The Snowy Gnoll [Illustrated]

Each time a gnoll comes back to Riska's shop, she's been more and more changed by her adventures. Mature.

Riska stood high on her stool, looking over the small pile of treasure dumped onto her counter.

"And none of this is stolen?" she asked. The gnoll girl across the counter from Riska folded her arms across her chest. Riska felt it was a perfectly valid question to ask. When a gnoll in dark leather with more knives than she's got hands to hold them in walks into your pawn shop, you start thinking that maybe this girl is a bandit. It didn't help that she was skinnier than most gnolls, with a wiry frame that her tight armor accentuated.

"No, it's not," the gnoll said. There was a little huff in her voice. She was probably used to being accused of thievery. People didn't have high opinions of gnolls to begin with. Still, Riska thought, she did look like a thief.

Growing Confidence

A nerdy wolf girl starts getting bigger and stronger, and not even her boyfriend can stop her. Explicit.

Stephanie tilted the envelope toward her hand and shook the silver pendant onto her palm.

“Oh, wow," she said. “You didn't have to do this. Dinner was enough."

Her boyfriend, the tiger across the table from her, shrugged. “I thought you could wear it to Pathfinder." Though he was trying to play it casual, he watched Stephanie's reaction, hoping she'd like it.

“Yeah," the white wolf girl said, paying more attention to her present. The pendant itself was about an inch and a half in diameter and made of silver. It was shaped like a disk, with the image of a snarling wolf carved into it, its eyes looking forward and its mane making up the outer part of the disk. Its small steel necklace chain had pooled in her palm underneath.

This Mine Of Mine

Instead of bringing education to his fellow kobolds, Thuk discovers the benefits of mining. Explicit.

Thuk was a rare thing: a kobold with an education. He'd been part of a scavenging clan when he was younger, and then one day it just wasn't enough for him any more. He'd spent a year away from home, learning all that he could, and now he was trying to bring that knowledge back to his fellow kobolds. It was about as easy as breaking through a dungeon wall with his head.

The latest kobold settlement Thuk had tracked down was a mine, hidden deep down behind crevasses only the wiry little lizards could slip through and worming its way throughout the depths of the mountain. They mined the ores and gems that hid in the stone, and traded them with the creatures that lived higher up for food and small trinkets.

Thuk slid down to sit beside his bag and pulled out a scuffed and scraped book--a human-made one, for teaching basic math. If he could get these kobolds to think about their mining in terms of math, they could trade more wisely, improve their quality of life, and live more easily.

A Sip of Coffee

Getting a cup of coffee helps a young businesswoman relax into a trendier persona.

Eight bucks was far too much for a cup of coffee. But eight bucks here as compared to five at the place down the road--Tiffany figured she saved the time it took to walk to the parking lot, drive out, park, and drive back. The new gourmet coffee shop was two minutes from the front door of her office as opposed to the ten minute drive to the cheaper place.

Sixteen minutes for three dollars, which came out to about twelve dollars an hour--and she was definitely getting paid more than that, so on the whole, it was worth her time. As long as the coffee was good.

Tiffany took a seat at one of the small tables and set her black brick of a business laptop in front of her. She flipped it open and checked her reflection in the screen before it turned on. Her pale fur, combed; her black hair, pinned back into a bun; her charcoal suit jacket, sitting crooked on her shoulders. She sat up, straightened her jacket, pulled her blouse flat, then swept her charcoal skirt beneath her thighs and sat down again.

.BAT

A corporate spy's gas mask starts to grow on her. Other bits grow on her too. Explicit.

Eyes watched her from every corner of the abandoned plant. The first few times she'd spotted the red light, she brought it down with a quick shot. Couldn't hurt to be safe, right? But there were hundreds of the damn cameras. She'd just have to trust that the surveillance system was no longer broadcasting.

And why should it have been? The fabrication plant had been sealed over a decade ago. They didn't want competitors sneaking in to steal their secrets. Exosuit development had been a big deal for a while now.

After ten years, whoever was sitting and watching the feed had to have better things to do.

Broadway Was Waiting For Me

A superpowered cat sucked back in time is introduced to the high society of the Roaring Twenties. (And also turned into a girl.) Mature.

A wave of gray slush crashed up over the curb, then hung, frozen, an inch from colliding with the young cat.

The businessmen on the corner stared from beneath their dark-brimmed hats. A fox clutched at the fur stole draped around her neck, like she had been frozen in place along with the water. Someone let out a low whistle of amazement.

This was worse than the cell phone.

Today was Celsius's bad day. Number one, it was the twenty-third of December and he'd had a final to take this morning. Come on, you couldn't schedule it any earlier?

Number two, he'd ran out of people to ask to the school's Holiday Bash. Stupid party. He didn't want to ask the cute archaeology major to the party anyway.

Number three, he'd missed his bus stop, and the next stop was all the way down in the historic district, so he'd either have to go to an ATM and get change for the bus fare back, or spend half an hour walking home.

And number four, he was stuck in a time-warp to the Roaring Twenties.