July 2025 Talent Showcase
Oak & Elm Go Camping
by Tesariel
For more of Tesariel, check out their blog! http://adventure1359.blogspot.com
Follow their WorldAnvil profile to be notified of more of their work, characters, and worlds. Phoenix_Bluefeather
These are dryad characters from my short film that I am working on (that is set in Ancient Greece). I thought originally I was going to include all the Hunters of Artemis, but I decided just to include Elm and Oak, since they have such a close bond.
Social Pressure
(Part of The Foreseer’s Path collection)
by Apprentice
This story is prompted by the "camping" theme of this talent showcase, but the plot is directly linked to another story that is hinted at the end of this one. I still feel the whole thing is too fast, but my current idea to fix that is to make it occur in less time, and it doesn't convince me. I'm certainly not going to add more detail to the occurring days, it would probably be boring. Either way, it kind of works for now, even if I had more fun writing it than you will have reading it.
For more of Apprentice, check out their workshop room in the Infinite Imaginations Discord server!
https://discord.gg/wordigirl
by Ingo Jakubke
Efigie extended her arms, looking for something to hold on to, when she slipped on the wet needles on the floor. She found Fulgor, who tried to help her in the fraction of second they had.
Ámide laughed when she saw them both fall on their backs.
“ ’ You okay?” Ameriev asked, approaching them.
“Sure,” Efigie said, accepting Ameriev’s help to get up. “I just wanted to see the scary side of the ferns.”
“Yes, fine” Fulgor was saying, as he got to his feet.
Ámide tried to help him at the last minute, and Ameriev double checked because it wouldn’t be the first time he said he was okay while he wasn’t.
“What’s scary about ferns?” Ámide said “They are pretty! And the ones in rainy forests don’t even bite!”
“I don’t know, the spores side has always given me the creeps.”
They chatted about the ferns' reproduction process as they continued to walk in circles. They stood to appreciate the orchids and the endangered fanged doves that could only drink from the dish fungi, and when they passed the clear at a time close to the night, Efigie lit the fire again, while the others mounted the tent in the same place it had been during the planned night there.
Next morning, they started looking for the path out of the forest again. Every so often, they changed the guide, but all of them ended up coming back to one or another familiar area.
The first time Efigie said the place was haunted, she was laughing. But the last time Ameriev considered it, he was being serious.
“I don’t know, I guess there was some sort of warning but I didn’t know that language” he confessed as they set the tent again.
Ámide made a strangled sound that made him regret his words, but Efigie had the time to lecture him before noticing that the girl was on the verge of tears. As they all tried to comfort her, Ameriev said that, if nothing else worked, Efigie would bring them home.
“What? Me? How do you…?”
“With magic!” Ámide announced happily.
Efigie has heard of that. Not just from Áled’s coworkers, who were from other worlds, but in stories about her own people. It was possible, but she had never known how. When she explained this to her friends, Fulgor told her that he knew the words in the spell, and how much he trusted in her.
It was nonsense, of course. You don’t learn magic just like that, on your own and in the middle of a cursed forest. And trying could take them to a worse situation than the current one, so she simply suggested that they keep walking.
But they ran out of snacks (proper food had been devoured during the expected camping nights), and Ámide was horrified when Fulgor suggested hunting.
“But you are perfectly fine with eating meat,” Ameriev said.
“Paid-for meat! We wake up at any time if they make a noise, start the day way before sunrise because they like the barn’s doors opened at the first light, plant and raise the food they like, protect them from hunters when they go to drink and bath… It’s a life deal. The animals here owe us nothing.”
“More like a bloody deal, but it actually makes perfect sense,” Efigie admitted, for the first time understanding the reasoning of a person who could raise an animal only to kill it. It wasn’t friendship, just a deal, in which both parts renounced a portion of their time, in order to get something from the other.
Fulgor wasn’t surprised by the news, he had always thought that being ‘adopted’ by someone who cared for you to be comfortable and happy under their roof wasn’t very different from being cattle. He had even been chosen by the kind of person with whom it was supposed to be exactly like being cattle… not that he had stayed to find out if the rumors were true.
That night it rained again, and Efigie had to use magic to keep the fire dry as they got in the tent. As they walked, they had often been showered by fake rain when the wind moved the right branches, but the clear was okay until it suddenly poured actual rain.
“I thought it was a dry season now…”
“There is no dry season in this kind of forest.”
Efigie could deal with rain, and hunger. But now with Ámide tired sighs, or Ameriev finally giving up and recommending to stay put. And among that, Fulgor’s blind trust was the worst.
Social pressure was real, she found out, and tried to cast the spell to go back home.
It failed every time.
Next morning, Ámide actually shed some tears, not because she was hungry or because they had been spooked by nearby howling in the night, but because her mom was probably scared by now. At this point her parents must have tried to find her, and failed somehow.
“She’s going to think the night cats ate us,” she said.
Fulgor said that no, they would find a way to come back soon. And Ameriev urged Efigie to “take them back to Zabie”. Which, to her own surprise, Efigie did.
It turned out the spell didn’t take you to certain places, but to certain people.
Who would have thought? The spell could be learned in a haunted forest! Or a simple forest, actually, because when they asked Áled, he told them that it wasn’t haunted, and the warnings only said that visitors should stay on the path, avoid littering, and be careful because the leaves were always wet and made the floor slippery.
Why did they keep walking in circles, then?
Next afternoon, when Ameriev urged her to use her new learnt spell to save a life, Efigie had to assume that it hadn’t been a coincidence, let alone a mistake.
Ámide laughed when she saw them both fall on their backs.
“ ’ You okay?” Ameriev asked, approaching them.
“Sure,” Efigie said, accepting Ameriev’s help to get up. “I just wanted to see the scary side of the ferns.”
“Yes, fine” Fulgor was saying, as he got to his feet.
Ámide tried to help him at the last minute, and Ameriev double checked because it wouldn’t be the first time he said he was okay while he wasn’t.
“What’s scary about ferns?” Ámide said “They are pretty! And the ones in rainy forests don’t even bite!”
“I don’t know, the spores side has always given me the creeps.”
They chatted about the ferns' reproduction process as they continued to walk in circles. They stood to appreciate the orchids and the endangered fanged doves that could only drink from the dish fungi, and when they passed the clear at a time close to the night, Efigie lit the fire again, while the others mounted the tent in the same place it had been during the planned night there.
Next morning, they started looking for the path out of the forest again. Every so often, they changed the guide, but all of them ended up coming back to one or another familiar area.
The first time Efigie said the place was haunted, she was laughing. But the last time Ameriev considered it, he was being serious.
“I don’t know, I guess there was some sort of warning but I didn’t know that language” he confessed as they set the tent again.
Ámide made a strangled sound that made him regret his words, but Efigie had the time to lecture him before noticing that the girl was on the verge of tears. As they all tried to comfort her, Ameriev said that, if nothing else worked, Efigie would bring them home.
“What? Me? How do you…?”
“With magic!” Ámide announced happily.
Efigie has heard of that. Not just from Áled’s coworkers, who were from other worlds, but in stories about her own people. It was possible, but she had never known how. When she explained this to her friends, Fulgor told her that he knew the words in the spell, and how much he trusted in her.
It was nonsense, of course. You don’t learn magic just like that, on your own and in the middle of a cursed forest. And trying could take them to a worse situation than the current one, so she simply suggested that they keep walking.
But they ran out of snacks (proper food had been devoured during the expected camping nights), and Ámide was horrified when Fulgor suggested hunting.
“But you are perfectly fine with eating meat,” Ameriev said.
“Paid-for meat! We wake up at any time if they make a noise, start the day way before sunrise because they like the barn’s doors opened at the first light, plant and raise the food they like, protect them from hunters when they go to drink and bath… It’s a life deal. The animals here owe us nothing.”
“More like a bloody deal, but it actually makes perfect sense,” Efigie admitted, for the first time understanding the reasoning of a person who could raise an animal only to kill it. It wasn’t friendship, just a deal, in which both parts renounced a portion of their time, in order to get something from the other.
Fulgor wasn’t surprised by the news, he had always thought that being ‘adopted’ by someone who cared for you to be comfortable and happy under their roof wasn’t very different from being cattle. He had even been chosen by the kind of person with whom it was supposed to be exactly like being cattle… not that he had stayed to find out if the rumors were true.
That night it rained again, and Efigie had to use magic to keep the fire dry as they got in the tent. As they walked, they had often been showered by fake rain when the wind moved the right branches, but the clear was okay until it suddenly poured actual rain.
“I thought it was a dry season now…”
“There is no dry season in this kind of forest.”
Efigie could deal with rain, and hunger. But now with Ámide tired sighs, or Ameriev finally giving up and recommending to stay put. And among that, Fulgor’s blind trust was the worst.
Social pressure was real, she found out, and tried to cast the spell to go back home.
It failed every time.
Next morning, Ámide actually shed some tears, not because she was hungry or because they had been spooked by nearby howling in the night, but because her mom was probably scared by now. At this point her parents must have tried to find her, and failed somehow.
“She’s going to think the night cats ate us,” she said.
Fulgor said that no, they would find a way to come back soon. And Ameriev urged Efigie to “take them back to Zabie”. Which, to her own surprise, Efigie did.
It turned out the spell didn’t take you to certain places, but to certain people.
Who would have thought? The spell could be learned in a haunted forest! Or a simple forest, actually, because when they asked Áled, he told them that it wasn’t haunted, and the warnings only said that visitors should stay on the path, avoid littering, and be careful because the leaves were always wet and made the floor slippery.
Why did they keep walking in circles, then?
Next afternoon, when Ameriev urged her to use her new learnt spell to save a life, Efigie had to assume that it hadn’t been a coincidence, let alone a mistake.
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