Weekend Writer: May Prompt Share

Hey all, Sam here.

Wow…we’re at the end of May already. This is the last Friday of the month, which means that it is time for the Weekend Writer writing prompt sharing post. If you’re new here, hello, welcome! For the first Friday of every month, I share a Weekend Writer post that has a bunch of different creativity prompts generated from several different sources.

Then, through the month, I challenge myself (and you) to choose a prompt and create something with it. Obviously, yes, this is technically aimed at writing (whether that is poetry, a story, a snippet of a novel, a screenplay, a song, whatever), but you could just as easily create a piece of art, and that would be fantastic too.

When we reach the final Friday of the month, I write up a post like this one, where I share some snippets of what I’ve been writing over the month. Sometimes that is just a bit of what I wrote based on the prompts. But it could also include some of the other creative writing I’ve worked on. I also encourage you to share some of your creativity with me. You can share a snippet in the comments or in your own blog post…or share your art on Instagram or Twitter or whatever…just tag me in the post (@SamRushingBooks), because I’d love to see what you’ve been creating!

If you missed out on my May Prompt post, you can find that at this link. And with that, let’s go ahead and jump into what I’m sharing this time around. This prompt comes from this storytelling deck from The Story Engine.

A Hag Wants to Destroy a Monster Whose Only Weakness is A Forbidden Spell But it Will Turn Them Into Someone They Never Wanted to Be.

Things were not going according to plan. The communities had been hiring adventurers for months, and sending them into the deep dark part of the woods, all to take on a monster that had been corrupting the area for nearly half a year by this point. None of them had realized yet that it was a futile attempt to revitalize the region. The monster was not one that could be removed by common means. No, it would take some deals, some uncommon tools, and more than a little magic power.

Nellie, unfortunately known to the region as Nutty Nellie Nightcaller, wished she could grant them aid, particularly as the beast was equally problematic to her home region. But things would have to get much much worse for any of them to risk seeking out her help. Only the desperate ever sought her presence, a fact she wished were different, but that made so much sense considering the tales they wove and the role they gave her in their stories.

She was a villain to most of those in so-called polite society, but it had not always been that way. Once upon a time she had been much like them, a seemingly normal young girl, from a small town, beloved by her parents and siblings…at least until the oddities began to add up, and it was realized that her blood was cursed. It was a curse put upon her, not one that she had asked for, but one that was imposed upon her because of some other deal. But it had marked her as different, other, and had pushed her to outsider status.

At the boundary between childhood and young adulthood, everything had changed as the holder of the curse came for what was owed her…and that was Nellie. And the girl was given the choice…give her life in servitude, or embrace the oddities of her birth and grow in power and ability. Nellie wanted the power to change things, and for years she had learned to harness the magic that surged through her blood.

Magic came with rules, though, and those were not easily skirted or broken. So now, though Nellie wished to destroy this monster destroying her domain, unless some brave soul chose to make a bargain with the hag of the forest, any such magic was considered forbidden. While hags were outsiders to civilizations, it was much different than the consequences that would come from casting forbidden magics. To do so was to embrace a level of monstrosity that very few ever desired to possess.

Except, perhaps, it would be worth it, to save the forest and the surrounding communities.

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And…all right, I’ll include a bonus snippet this month. This one is from the in-game story from Roll for Romance, my D&D inspired contemporary romance novel.

Mistwynn reached down and yanked two tail spines out of her armor and groaned as she took in the damage to the scale mail. It would definitely need repaired when they got back to Marsh Hollow. At least it had done its job well enough, keeping her from serious injury against the very unexpected arrival of a spined devil. 

Ander’s armor had a few deeper scratches in it but it was still in tact enough to be fully effective. “Well…that could have gone better.”

“Could have been worse.” Veeta…well, the barbarian pulled a few spines out of her leg, her chest, and her gut, merely grunting as she did so. She had gotten up in the creature’s face, distracting it after it had tried to focus on the cleric, and Mistwynn couldn’t help but be grateful to her adventuring companion. 

The dwarf walked over to the half-orc and placed one hand over the worst of the injuries while the other hand clutched onto her holy symbol. A few soft words and hand gestures later and the puncture wounds diminished greatly. “There. Almost good as new.”

“Thanks for leaving them enough to scar.” 

“Yes, we know how you like to tell tales of your many battle scars,” Mistwynn commented, unable to keep the small smirk from her face.

“We should get Reed over here,” Ander commented. “He’ll be best able to harvest anything useful from this foul creature

Mistwynn nodded. “So long as we can get back to town next. My armor needs tending to. You know how that adventurer saying goes…protect the healer, and all that.”

The party reformed and most everyone took a little bit of time to rest and patch up their wounds while Reed collected tail spines, claws, teeth, eyes, and blood, pretty much anything that could be considered useful from a lesser fiend. Of course, having trophies from what they had killed would also prove that they had completed the job they had recently accepted.

Then it was just a matter of returning to Marsh Hollow, which was somewhat quickly starting to feel almost like a home. At the very least it functioned as a nice base location for the adventuring group. 

They were all on guard for practically the whole two hour trip back into town, but thankfully the journey was a quiet one.

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Well, that is all from me for today. Please, feel free to share what creative projects you’ve been working on lately, because I would love to know. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.