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Grilled Cheese is a product of Village Compute

Version devBuilt at: 2026-10-17 13:34:13 EDT

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An image of a creature Strope only knew from rumours lay on the bed. Long limbed and faceless and just as transparent as Halla had been. The waden slithered and sniffed, searching the space for sustenance. With nothing to eat it opened its mouth wide and crawled closer. Its body slunk over the bed frame and advanced lizard-like towards Strope. There was nowhere else to go but the wardrobe and he struggled to pull open the door and clamber backwards into it. He stumbled against heavy clothes and stepped on sharp shoes but he couldn't venture out. Not whilst that creature was out there. It wasn't Halla. He knew that deep in his bones but he'd no idea what had happened to her. She was somewhere. She couldn't just fade away.

Something ghastly wafted through the door and swiped across Strope's face. For a moment it managed to snag the flesh inside Strope's jaw. Twin talons tore out from his cheek and he licked the blood that welled up inside his mouth. It had been solid. Only for a second but that was enough and Strope screamed.

It gives a small derisive snort in his general direction and paws the ground, and I have to reach over to Craig and clamp down on his shoulder as he seems ready to launch himself at the creature.
“No, you stay back!” I tell him.
“What? No!”
“Do as I say! We’ll take care of it!” I say, and throw quick glances at Gizelda and Irena, who nod and step forward. “You guys stay here and- oh crap.”
Movement from the gate and the roof of one of the buildings catches my eye as a hodgepodge humanoid creatures, all covered in that same purple-green tendril stuff, emerges from the night. Lizards, birds, weird antelope, dog and bear like things, all bipedal with crude weapons in their hands, shuffling towards us from behind. We’re caught in a trap.
“I guess you guys have to focus on those,” I point out, and Craig has the decency to gulp at the sight of it all.
“You can put me down now, Nephilim,” Vran says in Ari’s arms, who hurriedly complies. The soldier still seems a bit shaken but once again on his feet, if favouring the injured foot a bit. “Lady Eve, we’ll take care of these, kill the creature!”

Huddled in the crumbling fire exit of a ransacked Woolworths, McCaffrey, Pearl and Fella held their breath and watched the ominous shadow of the dragon which circled overhead. With every pass, scorched embers and bits of architecture rained down around them, a cursed pick n mix spilt by hell's clumsiest toddler.

Pearl glared at McCaffrey. 'Say you're dragon hunters, they said. It'll be fun, they said.'

'Nobody expected dragons to be real!' McCaffrey hissed back at her.

'That's because they're not!'

As if to prove the point, a large lizard-like creature of the genus draco volans viridius spat a huge plume of fire into the middle of the square. The town crest of Romford, once artfully picked out in decorative block paving, turned briefly into a puddle of lava, then solidified into a blobby charcoal space invader. Beyond it, a few stragglers from the failed Assembly ambush broke from the limited shelter offered by the Tourist Information office a faux-Japanese pagoda in the middle of the square -and ran for cover in a nearby supermarket.

“Kester?” Herecic said, confused.
“Uh, no…” The woman said her name, which meant nothing to him. “I’m on your staff, sir?” she added, questioningly.
He rubbed his eyes wearily.
On closer inspection, the young woman looked nothing like Kester at all. That one had been wild, feral, a colonist through and through. Whereas this tech was dressed as fashionably as laboratory attire would allow, her coat sleeves rolled up, revealing bare forearms, perfectly tanned.
“Of course you are,” he said. He glanced down, a flash of motion catching his gaze. His assistant — what was her name? He’d forgotten already — had a pair of leapers tattooed on her arm. Arboreal predators, he thought absently, endemic to the local jungles; iridescent green-purple creatures, lizard-like in Terran terms, though those sort of analogies were dangerous; cephalized, yes, with central nervous systems but not rigid bones, certainly nothing resembling vertebrae.
As he watched, the tattoos chased themselves up her arm, disappearing behind her clothing, then reappearing on her opposite hand.
She saw him looking. “The project has been a great success,” she said.
Was she the one he’d put in charge? Or had that been someone else?
Was this some kind of mockery, or obsequiousness, or maybe simply a fashion statement?
“I don’t doubt it,” he managed to croak. “You are dismissed…” he trailed off awkwardly, trying and failing to add her name, which had already fallen from his mind.

Elm had plenty of ideas about who Arkay was. She’d been all the way around the Forge by this point in her long life, and she’d met plenty of bat-shit crazy lunatics in that time. Curiously, a lot of them tended to be hideously wealthy too. Or maybe that was the only way to survive in the Forge as a lunatic, by also being rich. Elm had taken a fair share of bounty contracts from the crazy community before, some easy and some not. She’d once, long before Sera had joined the team, had to go to a little-known wilderness planet and wrangle a four-headed lizard for an individual looking for a pet to show off at parties. She still had a scar on her shoulder from that pest’s toxic fangs. The lizard, not the employer. She’d only been bitten by contracting employers in a small minority of cases.
The Forge was not kind to sane people, and everyone eventually broke down to accept their dysfunctionality among the chaos. People picked up strange hobbies. Collectors were common, especially in the parts of the Forge where ancient alien civilisations like the Mythmakers lay resting. The mission that had brought Elm to Talyn had been funded by a collector of old artefacts. He’d never gotten what he paid for, and that had been the end of Elm’s work with her corporation.

The others all blinked. Then nodded solemnly, murmuring vague comments about apples and snakes.
A small, sly grin tugged at Lucy’s lips. She knew what she was about to say was risky, but she also knew it was exactly what needed to be said to make Miles leave. Perhaps permanently.

Mel Waverly - The First Lesbian Book Club, chapter 20

Lucius makes an appearance at the Yule Ball under duress.
No, that's a lie — two lies, in fact. That whole thing is a lie.
First of all, Lucius doesn't so much make an appearance as he skulks around the festive edges, sneering at the students in their dress robes.
And secondly, the duress is only a performative protest. While Severus is *required* to attend, supposedly for academic reasons, Lucius has *other* reasons.
Namely, Granger.
He can see her, and he can prove to himself that the Slytherin dungeon was nothing, just a fanciful anomaly, a random Gryffindor in the snake pit, a forbidden fruit — *delicious* fruit, ripe and ready to be plucked —
No. There will be no plucking and no fruit. This is what Lucius tells himself. But he is a known liar.

She returned to her clinical examination. "Does it hurt?
Right now?" she asked, reaching out a sympathetic hand. (Merlin, was she going to touch it?)
"No, Hermione," I lied. Apparently this was the moment when she ceased to be Miss Granger.
I drew my sleeve back down to cover the offending ophidian, and my face must have fallen or otherwise contorted because her sympathetic hand was now heading northward to comfort my twisted visage.
I caught her arm en route. "No. No. I don't want... that.
"I want... this." My hands closed around her soft biceps, traveled up and across her bony shoulders, the sinew of her neck, pausing at the peaks of her cheeks, to tilt her back so I could proceed, with renewed purpose, to kiss her.
Lick her mouth, her teeth, to press my thumbs to the indents of her temples, slide my fingers into her curls. Her *wet* curls...
What was this? I pulled back to look. More feelings had welled up and were leaking from her eyes. I wondered, in a moment of silent hysterics, whether I should start collecting those tears — perhaps they possessed healing properties, like a Phoenix.

Silhouette of an oak tree against a green background.

Text: A Sylvan Tale #WIPSnips "lizard" (snake)

The stranger did nothing but continue to smile at her warmly as if she was an old friend he had not seen for ages. Nin’s stomach fluttered strangely, as if she had eaten something that had not agreed with her. She had never experienced such a feeling before and she wondered if she ate something for breakfast she might later throw up.

Tamping down the unsettling feeling in her gut that squirmed and wriggled as if she had swallowed a snake, she finally found her voice. “Do you need a ride?” Her voice shook, realizing she knew nothing about this stranger. He could be a robber like one of the men who attacked her Uncle Liam, but he made no sudden movements nor seemed threatening. He could still be a robber, but her instinct raised no alarms. By the look of it, he could not have been more than five or ten years older than Nin, as she had difficulty discerning his age. Older than her, certainly, but she could not tell by how much upon first glance.

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“Isn’t this much better?” R’allick returned his full attention to her. “Just the two of us?”
“Oh, much. But it would be even better without these,” Fox raised her shackled wrists with a small smile.
“No, no my dear. I insist that you keep the jewelry on. Consider it a gift.” A cool, lizard’s smile beamed back at her.
“Come now. Surely someone as powerful as you isn’t threatened by me?” she wheedled.
“Threatened? No. But I really love this carpet, and I would hate to get any of your blood on it, should you have any funny ideas.”
“What makes you think I would try anything?” she replied, all innocence.
“I hear that you have been taking an unguided tour of my temple.”
“Oh, that was a misunderstanding. I just got a little lost.” Fox knew that there was no chance of him believing that, but an interrogation was like any other negotiation: you had to hold some things back, so that you had something to yield later on.
“And the guard you tied up?”
“That wasn’t me. I have no idea how that happened.”

It paced, whipping its long, fat tail from side to side, leaving deep ruts in the sand. Rain ran from its armored body in sheets.
“You’re going to have to shoot it,” Dainn said.
“Me?” said Yago. “You’re the fucking muscle. You shoot it!”
The animal snorted, lurched past the rear windows, and vanished behind the truck.
“Oh, fuck,” said Yago. “Did I close the back door?”
Silence followed. Then a creak, a small thing, like a hinge in need of oil.
The back of the truck sagged. Something fell. A lot of something. Loaded canvas bags, boxes, and crates.
“Fuuuuuuuck,” Yago said.

She was still hanging onto Vola’s arm, and thank goodness. If Vola had thought she was close to fainting earlier, that was nothing compared to right now. “Y…you want me to…join you?”

A chorus of “yeses” echoed around the table. Artie cleared his throat again. “Between what we’ve seen today and what you contribute ‘anonymously’ online, Ms. Falone, yes. I think you would be a great addition to our little group.”

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October 8 - lizard
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The image behind the text is a border that is dark blue with gold stars with a black background with neon blue border. An illustrated caticorn holding a pencil and writing in a book with a rose behind one ear is in the lower right corner. A different version of the same illustrated caticorn is curled up writing in the lower left corner

At the top of the volcano, there was a doorway cut into the mountain wall. Inside the doorway, there was a long staircase down the side that spiraled around the side of the mountain toward the center. Where the stairs ended, ring of magma encroached on solid floor.
“Was there a point of putting steps to lead all the way up here and then steps back down on the inside?” Magnar complained as he started down the steps. He could feel the intense heat through the bottoms of his boots and thought that the heat in Wiil wasn’t really all that bad in comparison.