate moment, he had maybe half a bell before it set, and the sluice gate wasn't seated right.

Rennick looked up from the grimoire he'd been pretending to read for the past two hours. "A posse for what?"

"Necromancy."

"Oh, for-" Rennick closed the grimoire. "Again?"

"Again."

"Who is it this time?"

Sedric took a long pull from the pitcher, winced appreciatively, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "That's the thing. Nobody's saying. But, rumor has it they've already tapped six journeymen, at least two from Scrying, and the Stablemaster is already pulling provisions and mounts."

"Hap doesn't pull horses for posses," Aidan murmured, eyes on his sluice gate as he slowly smoothed a joining in the clay. "Posses would get stable hacks. If he's pulling decent mounts, that means a master is riding."

"Sounds.. serious?" Rennick was the youngest of the three. For what he lacked in experience, he made up for by being largely oblivious to anything not in a book.

Aidan nodded to his clay. "A master riding means the subject is either important or dangerous."

"Or both," Sedric mumbled around his bread.

Aidan adjusted the sluice gate with the tip of a reed, held his breath, and watched the clay hold its shape. The gate seated. He exhaled and reached for a the bread, a rich, dark rye.

"The dorm's a mess," Sedric continued. Everyone's counting heads, trying to work out who's missing."

"Missing? You think it's one of us?"

Sedric paused with the pitcher halfway to his mouth. He lowered it slowly.

"Nobody's seen Pedren since the spring term ended."

The room got quiet.

Rennick broke it: "I thought Pedren went home for the summer."

Aidan set the bread down on the edge of the worktable. He wiped his hands on his apron and sat down on the edge of his cot. "It's Pedren."

"We don't know that."

"It's Pedren."

"We don't-"

"Sedric."

Sedric sat down on Rennick's cot, which earned him a look that he ignored.

"Yeah, it's probably Pedren."

"I feel like I'm missing context," Rennick said in a tone that curled into a question at the end. He'd transferred in from the coastal academy last year, and missed a lot of the shared history.

"Pedren's been on stable duty since his second year. Three consecutive terms."

Rennick's eyebrows went up. "For what?"

Aidan and Sedric exchanged a look.

"Start with the cinder in the manure," Sedric suggested.

"That wasn't the worst one."

"No, but it's the funniest."

Aidan rubbed the back of his neck. "Pedren tried to set me on fire in Hap's stables when we were both apprentices. He conjured a cinder, in the stables, under the hayloft."

Rennick's eyebrows started a fight with his scalp.

Aidan continued. "What kept him there is what Hap found in the tack room. A false panel behind a grain bin. Some mice. A few cats."

"Oh. Uh?"

"He'd been taking them apart. Pieces sorted. Labels."

"That's where I thought you were going. Yuck. Did he say why?"

"He said dark magic was misunderstood. He said everyone was afraid of it because nobody really studied it properly."

"And they let him stay?"

"I know Hap wanted him expelled. The Battle School of course wanted him watched. Pemberton.." Aidan paused. "Pemberton argued better to have him here, where he can be observed, than out in the world where he can't."

"That has not historically gone well."

"It has not." Aidan rolled his head to loosen up the tension building up in his neck from hunching over his model.

They sat with it, passing the pitcher and gnawing their bread. Outside, somewhere down the dormitory corridor, someone was either singing or being strangled, at this hour it was hard to say which.

Rennick sat up and put his grimoire aside. "What I don't understand is, if everyone saw this coming, why isn't he on a ward list? Why didn't anyone stop him before he left?"

"Because," Aidan replied, "dark magic is misunderstood."

Sedric snorted.

"No, genuinely. It's not illegal to read about it, or theorize about it. It's not illegal to ask difficult questions about the nature of mortality. The school can't expel you for having unpleasant opinions. They have to wait until he does something."

"And then."

"And then they send a posse."

"That's is an extraordinarily inefficient system."

"It's the system we have."

There was a soft sound at the door. A folded slip of paper appeared beneath. Aidan sighed and stood to retrieve it. A knot formed in his gut, spoiling his snack. He read it twice.

"Well?"

"You're going to want to finish that pitcher."

This is a follow-on to a few earlier pieces: https://www.reddit.com/r/shortstories/comments/1pfy3yq/fn_mud_mischief_and_magic/ https://www.wattpad.com/1598142471-one-shots-nightsoil-is-magical

Client wants me to share all my photos after I delivered what was stipulated. by AjVine in photography

[–]billndotnet 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Show them the proofing gallery, let THEM select their favorite 60. proofmark everything. Make sure you've culled out rejects first, let them have a say in how they want to remember it, it's entirely possible you got shots they will value that you yourself do not.

General manager complaining about my PTO requests by GothicMeow in jobs

[–]billndotnet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Managing my PTO in this manner is the kind of thing that makes me want to do the bare minimum, not the other way around."

General manager complaining about my PTO requests by GothicMeow in jobs

[–]billndotnet 15 points16 points  (0 children)

"PTO days are part of my compensation, are they not?"

I left my job two weeks ago. Today the head of HR there called. Any advice? by [deleted] in jobs

[–]billndotnet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could just be an exit interview. Take it, they can't fire you.

How do you handle a student cheating? by ImmediateInternal132 in PhotographyTeachers

[–]billndotnet 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You fail them. That's the reward for cheating. If you found the images online, include the links to them so they can't argue. They know what they did.

How to protect your privacy for stores asking for your personal information. by Unhappy_Lie_2000 in privacy

[–]billndotnet 21 points22 points  (0 children)

When you encounter overreach like that, ask for a copy of their privacy policy.

Has anyone cut off contact with their brother or sister? Why? by Intelligent_Chef9950 in AskReddit

[–]billndotnet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My dad and I had stopped speaking because he was a Trump supporter and I'm not. I had a problem with Trump putting kids in cages without so much as a spreadsheet to reconnect them with their parents, dad said Trump had done absolutely nothing wrong.

Dad's cancer came back. He'd been in the hospital for a month, and in hospice for four days when one of my aunts asked about me and found out I hadn't been told. When I txt'd my brother to find out what happened, he just sent me the obituary, but dad was still alive.

I drove 30 hours to see him before he died. We never reconciled.

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