Handbook of Erotic Fantasy: Out of Charges (Patreon)

Things had not been going well. They’d never been paid for their hard work at the Evil Chapel of Evil. And even if the project itself had gone tits-up, the Evil Party was still owed for services rendered. They needed that money too. With their own Evil Lair still in need of repairs (not to mention a proper exterminator), the life of the party had been a rough one. BBEG was nowhere to be found though, and Witch was honestly unsure whether her team’s erstwhile employer had been smited to oblivion, or if the skinless skinflint was simply refusing to answer his scryPhone.

It was, in a word, a stressful time. And stressful times called for proper release.

“Wanna head to the King’s Arms?” she had asked the others. “Maybe we could get the usual?”

“Hard pass,” Succubus had answered. “It’s not the same and you know it.”

Indeed not. Nothing had been the same since their front line had absconded. And try as she might, Witch couldn’t come up with a magical substitute for a big dumb warrior. Her happy poly cadre was broken, and there was nothing she could do about it.

“Heavy sigh,” Necromancer had added. But then again, that’s all she said lately. It didn’t take an Int-based caster to guess what the death mage was thinking about. Maybe it had been a mistake to sort through their old junk? The rummage sale had paid for their groceries, but Necromancer had been even more morose than usual ever since.

It was unfair! It was agonizing! Witch had only ever wanted to enjoy a little casual evil with her friends, but they couldn’t even get that right lately. Maybe she’d been hasty chucking the Medals of Do-Gooding in the trash? The golden baubles might have covered their reagents bill for a few weeks, but it was the principle of the thing! Witch still couldn’t look at a neck-slot item without getting irrationally angry at tea sets.

And so the magic wand. You could always rely on magic when people had failed you. And as Witch settled in for a few much-needed moments of mindless self-indulgence, she felt as if the troubles of the world could not touch her. That was the wand’s job after all. And it was oh so reliably good at it. What harm in spending another charge? Or two? Or even three? She worked hard. She deserved it. And the wand never failed to put a smile on her face.