12 An evil sorcerer offers you an immense amount of power-but it comes with a price.
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When a King has three sons and only one kingdom to inherit, he raises his heirs to serve different purposes. Fjell-og-dal had a wise and business-friendly Cro...
This story went from my hardest to write (for the first 8K) to the easiest, being the 1st one I finished after entering everything for the 8K mark, and it was fun to remember reading pre-Disney fairytales from my childhood. There are 4 fairytales that are featured here and 2 that are barely mentioned.
I had thought to write out the MC's end of life, but that was too large a story for trying to keep this close to 20K. I would like to write it, expand out what happens to the Pied Piper's children, but all that will have to wait.
Why?
Because I was silly enough to try out 7 2K runs for ONC. 4 of them made it that round, 2 the 2nd, and I've no idea where this 1 will place as I write this. I intend to finish as many of them as possible, as everything I write borders between unique and conventional in ways that I can't predict.

So, from here, I go on to finalize, in this order: Coins on a Battlefield (mild smut) A Riding Need (2nd half is 90% smut, made 1st round, but I guess I didn't deliver as much on the front half, lol) Maysie's Galaxy (a children's story, have maybe 3 more chapters to write to "finish" it on the 25th, hopefully) Djinn Trap (one of the 4 that made 1st round, just didn't get to finish it before 2nd round was announced) After these 4, it's a crap shoot: The Essence of U (2nd chapter uses lyrics, so no wonder it failed-I ain't rewriting it unless I finish the rest of it and think it's got potential for anything more than a "freebie") Wolf & X Bunny (I'm a pantser, "stream-of-conscious", and this was just my brain going off like a tea kettle) All of them have up to 8K posted, and should be pretty much done next month, I'm hoping.
Wish me luck.

Oh, and there are common ties between the books, which marks them as having been written the same year, not the same universe.

All artwork is AI generated except for Baba Yaga's house, which is on WikiCommons. No, it doesn't match the story perfectly, but if you want that, you have to have a person make it, quite often. I may replace them at a later date, as I at least edit my own work.
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