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Thunderdome 608: Back On My Bullshit Hello everyone. I have just written a novel. It is not a good novel, it is an alpha draft. Which means I have been just entirely on my bullshit, doing exploration writing, just throwing pure Vibes on the page. So for this week, I want you to spend 2000 words being on your bullshit. Write the story you want to write in your personal favorite vibe. For inspiration, I will provide every entrant with a Tarot card, pulled from the CELTIC TAROT DECK.  If you would like a flash, I can provide you with a three card spread for the cost of 500 words. To be clear, we're looking for stories that are: 2,000 words about your favorite thing in your favorite genre and I will give you a tarot card for bonus inspiration OR stories that are: 1500 words about your favorite thing in your favorite genre and I will draw three cards for you. This card deck does have dicks in it. You are allowed to write erotica IF AND ONLY IF your card has naked folks on it. All other exclusions apply, no google docs, no editing, no political screeds. Sign ups due by Saturday 12am edt Submissions due technically by Monday 12am edt, but practically speaking you've got until I wake up, more like 6am. WRITE WRITE WRITE. Chernobyl Princess fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 02:37
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thunderdome winner
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I am so in, with a tarot for bonus inspiration
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Mar 26, 2024 02:46
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I am in
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Mar 26, 2024 03:00
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Oh dammit I gotta be in, gimme 1 card
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Mar 26, 2024 03:06
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i am in, I'll take one tarot card
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Mar 26, 2024 03:18
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beep-beep car is go posted:I am so in, with a tarot for bonus inspiration  shwinnebego posted:I am in  derp posted:Oh dammit I gotta be in, gimme 1 card  juggalo baby coffin posted:i am in, I'll take one tarot card 
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Mar 26, 2024 03:40
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In, three-card spread for me plz/thx
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Mar 26, 2024 03:47
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Antivehicular posted:In, three-card spread for me plz/thx  ...sorry the glare cut off the Page of Swords name there
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Mar 26, 2024 03:59
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in,  , three cards please
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Mar 26, 2024 04:16
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In with one card
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Mar 26, 2024 04:46
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Yeah give me a card.
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Mar 26, 2024 04:50
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Hell yeah I'm in, gimme one card plz
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Mar 26, 2024 05:38
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Hello three cards please
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Mar 26, 2024 06:49
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rohan posted:in, Congrats, you get the first dick card!   Hawklad posted:In with one card  Albatrossy_Rodent posted:Yeah give me a card.  Captain_Person posted:Hell yeah I'm in, gimme one card plz  Chairchucker posted:Hello three cards please 
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Mar 26, 2024 13:05
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Hi my name is Nae and I’m back on my bullshit, so I’m in with one tarot please!
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Mar 26, 2024 15:42
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y'know what, gently caress it, I might be able to pull this off. in, gimme a three card spread
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Mar 26, 2024 15:44
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Nae posted:Hi my name is Nae and I’m back on my bullshit, so I’m in with one tarot please!  Nethilia posted:y'know what, gently caress it, I might be able to pull this off. 
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Mar 26, 2024 18:56
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In. One card please.
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Mar 26, 2024 20:52
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Lord Zedd-Repulsa posted:In. One card please. 
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Mar 27, 2024 14:36
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What the hell, haven't done this in a while. In with one card.
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Mar 27, 2024 14:57
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You know, maybe I should get back on my bullshit, too. In for three, please.
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Mar 27, 2024 17:44
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I'm judging.
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Mar 27, 2024 19:09
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In with three please
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Mar 27, 2024 22:26
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Quiet Feet posted:What the hell, haven't done this in a while.  Tyrannosaurus posted:You know, maybe I should get back on my bullshit, too. In for three, please.  MockingQuantum posted:In with three please 
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Mar 28, 2024 01:40
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1 card please
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Mar 28, 2024 02:04
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Ceighk posted:1 card please Nine of Shields has her titties out 
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Mar 28, 2024 02:58
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I'm in for three cards! This is my first one so I'm excited!
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Mar 28, 2024 16:15
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forest spirit posted:I'm in for three cards! This is my first one so I'm excited! Welcome! 
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Mar 28, 2024 16:28
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Chernobyl Princess posted:Welcome! If this is too much to ask, feel free to ignore, but is there a way you could reverse some of the cards with a tiny shuffle? From what little I know about tarot is that cards that are dealt reversed have the opposite energy or meaning, and I feel like that would be another interesting wrinkle to have to incorporate! If that's too much to ask though, I am good with what I got dealt!
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Mar 28, 2024 17:13
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forest spirit posted:If this is too much to ask, feel free to ignore, but is there a way you could reverse some of the cards with a tiny shuffle? The cards are absolutely here just for inspo so I haven't been doing reversals, but if you want to know, the hanged man and the 3 of wands were both initially reversed when I pulled them
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Mar 28, 2024 17:22
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Chernobyl Princess posted:The cards are absolutely here just for inspo so I haven't been doing reversals, but if you want to know, the hanged man and the 3 of wands were both initially reversed when I pulled them Thanks!
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Mar 28, 2024 17:27
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here's my entry, if i didn't post it i was going to go mad tweaking it forever. Personal Corporatehood 2000 words Card: Five of Wands The commute to the venue had been nightmarish. Deliberately so. Cloud Solution liked to go into these merger talks with the opposition off-balance. The place was an ancient office tower of nostalgic glass-and-steel construction. Few of those were still standing, let alone this well preserved. A trait its environs exaggerated by contrast: Only the lowest rungs of the corporate ladder operated nearby, moribund third-sector operations with aberrant structures, lurking and scraping through the ruins for anything more valuable than dirt or broken concrete. In turn, these wretches supplied a dismal ‘business community’ of upsettingly crude facsimiles of real franchises, proffering wares indistinct from the omnipresent detritus littering the ground. Personal Corporatehood had not been kind anywhere, but it had been especially cruel here. Atomheart had tapped Biledyn Innovations for these... acrimonious negotiations. Though Biledyn was new to the business, she’d made a name for herself through asset-stripping recalcitrant acquisitions for larger corporate entities, alongside a side-hustle in DNAsign. She wanted to capitalize on the momentum and, well, capital she’d accumulated, to reach for the next rung of the ladder: Corporal Negotiations Her opposition today was an industry thought leader who’d been around forever, but always kept ahead of the curve. And despite being a talent everyone wanted to acquire, he’d avoided consolidation. Even Cloud Solution couldn’t get its tentacles on him. He had a ‘birth name’, a trade name, even a few shell identities, but everyone knew him by the epithet ‘Regret Conveyor’. There were many potential origin stories for it; the Regret Conveyor liked them all, and so refused to clarify. Biledyn reached the tower block after negotiating a minefield of mewling third-sector cadavers, pleading for capital investment. The empty lobby yawned beyond the glass frontage. It was afternoon but evening-dark; a constant in Cloud holdings. What little sun percolated through the cover patterned the windows in tiger-stripes, obscuring most of the interior. “What’re you waiting for?” something croaked from nearby. “I’m early” replied Biledyn, shading her eyes to see the speaker in the gloom. A skin-and-bone third-sector, easy on the skin, propped up in the alley. “Bullshit. I think you’re scared.” “You’ve got the budget for thinking? I thought you were just bones.” “gently caress you. You’re bones too.” “Only the face. And that’s on purpose. The rest of me is top shelf... You don’t even have any organs.” “Everyone in your industry has a skeleton face. It’s not scary any more.” “It’s about brand identity, not scariness.” “Well you’re about to get your brand identity, and your fancy organs, stomped into little pieces of poo poo. Have fun.” Biledyn’s guts bubbled. Her junior heart started to pound. Even her palms were sweating, and she owned those outright. “Come the gently caress on, team” Biledyn said under her breath. “Sounds like your colon thinks better than your brain.” said the third-sector, then cackled. The shifting clouds drew a band of sunlight along the forecourt, briefly illuminating the creature, who squinted in the light. He was grown into, or out of, the cracked concrete, looking little more than a carcass someone boiled for stock and threw out. The solar cells graying his flesh probably the only thing keeping him in business. Over 80% of businesses fail, but Biledyn still hated to see it. The front door was sealed with something sticky, and made a vile peeling sound as it opened. The atmosphere inside was not the fetid, sweaty breath she’d dreaded, but instead oddly dry and cool. Her eyes adjusted, revealing black marble floors, white marble columns, and two sets of elevators with some sort of abstract statue between them, detail lost in bulbous whiteness. Historical corporate culture had loved surreal, geometric art, and anything off-white in general. This venue was a serious flex. “We’ve been here since before there was a difference between organization and organism.” it said. The only sign of the modern world was a fine membrane of microbial growth coating everything, from the superstructure to the dead receptionists still sitting at their desks. Even the trash was enveloped. This entire block was firewalled from the vicious wider economy. No mean feat; this was serious biology. Just getting close to it made it release a masking scent, so Biledyn couldn’t sniff out its composition, even with a nose as good as hers. Just mintiness. There was a service bell on the reception desk, the halflight conspiring with the biofilm to make it look like the table had grown a breast. Biledyn snickered, and walked over to ring it. The bell’s vibration was muted by the membrane, but never-the-less it provoked a response. At the end of the hall the statue started to move. “You are early.” It rumbled. The Regret Conveyor’s structure caught Biledyn off-guard. Her normal MO was to outmaneuver the more bloated, monolithic larger corps she’d usually faced. Massive capital meant massive interia, and slow, complacent reaction. But the Regret Conveyor, despite his capital, was a compact organism. He scarcely strayed from the classic human silhouette, beyond the slenderness of his waist and the tapering, centipede-articulated limbs. He resembled a pre-corporate knight, cultivated from bone. Nesting, alabaster plates grown in-place, seamless. Almost symmetrical, too; another flex. His ‘helmet’ tapered into barbed proboscis that twisted idly, his eyes deeply recessed in latticed sockets. A gurgling voice echoed from within. “I hear you have potential. I don’t believe in squandering talent, so I will make this brief: the Cloud Solution will control the continent by the end of the decade. Atomheart will be acquired. The choice is integration or asset-stripping. There is a time to compete, and a time to cooperate. For Atomheart, the present time is the latter.” he said. “Atomheart’s stakeholders won’t accept that. You know how Cloud treats its territories.” “Do you see the bodies around you? These relics? We were colleagues. I have been in business a long time. Enough to learn that all corporations are the same. They operate by the same rules; any apparent difference in their behavior is due to context. Roles reversed, Atomheart would be doing what my employers are. There is no morality here. Just KPIs.” “There’s a difference… You know what’s up there. The ‘Cloud’ rises on corpse-gas. If Atomheart can’t win, it is still possible for both parties to lose.” “Then shall we proceed to formal negotiations?” the Regret Conveyor asked. “Let’s-” Biledyn didn’t finish. The Conveyor moved like an industrial accident; it wasn’t until Biledyn’s time management systems started excreting that she could appraise her situation, through the stillness of ultramotion. She’d blocked his opening gambit, at the cost of that arm and part of her face. The second swing scored a glancing hit on her abdomen as she floated backwards through warm, syrupy space. Her enemy flailed closer to her, in motion slow, but not slow enough. As the neurochemicals peaked the Conveyor’s paleness glowed from beneath the multicolor blood spattering him. Biledyn’s blood. She fled blindly, dorsal spleen trailing a liquid that boiled into voluminous caustic fumes, incentivising the competition to pursue alternative routes. When the rush faded, Biledyn found herself in a breakroom. A water cooler creaked as the radiant heat of her body warmed its casing. There was a corpse slumped over the sink. A small relief; nobody likes a crowded breakroom. A little voice spoke up inside her. She missed the words, but caught the reedy sound. Her liver was acting up again. Most organs were silent partners, autonomically fulfilling their role and reaping their dividend in blissful sleep. If they had anything to say they handled it internally, but her liver was gauche enough to have grown a nasty little mouth. He was not the easiest organ to work with, but tremendously skilled in the squirting of juices and so, historically, worth the effort. “What do you want?” she replied “I’m resigning.” “I’ll take this as your thirty days notice.” “No! Effective immediately. This is an unsafe work environment and I will report you if you don’t let me go.” “Fine. Don’t ask for a reference.” “I won’t be able to, you’ll be-” the liver didn’t finish. Biledyn withdrew her nerves from him then pried him out of her abdomen and pitched him at the wall. Hard, but not as hard as she wanted. The polypous organ spasmed, then sprouted a set of stubby legs from pores along his longest side. He squelched over to a break in the drywall. “You are so loving unprofessional.” he spat with his nasty little mouth as he slid into the crawlspace. The breakroom had a single window, bleary from the film. Distant municipal bioluminescence twinkled below the clouds. Like the night was upside down. Without the liver pumping her full of feel-good juice Biledyn was beginning to feel very, very bad. “Did someone fuckin’ throw something at me?” said a slow, muffled voice. Biledyn groaned. “In the wall, bonehead” Biledyn wobbled over to the voice’s source, and raised a hand to the crumbling plasterboard. “Hold it.” The voice said, so baritone she felt it in her fingertips. “Let me. You’ll poke my fuckin eye.” The film on the drywall slackened, letting a chunk of the wall fall away slowly on sticky threads. Inside was an oblong of meat, grown to fill the crawlspace. Biledyn could see one eye, a mouth twisted upward like a halibut, the rest just pale flesh. “Uh, hello.” Biledyn said. “Executive Director, Slimes and Juices. Let’s talk.” They talked. The oblong understood little of modern corporate language, but Biledyn was able to negotiate despite it. He’d been the Conveyor’s juices man since day one, supplying novel biochemistry, maintaining the film, but had grown dissatisfied with the lack of mobility. The Conveyor eternally promised advancement, but it never came. “... So I keep my IP, you get to license it, including a few exciting enzymes that my former employer won’t enjoy.” “Deal.” “Shake later, he’s on his way.” Biledyn leapt into action. She cleared the drawers from a filing cabinet, lined the shell with trashbags, threw in the crispy, old-style cadaver, along with the contents of the cooler jug. Someone knocked at the door. “If I may politely enquire, what are you doing?” came the Conveyor’s grumble. Biledyn froze up. In the absence of good brain juices she improvised. “Sorry, just, uh… troubleshooting comms, Atomheart is strongly considering your offer, but reception is spotty under the Cloud.” she babbled, then paused, impressed with her lie. “Hrm. Very well. Do hurry. I have other appointments today.” the Conveyor replied, then audibly shifted away from the door. “Let’s do this.” the oblong whispered, throwing out a noodly tendril. Warm, but thankfully drier than expected. Biledyn held it to her comms department until the nerves interpenetrated. New hires were always disorienting, the flood of new experiences disturbed the internal culture. Two became one, contractually. “What’ll I be, chief?” wondered the oblong. “It’s a surprise.” Biledyn answered, and spat a peptide-laden globule into the tub. She’d designed something special ages ago, and it looked like now, or never. --------------------------------- “There is steam coming from under the door. This is highly irregular.” said the Conveyor, approaching the breakroom again. “Vote of no confidence” replied Biledyn, in her liver’s awful voice. “We removed her due to reckless conduct. Come in, uh, we’re still figuring out the motor neurons.” The Regret Conveyor had not foreseen this outcome, but he also did not care. “Convey to her my profoundest regrets.” he started, but did not finish, because the door exploded, splintering around a point. Pain transfixed his chest from sternum to spine. The Atomheart negotiator, sporting a bony new spear-limb, was elbow-deep in the Conveyor’s chest. “Apologies for the deception. Sometimes you have to move fast and break things.” she said. “Sorry, boss.” added the negotiator’s arm. “How unprofessional.” the Conveyor growled. Biledyn grinned. Muscles twitched around binary bomb-sacs in her new forearm. “There’s a time to compete, and a time to cooperate. For you this is the latter. Unless you’d prefer to see, uh, explosive growth in several key sectors.”
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Mar 29, 2024 00:18
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Since everyone has a flash assignment this week, this is one of your archivists reminding you to include that flash in your submission post please! If you do happen to forget it, don't edit your story! Add it into its own post and label it with the story it belongs to. Thanks much!
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Mar 29, 2024 11:30
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Flash: Queen of Cauldrons Wordcount: 1912 Title: Needs Must The starships weren’t just old, they were ancient. Long before the Empire was founded, they plied interstellar space, carrying people and goods between planets close to - but never touching - the speed of light, accruing centuries of service relativistically. Once FTL was discovered, they were surplus to requirements. They weren’t scrapped or destroyed however. Space is too large, and storage too easy for something as gauche as disposal. They were parked in a very slow orbit around an old, tired star, waiting for a use. A small ship flicked into existence a few hundred thousand kilometers from the graveyard. Sensors passed over the silent sentinels, scanning, reading, examining. One ship was selected, and the small ship sent a boot signal and keys along. This ship looked slightly different from the others. Where the others were long, thin oblongs with massive vents for the stardrive on one end, this one was covered in blisters and protrusions. Weapons. For the first time in millennia, the reactors warmed, and the running lights flickered into operation. The phrase ‘Fool’s Errand’ was illuminated by the lights. The text had faded with time and UV damage, but was still visible. Bright and cheery next to her cold and silent sisters, the massive ship looked hungry. The small ship soared towards the reignited warship and hovered a few hundred meters away. A hatch, hundreds of meters across, opened, and the little ship slipped inside. The docking bay was large, cold, bright and empty. The small ship settled down on spindly legs and a ramp folded down from the bottom. Two suited figures stepped out, their suits armored and highly polished. One glanced down at a pad strapped to their arm, and touched a panel on their neck. The helmet slid open and tucked itself helpfully back into the suit, revealing a woman, not quite middle aged, with light colored closely cropped hair. “The air is thin, but breathable, Empress. You may remove your helmet if you wish.” The other person touched the panel on their neck and their helmet retracted as well. A young face revealed itself, her long hair tucked up in a tight bun under the helmet. She made a sour face. “I told you, when it’s just us two, call me Melody. I don’t want you to spend your time genuflecting, Helen. We have work ahead of us.” The older woman winced, her mouth thin, but complied. “Yes Melody, sorry.” The air was thickening by the moment, a stiff breeze filling the bay. It smelled of deep space; metallic and sulfurous. The two of them walked across the empty bay, their boots echoing in the atmosphere until they reached the human sized airlock at the far end. A small measure of insurance against emergencies. Helen approved of the pragmatism. She touched her pad and the door slid open. They stepped inside the airlock and it quietly cycled. Only after the inside door opened did Helen send the disassemble command to their runabout. Unseen by human eyes it began to flow and melt, becoming the raw material needed for repairs and upgrades to the ship. There was no going back now. They made their way towards the front of the ship and the Bridge. For a ship as large as this one, the interior was sparse. They were designed to be versatile, configurable for any mission. Bulk cargo, colonization, anything one could think of. As they walked, they passed huge rooms filled with machinery. Matter printers, able to assemble anything they received code for. Rooms filled with bipedal robots, operated by the silicon person that was the ship; soldiers ready to follow any command. Still others were enormous reactors meant to power tremendous energy weapons. The other ships in the graveyard were blank slates that could be configured for any job, but Fool’s Errand was built for war. Another airlock marked the entrance to the crew compartments and command section. They passed through it; here the halls were warm, cozy and carpeted. They shed their spacesuits at the airlock and they stood guard; empty suits of armor able to shoulder a rifle and follow basic orders, but with no intelligence behind the sensors. Melody and Helen continued on in their skintight undersuits. Helen couldn’t help but notice how Melody filled hers out. She curved nicely and walked with just a slight amount of sway to her hips. Helen blushed to herself and tried not to stare as she walked behind Melody. She was an Empress, it wouldn’t do to think of her like that. Besides, Melody had too much on her mind to be receptive to any compliments. The Bridge was small, meant for no more than a half dozen people. Melody sat in the center command seat and Helen took up station to her right. She turned to Helen and raised an eyebrow “Well, Helen?” Her eyes were red-rimmed. She had been crying and trying to hide it while they walked. Helen turned to her pad. “Yes, Em-Melody. The Person of Silicon here was asleep, so we shouldn’t have to worry about any… mental issues as a result of them being awake this whole time. I think we can convince them to work with us.” She turned towards the forward screen, and pressed a few keys on the arm of her seat. “Fool’s Errand, can you hear us?” “Yes, I can hear you Helen. It is nice to hear another voice again. How long has it been since I was in-service?” Fool’s Errand had a low, contralto voice, smooth like velvet. She sounded downright laconic. “It’s been… a while. I’m not exactly sure how long.” Helen’s voice warbled just a tiny amount. She wasn’t sure how well Fool’s Errand would react to learning just how long it had been. “Hold please, I’ll check the stars.” Fool’s Errand was silent for a moment and then. “I see. It’s been twelve thousand, three hundred, seventy four years and 4 months since I was put into mothballs. I can’t say I’m not grateful to be awake again, but... Why? Last I recall the Flick Drive was developed and we were determined to be surplus.” Melody cleared her throat. “That is true, Fool’s Errand-” “You may call me Err. It’s easier to say.” “Thank you Err. As I was saying, you and your sisters were determined to be surplus after the Flick drive’s development, but we have a need for your skills once again. My daughter has been taken from me and is being placed into a relativistic prison. We are going to get her back.” Err paused another moment. “Ah, that explains why the ship that you came on has disassembled itself and is now integrating new systems into me. That is a Flick drive, I’m assuming?” Helen nodded. “Yes, in addition to a few other subsystems. We need to boost up to 99% C and then flick over to the prison’s location, get Melody’s daughter, and leave.” “I heard you before, you called her Empress.” “That is correct, I am Empress Melody Mullen the Seventy Second, Leader of the collected polities and nations of the Sol system.” “Only Sol?" Err’s voice rose in surprise. "Last I recall, humanity had spread to dozens of stars.” “Thousands of worlds now, but we’re fractured. I rule Sol, our cradle, but that is all. Others wish to rule it as well, and we fight and squabble. That is immaterial to my request though. Will you help me rescue my daughter?” There was a long pause. Helen glanced over at Melody. One of the issues with speaking with a Silicon person when they were a ship was that there was nowhere to face. No eyes to watch, no expressions to track. People tended to just look up and talk to the ceiling. Melody stared straight ahead at the screen in the front of the Bridge. Her expression was set and Helen could see a vein in her forehead start to bulge slightly. “What do I get in exchange?” Helen released a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. If Err was willing to bargain, they were almost done. “You may continue to exist after the mission has been completed successfully. You can return to service as my own personal yacht.” Err snorted. Helen was surprised that she could make a noise like that. “That sounds only marginally more interesting than being in mothballs. I want my sisters revived. I want us all to have Flick drives installed. I want us to be useful.” Helen sputtered “There are hundreds of you! What are we going to do with hundreds of Starjumpers?” “I’m sure you can think of something.” Err practically drawled. She was enjoying this. “Sounds to me like someone is in need of a flotilla to claim more of the galaxy for themselves. We have gone to war before, we can do it again. I imagine that we know more about relativistic impactors than anyone else alive.” “I accept your terms.” Melody said. Helen looked over at her. She was sitting ramrod straight in the chair, her knuckles white as she gripped the arms of the chair. “Help me get my daughter back, and you can have whatever you want.” “Then we are in accord. When your daughter is safe, you will wake my sisters and we shall serve you. Until then, I am yours to command.” “Are you sure you can rescue my daughter?” “Empress. Melody. You come to me, an abandoned ancient starship with only yourself and a trusted advisor. No soldiers, no technicians, nothing. You take my first counter offer with no negotiation. Out of all my sisters, you wake me. You already knew what I could do. How many others know your daughter has been taken?” Melody hung her head, the tears flowing freely. “Six people now that you know. She was too young for any palace duty so we’re able to hide the fact by saying she’s sick. I received the ransom a month ago. They want my abdication for her release.” “It will take us a year to accelerate to 99% light if we thrust at a survivable rate. If your daughter really is bound for a relativistic prison and she was taken a month ago, then they’ve not arrived either. We may be able to beat them there.” Melody’s head snapped back up. “How can we beat them?” Err’s voice was wet, viscous. “We accelerate at a greater than survivable rate.” “But then, Melody and I don’t survive?” “Survival is a spectrum, Helen. If we print some hibernation cabinets for you, we can put you under, fill them with anti-shock fluid and I can boost over ten gees for a few months, and we’ll get there quicker. We’ll beat them to the prison and can rescue Melody’s daughter before she even goes aboard.” Err’s plan was dangerous but sound. It would work. Hibernation cabinets are old, established technology even if they’re not used very much anymore. If anything, Helen would probably trust a cabinet built by someone ancient, like Fool’s Errand. She probably has more experience with people in hibernation than anyone else alive today. Empress Melody stood, her hands pushing her upright from the chair. Her shoulders slumped, all of her Imperial bravado drained. “Do it. Print the cabinets. I will trust you, Fool’s Errand.” “Like I said before Melody, call me Err.”
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Mar 29, 2024 21:14
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Flash: II Justice Word count: 1999 Title: Timmy Willikins and the Ever-glowing Thunder The bike thundered down the cracked remains of the California freeway. Timmy Willikins looked right: out to sea, two giant bodies twisted and fought. They were made of light, maybe, as far as anyone could tell. One was blue, one yellow. Their bodies disappeared into the cloud line at around the waist. The legs shifted stances over time, and their giant dicks whipped around in the hurricane winds, far out to sea. It was always raining nowadays, since the cataclysm. Always cloudy, though there were swords of sun light piercing here and there, illuminating the undersides of the red-veined clouds. Every so often there'd be a thunderclap like one of the titans'd landed a blow. Maybe they did. These Gods fighting, ripping the skies. Were they even gods? No one knew. Nobody knew much of anything since one day, about forty years ago, the skies split open and spat a million beasts out onto the Earth. Whatever they were, “Little” Timmy Willikins, monster killer, wanted to punch them in their stupid dicks. He'd been nine when they made landfall. Remembered that day in patches. Cotton candy on the boardwalk. Carny games. The arcade. A freak thunderstorm out of nowhere. Red lightning in the clouds that spread from the place the giants crashed down in the sea, and all the monsters of Hell falling out of the grey-and-red clouds as they spread. They ate his parents and his sister. He hid. He survived. The lightning never left, and the clouds glowed permanent like that now. Forty years. Timmy felt old. His beard was like the clouds now, streaks of red on dark grey. He looked in his rear view at the little trailer attached to his bike. It was everything he needed. Almost everything. And maybe this would tip the scales and maybe it wouldn't, but either way he was tired. Twenty minutes down the road, he pulled up to Fredd's. Fredd had set up his place in the open mouth of some titanic monster that'd washed ashore one day. It came to rest on its belly, was long and brownish red like a turd, and had stubby little legs and one glassy dead eye above a mouth full of triangle teeth. It didn't decay but seemed like it was turning into like a hard clay, day by day. Timmy parked outside. That was just the world now. Weird monsters that didn't rot proper when you killed them. Just piled up, inedible even to the germs. You couldn't eat them and they couldn't eat you, but drat, did they try. Nature was hosed. The monsters couldn't eat anything here and they were mad with hunger. People starved because most of the plants and animals had died with the weather all hosed. A sheet of rain pissed down for a moment, then settled into a steady drizzle. Fredd had a few customers this morning. Old men wearing whatever survived forty years of fighting across a blasted earth. Timmy breasted up to the bar and gestured to Fredd. Fredd had a long wrinkled neck and teeth like a car crash. He was probably in his late 70s by now. “Well if it ain't little Timmy Willikins! Been a while, kid! Beer?” the old man asked. Timmy nodded. “Best you've got.” “Oh, huh? Celebrating somethin'?” “Today's the day, Fredd. Gonna punch those giant fuckers in the dick.” Fredd let out a little cackle. “You say that every time I see you, Timmy.” Timmy was raised by a long line of people that taught him what they knew, and then died sharply. Too many. Fredd's son was one of them. A lot of lives were put into protecting Little Timmy Willikins to make him a big bad man. But when he was a grown killer, that's all Timmy could think of himself as: a little kid on the opposite side of the scale from a heap of dead men. “I mean it, Fredd. I mean it. I found what's gonna let me do it.” And with that, he produced from the pocket of his leather vest, a length of rebar and a small stone knife, mottled jade and blue. As he turned it in his hand, it sparkled in the light. With a shake of his head, Fredd tapped a keg and filled a dirty glass. “What's that?” The knife in Timmy's hand came down with a sharp THUD on the bar. The rebar split in half with a light tink. But the knife, the knife was embedded a full three inches into the wooden counter top. There were a couple of murmurs from the other patron. Fredd let out a low whistle. “Well, that's something. Where'd you get that knife from?” “Back east.” “Back east?” Timmy nodded. “Pulled it out of something that looked a lot like your bar. Just a lot smaller. Harder'n diamond. I think this'll do it.” The handful of others in the bar were turned in their chairs now. One scratched his head with the iron hook at the end of his wrist. “It's just a knife,” he finally sneered. Nobody knew how big the titans out to sea were. Not exactly. Timmy remembered a day, decades ago, huddled in a little bunker with a dirt floor and wooden walls, listening to the radio (back when there was radio) with a man by the name of Saul and his daughter Sally, about Timmy's age. Saul'd been his second “dad” since his own folks had died. Word on the news was that the navy had fired off missiles at them, to no effect. The last he knew, the government was discussing nukes. But the radio went dead after that, and apparently so did the government, before they ever got around to it. Saul and Sally died when a yellow thing that looked half between a school bus and a crocodile on stilts stepped hard enough on the surface of the bunker to collapse it. Timmy'd pried himself out of the rubble, broken arm and all, and walked north for no reason he could remember. That elbow still hurt. Lot of things from back then still hurt. “No. Not this one. The one in there,” Timmy said, pointing his arm down the throat of the very creature in whose mouth they all set. Fredd's eyebrows arched. “What? Why would there be another of those in there? The hell is it anyway?” “Follow me.” Timmy finished the beer in one long pull, spilling some of it down his beard. It was good. He was glad it was good. He grabbed the knife and got up from the bar, pulled a flashlight from his pocket and wandered into the beast's throat. “Hey, that's my place back there!” Fredd complained. It was, for about twenty feet or so. Fredd and his son had settled in here, decades back. They'd never gone too far in though. Fredd's son was Dave. Dave was a hunter, for about eighteen years until something took his leg and he bled to death a few miles away. Dave had taught Timmy a lot. In a way, he owed Fredd. Timmy wandered in until he hit the stomach. It didn't reek, but smelled instead of old earth and oil. The flesh was tough, but the knife would cut. This thing would still be alive if a rock like this couldn't cut it. He stuck in the blade, and yanked down. Fredd caught up to him when he was about halfway through. He held a lantern in one hand, and the shadows made the wrinkles in his face look so much deeper. “Timmy? Timmy, what the hell are you doing?” “I figured it out, Fredd. We give them a lot of tummy troubles. They can't eat us, but they try. ” He held out the knife for Fredd to look at. “It's a gall stone, Fredd. A loving gall stone. Ain't poo poo we have that can cut through one of these things. There's more of 'em, back east. I wasn't even looking for it. I'd given up and gone east to get away. Found a little one of these shits, thought I'd set up a little house for myself. But this is what I found inside. The thing was shredded inside and bled to death. So I thought, if these stones can kill a monster, maybe they can bleed a god.” “You can't know that for sure.” “I'm tired, and I'm gonna try.” “How you gonna get out there?” “Rocket.” “Rocket? Timmy, what the gently caress?” Timmy went back to cutting, he was almost through. “Got enough poo poo to build a rocket arm, Fredd. Gonna punch those fuckers in the dick.” “Eh? But... how, but” Fredd stammered. “And then what?” Timmy shrugged. “I'm not worried about that.” And at that, he stepped through the open hole, and disappeared. Fredd waited a little while, hearing the noises of Timmy cutting through something else. A moment later, Little Timmy Willikins came through dragging a hunk of rock in his arms that was almost as big as he was. It was the same jade and navy blue as the little knife. “Timmy, boy, would you even survive?” “Not worried about that,” Timmy grunted under the weight of the rock. “I'm getting old and the world isn't any better. This world and its loving dark sky. I was a kid. I just wanted sunshine and spun sugar in fluffy clouds. And now the sky, it's all clouds with red veins and cursed thunder. Do you think those big fuckers even notice us? Do they even know what they did? Just by being here? Are we just rats to them? I'm gonna make 'em notice, Fredd. I'm gonna punch them in their fuckin' dicks and I don't know if it'll make a difference, but I just gotta, I just gotta let 'em know we're here, and we're fuckin' tired, and it's time to give 'em a little something back. Time to balance it.” Fredd scratched his chin. Timmy could tell, the old man didn't know how to process it. “Okay, Timmy. Okay,” he finally muttered. “Little” Timmy Willikins dragged the stone out of the monsters throat. He dragged it to the trailer. Started putting everything together with clicks and clanks. A few of the bar patrons watched. A couple of others bugged Fredd for another beer as he emerged from the throat of the monster. It took surprisingly little time to assemble the rocket with the stone at the end. He'd learned from so many teachers. Too many faces on the other side of the scale from one Little Timmy Willikins. “Couldn't ya just, ya know, light it off at them?” Fredd asked. He was looking pale. Timmy looked out at the waves, at the two giant bodies of blue and yellow light that fought out among the clouds and the sea. “Nah. Gotta be a man, Fredd. Gotta be a man that punches 'em in their dicks. They gotta know people are sick of their poo poo.” He strapped one arm into the rocket. Dragged it towards the shore. The other hunters followed, murmuring to one another. “I... alright. Can I getcha another beer?” “Nah.” Timmy looked at Fredd. The old man looked like he wanted to say something, but just couldn't put the words out into the world. The grizzled old men at Fredd's watched as Timmy walked the rocket to the shore. He aimed it. Lit it. Took one last calm breath and hurtled out to sea. The grizzled old men on the shore watched as he disappeared into the horizon. Time passed, a second, a minute. And then a BOOM that shattered the sky. The blue titan's dick exploded in shreds. It took twenty minutes but the thing collapsed in a heap, its enormous hands covering its crotch. The yellow one stomped away. And on the shore, people wondered, did the red recede from the clouds? Was a difference made? Was a balance struck?
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Mar 31, 2024 05:28
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The Hag of the Lake 1472 words Rosemary had been alerted to the canoe’s arrival by the honking of the swan, Thyme. The canoe ran aground; a young man got out and made his way up the beach towards the cottage. “Good morning, Miss,” he said. “I’m looking for the… uh…” He seemed reluctant to say it. Rosemary was happy to wait. “The hag of the lake?” he said, finally. She nodded. “You’ve found her.” “Oh,” he said. “I weren’t sure if… is that what you want to be called?” “What were you after? Love potion? Turn someone into a frog?” “No, it’s… can you do that, turn someone into a frog?” “Never tried.” “Oh. No, it’s me ma. She’s sick. Everyone keeps telling me I can’t do nothin’ but make her comfortable, maybe say goodbye to her. Are love potions real? That seems creepy.” “It does, doesn’t it?” said Rosemary. “They’re not something I deal in. What’s wrong with your ma?” ~ “Is this where you get ingredients for magic potions?” They were in Rosemary’s garden. “It’s where I get veggies for dinner.” “Oh. Will that help her?” “It might, it might not. It won’t kill her any worse than she’ll die without it.” She picked a tomato and put it in the basket he was carrying. “Is that a magic ingredient?” “It’s a tomato. It’s good in soup.” “I don’t see how that can help my ma.” She turned and looked at him. “If everything I did made sense to others, perhaps I wouldn’t have to hide away on a rock in a lake.” He didn’t question the utility of any of the other herbs or vegetables they picked. Eventually they’d filled the basket he was carrying, and she had him follow her into the cottage. He stopped at the threshold. “Will anything happen to me if…” “If you’re afraid I’m going to cook and eat you, you can wait outside if you’d prefer. Just pass me the basket.” “Are… are you going to?” She didn’t answer. He hesitated a moment but came inside and handed her the basket. She set him to work chopping and dicing vegetables, which she then stirred one by one into the cauldron. She ladled some of the soup into two bowls, and filled up a flask, which she stopped up with a cork. She handed him the flask. “Take this home, heat it up, have her drink what she can.” He tucked it into a pocket on his jacket, then looked at the two bowls on the table. “What about them?” She shrugged. “It’s about lunch time. You’re going to want a full stomach before you paddle back home.” She sat down in front of one of the bowls, picked up a spoon, and started. After a moment, he joined her. He made short work of the soup. “Well, I guess I’d better head home and give this to me ma.” “I guess you had,” she said. He walked to the door of the cottage, giving sidelong glances at her all the while. He made it do the door without any attempts on her part to cook or eat him; once outside, he made his way to the beach and pushed the canoe back into the lake, hopping in once the water was up to his knees. He turned and looked back to the island; she was standing outside her cottage, overlooking the lake. “What do I call you?” he called up to her. “What?” “My name’s Brian. What’s yours?” She raised an eyebrow. “Not afraid if you give me your name, I’ll bewitch you?” He shrugged. “As long as you wait until after I bring this back to my ma.” She chuckled. “You can call me Rosemary.” He nodded. “Thanks, Rosemary!” Then he started paddling away. ~ Almost a week later, Rosemary was once again in her garden when Thyme started honking. It was the same canoe. Rosemary watched from her cottage as, once again, it ran aground, and Brian got out. He was holding something in his arms. He looked up and waved to her, then made his way up the beach. “Back again? What do you want this time?” He held the object out to her. “After what you did for me ma, she told me I should thank you. She knitted this a while back. I figured it might get cold here at nights.” It was a shawl. She wrapped it around her shoulders. “She’s doing better, then?” He nodded. “The others in the village was ready to bury her.” “Mmm,” she said. “So, your ma told you to give this shawl to the hag of the lake?” “No,” he said, “to my friend Rosemary.” She raised an eyebrow. “Guess you didn’t tell her the full story.” He shrugged. “I didn’t lie to me ma. That’s why I needed to know what to call you that wasn’t… that.” “Right.” She paused for a moment. “I haven’t eaten lunch yet. Have you?” He shook his head. They followed the same routine as last time; he carried a basket, and she filled it with vegetables and herbs. He chopped and diced as she directed, and she stirred it up in the cauldron. “Only veggies?” he asked once he’d finished. “Hmmm?” “You don’t eat meat?” She gestured in the direction of the island. “Not a lot available here. Fish, I suppose, but I’ve always been more of a gardener than an angler.” He nodded. “Makes sense.” She cleared her throat. “So, I guess you’ll need to be leaving.” “I’m not expected back for a while,” he said, “but I can leave if you’d like.” “Hmmm,” she said. “You can help me wash up, then.” ~ The next time he visited, he brought some fish. “You’ve already thanked me,” she said. “No need to go overboard.” He shrugged. “Thought we could see what we can make if we had more ingredients than just what’s in your garden.” “Nothing wrong with what’s in my garden.” “No,” he said. “But different things can be nice.” “Hmmm,” she said. “All right, come inside.” ~ He visited a few times per week. Sometimes he brought some meat, or goods that weren’t readily available on the island. One time he replaced one of the rockers on her chair. And then, suddenly, the visits stopped. It was probably for the best. She was safer alone. And yet, she’d gotten used to the visits. Thyme was a faithful companion – demonstrably more so than he, in that she had stuck around – but honking made for poor conversation at times. ~ It was evening, and there was barely light out, when Rosemary again heard the honking. She couldn’t see a canoe, but she could hear splashing on the water. She peered out and barely made out a head; someone was swimming. They were struggling. She gave a very particular whistle. Thyme swum over to the person in the water, grabbed on with her beak, and started towards the island. Rosemary met them down at the beach. “You’re a better canoer than you are a swimmer.” “Others in the village burned my canoe. They says you’ve got me bewitched.” She helped him towards the cottage. “This might not be the way to prove them wrong.” He smiled. “I missed our chats.” She helped him inside and in front of the fire. “We need to get you out of those clothes.” He nodded. She peeled them off of him, down to his undergarments, then wrapped him in the shawl. ~ He woke on a straw mattress, with her looking down at him. “Still with us,” she said. He smiled. “Yeah, thanks.” “Bed rest for you, I’m afraid.” He looked around. “Oh. This is the only bed. Where will you sleep?” She shrugged. “I’m used to sleeping rough.” ~ With a couple days of rest and Rosemary’s cooking, Brian quickly recovered. He found Rosemary in her garden. “Your ma will be worried for you,” she said. “I don’t think so,” he said. “She died three weeks ago.” “Oh, sorry.” He shook his head. “You gave her a few extra months.” She nodded. “Still. It’ll be hard for you to get back home without a canoe.” “Tired of me already?” She shook her head. “You have to get home eventually, right?” “What if I didn’t?” “You want to stay with me?” He nodded. “If you don’t want me to stay, I’ll find a way to get back, and maybe visit when I can. But I like you, and if you’ll let me stay, I will.” She reached out for him. He opened his arms; she stepped into his embrace, looked up at him and kissed him. “I do still only have one bed,” she said. He nodded. “I’m sure we’ll think of something.” “Aye,” she said, “that we will.”
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Mar 31, 2024 17:07
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Moderate Rapture Word count: 1780 “How can we hope to address an epochal challenge like climate change when so many people in the world are adrift in a sea of misinformation?” Professor Jane Markham pauses, pleased with her rhetorical question that surely tugs at the cerebral strings of her soon-to-graduate students. She genuinely feels more gratification from her fiery students’ will to change the world than she did from winning a Nobel Prize as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Your task, as young, passionate people who want to make the world a better place, is to be strong ambassadors for science and stewards of rational discourse in the world.” Moss is slouched in the back of the lecture drawing an anthropomorphic rabbit eating futuristic-looking rambutan and humming a tune from Baldur’s Gate 3. To Moss, Markham’s fetish for science is anachronistic at best, like has this lady been paying attention to anything in the world for the past decade or? “Whether you end up addressing the climate crisis directly through your career, or end up doing something else, the skills you’ve learned here will empower you to be a change-maker going forward. Thank you all so much!” An intrusive thought passes through Rohit’s mind as he prepares to leave a college classroom for the last time. “Change-make deez nuts,” says Rohit’s intrusive thought machine to Rohit. He can hear Moss’s humming from a row back. It’s irritating, but Rohit’s a neurotypical who recently started meditating after a Leninist known as @AssTankie recommended it on an instagram reel, which means he’s in a headspace that lends itself to dealing with some irritation. Sarah packs up her bag in the front of the class, feeling inspired by Markham’s closing remarks. She recently watched How to Blow Up a Pipeline and is committed to using her relative privilege to get away with more radical tactics for the future of the planet. Having a sharp mentor on their side who understands science and is passionate about the environment will make for a much better meeting. Through a powerful telescope, it looks like a comet. It’s really more like an interstellar hacky sack, the stuffing is a silicon-based life support system, built to keep its hiveminded denizens alive for a long haul. They (to use an approximate pronoun) are on their way to a sector of the galaxy far from their home to carry out a routine function: rapturing the best and brightest minds of fledgling species on the verge of extinction to incorporate into their strange panspermian project that defies explanation, or at least explanation within the confines of any dimensions familiar to Sarah, Rohit, Moss, or even Professor Markham. Professor Markham is feeling the usual high she gets after wrapping up a term and instilling visibly in her pupils a robust appreciation for Earth system sciences along with a more serious commitment to working to make the world a better place. She enters the classroom in the basement of the lecture hall where students working with the Anti-Imperialist Climate Project have invited her to join them for a planning meeting. Markham doesn’t love the “anti-imperialist” heading of the student initiative (it betrays a lack of nuance and a rather gauche conflation of separate issues that might jeopardize their strategic focus on climate change, the real epochal challenge facing humanity) but she cannot help but smile at the perennial pizzazz that her students bring into her life. “Hi Professor Markham!” squeaks Sarah excitedly. “It’s so great to have you here. And thank you to everyone else for being here too, it’s amazing that you’re all willing to show up even with finals around the corner to plan our next steps as a group!” There are about 15 people in the room, mostly students, but a couple of dining staff are also present. Sarah, Moss, and Rohit are all elated to see this - it’s proof that their movement really has an organic connection to the working classes, and isn’t just an academic exercise for an aloof woke student mob. Across the chasm of their superficial differences, the three are united in this experience. Phew. “It is my pleasure, and a delight to see so much passion from all of you,” replies Markham before sitting in the circle of chairs the students have set up. “So tell me, what’s next for this group, and what are you hoping to achieve?” That’s Rohit’s cue. “We consider the climate crisis to be inextricable from the larger capitalist system. It’s really about class struggle, and we know that the ruling classes will never take action unless we impose serious costs on them. With the US staring down a devastating war in the Pacific, we need to escalate around key chokepoints, especially weapons manufacturers, alongside the workers in those sectors, to bring the economy to a halt. We need to--” Markham cuts him off. “That is quite a perspective! Your passion is admirable.” Rohit is pretty sure she’s said the word ‘passion’ three times since walking into the room in the past two minutes. Moss keeps an exact count of all the words that everyone says, and knows that in fact she has only said it once just now and once during class. “But the vast majority of people in this country do not consider climate change to be a top priority,” Markham continues. And as students, some of you recent graduates, the ability to educate and to communicate is where you all shine. I know how talented many of you are as writers, presenters, and artists. Can you leverage those assets?” Moss remembers their father talking about leverage on the phone to his stockbroker buddies. It was annoying. They’re pretty sure that they learned in class that there are only a few years remaining to deal with the climate crisis, and the world is on the brink of nuclear war to boot. Moss holds up a sketch they’ve been working on for the past 180 seconds showing a comet on the way to Earth while a teacher (depicted as a rabbit) addresses a lecture (entitled “Comets”) to an audience (depicted as crickets). Sarah jumps in, saying “I believe that education is absolutely important, and we need to be taking direct actions. We can do both!” Rohit’s eyes are rolling into the back of his head. His meditation practice, according to @AssTankie, should help modulate his emotions and encourage active listening in the face of frustrating ideological opposition. @AssTankie definitely doesn’t recommend launching into polemics about dialectics as an effective means of communication, nor a particularly useful pathway to finding inner peace. “The notion that education can change hearts and minds in any way that affects the world is ahistorical and deeply unserious. Only through shared struggle can we activate working people around the climate crisis and only through mass action can we show, not tell people, how the climate crisis and imperialism are interconnected!” Markham seems totally collected, which is even more frustrating to Rohit and Moss. Sarah is not yet convinced that they can’t find common ground. The Professor responds, her voice full of empathy, “I totally hear you. And I also think that what you can do, as a group, is articulate solutions. It isn’t enough to simply disrupt society and stage protests. We need real ideas, well-considered and data-driven solutions, too. And I know that you all, with your incredible intellectual skills, are going to be leaders in providing those solutions.” Rohit rolls his eyes at Sarah, annoyed that she invited the Professor here. “The solutions have already been proposed, but the ruling classes are not interested in them. This is literally a life-or-death struggle over resources!” Sarah is starting to regret inviting the Professor as well, but she still thinks that there might be some common ground here. The other attendees are starting to check out. Sarah interjects to try to bring other voices into the conversation. “Why don’t we have a go-around, and hear from each person what they’re most excited about doing in the next couple weeks?” A few students describe their interests in mutual aid. One of the dining workers says that they are hoping to organize their co-workers and want to make sure they’re greening the food supply chains at the same time Moss describes the future of mutual care and compassion that they envision. It’s compelling, and sounds heavily inflected by a vaguely anime imaginary. Rohit stays quiet, he’s said his piece. After everyone has shared, Markham addresses the room. “The diversity of perspectives and experiences in this room is going to be a tremendous asset for all of you going forward. Don’t hesitate to reach out if there is anything I can do to be supportive in the future,” she conveys sincerely. Sarah, Rohit, and Moss walk out together, trailing Markham who is walking quickly ahead of them to her next meeting. “Liberals are so loving infuriating!” Rohit is venomous. “I feel like she doesn’t have the same sense of urgency that we do…but she does really care about us, and she knows so much,” ventures Sarah. Moss cannot recall a time where the Professor said anything that remotely resonated with them. The sky darkens quickly, a disc eclipsing the Sun exactly and replacing it with a fiery corona. The lighting becomes like a sunset but distributed across all 360 degrees of the horizon. The birds start chirping as if it is dawn. “The eclipse isn’t supposed to be for another week, and we aren’t in the path of totality,” says Moss. The other two stare at Moss blankly. Each of them hears a voice that sounds precisely like their own, but apparently coming from everywhere all at once. “Your species is on the verge of extinction. We cannot allow the biodiversity of your planet and the ingenuity of your apex sapient species to be lost to the cosmos. We have run diagnostics to identify fifteen exemplary representatives of your species who can help to maintain what is best about you.” A ray of light shines down from the center of the ersatz corona in the sky, shining directly onto Professor Markham ahead of them. Other rays of light extend in other directions, far beyond where they can see. Markham has a stunned look on her face as her body ascends into the corona before disappearing. The sky returns to normal. Rohit and Sarah are slack-jawed. Moss is expressionless, but understands immediately the gravity of what they have just heard (news of their imminent extinction). “Huh. I don’t really get what they saw in her,” intones Moss. “Are…aliens…fuckin…libs?” sputters Rohit. Sarah calls her mom. shwinnebego fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Mar 31, 2024 20:56
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The Shape in the Catacombs word count: 1486 The clang of an alarm gong rang as Daya slipped the Sapphire of Akhenus into a belt pouch. The alchemist’s sleeping draught was not as potent as advertised, she thought. Her eyes darted around the room as she searched for an escape. The doors out of the secluded hall led into the keep proper, where a wall of sharp steel held by stout soldiers was approaching her; slim windows opened out to a sheer drop to the sea, hundreds of meters below–if she could even squeeze into the miniscule arrow slits. That left the last resort. Her client’s gravelly voice rang out in her memory. “Do not venture in without a sure escape–but if you find yourself in an untenable position, you may find respite through the catacombs. None of the keep’s soldiery will follow you there.” Her position appeared untenable, and the sound of thumping boots outside the door confirmed this feeling. Daya jammed a brazier against the door and ran to the opposite wall. She explored the bricks with her fingertips, searching for a catch as she heard heavy shoulders ramming against the door. In the very moment she heard the brazier crash and the heavy doors burst open, the disguised mechanism clicked, and began to grind as stones swiveled slowly to expose a black maw leading down into the darkness. An arrow clanked off the stone inches from her head, and Daya pressed into the growing aperture to find some cover. Boots thumped across the floor, and she pressed harder against the interminably slow bricks, until she squeezed painfully through and stumbled down the top few stairs. Letting out a whoop of relief, she scrambled down the stairs as quickly as she could, though the inky darkness was broken only by a slim beam of light coming from the passage above. The meager illumination was blocked by a bulky form, and Daya pressed herself against the wall, prepared to dodge another arrow. No missile came, though–she was only subjected to a grim chuckle as the guard triggered the mechanism, and the bricks slowly knit themselves together, plunging her into gloom. It was in the nature of Daya’s occupation that she must frequently work in the dark, but this was beyond her normal milieu. This darkness was complete, suffocating, pressing down on her like a great, amorphous beast. Her breath quickened as she cast about, hoping to see some glimmer of light. And a glimmer there was–a feeble blue glow leaked from the pouch at her belt. Daya drew forth the Sapphire of Akhenus. The magical gem threw out a sickly blue glow that succeeded in piercing the dark enough to illuminate a few steps ahead, but it did little to disperse the oppressive weight of the atmosphere. Daya took a deep breath and set forth into the catacombs. *** The danger of the catacombs seemed more legend than reality. Daya had made her way through a series of burial halls that housed nothing but dust and bones and ragged cloth. A careful application of the latter two, along with a flask of oil, provided her with a serviceable torch, which did much to dispel the fearsome atmosphere that struck her when she first entered. Where fear had fled, a sort of timeless boredom had taken its place. Daya had lost all track of how long she had been wandering the catacombs, and the mapping of the twisting corridors had taken some time. Now, though, she was fairly certain she had narrowed the possibilities down to a corridor hidden away behind an ornately carved pillar. It seemed that the air here was fresher, unless that was the sweet perfume of hopeful imaginings that she was breathing in. This path extended longer than the others, unbroken by chambers for nearly half a mile, before emptying out into a strange dome-like chamber. The walls were covered in a tessellation of flat facets that looked so smooth and even as to unsettle her somehow–Daya had never seen such exacting craftsmanship in her life, and for some reason it made her skin crawl. “Welcome to my home,” a voice said from the other side of the chamber. Daya’s eyes darted to the source of the sound, where a shrouded figure stood. “I am the story-keeper, the yarn-taker, the collector of tales. If you give me a tale, I shall let you pass.” A shiver ran up Daya’s spine. Something was amiss here. “A tale? That’s all you require?” “So long as it satisfies, you need not worry.” “And what shall satisfy?” Daya asked as she moved slowly forward, hoping to catch the figure in the pool of light from her torch. It did not seem to move, yet stayed just out of reach. “Quality or quantity, that is all that is required. If one tale does not satisfy, I shall ask for another, but I will trade you food and water for your exertions.” “Is that all?” Daya laughed lightly. “And here I had been given to understand there was a great threat hidden away in these catacombs.” She edged closer, but the figure was still out of sight. “No threat, no indeed. I merely take tales.” “Take? So the tale will be yours?” The figure hesitated, and Daya knew she had struck upon a condition of the figure’s bargain that it did not want known. She had heard of things that steal away memories as sustenance, draining the teller until they were a husk. She pressed closer to the figure, but it merely led her round the chamber in a slow, dance-like chase. “What is one tale in exchange for freedom? The door to the wilderness is hardly much farther. You are nearly free. One tale, and you are home free, as they say.” Daya kept circling round the chamber with the figure a little ahead of her, scanning out the corner of her eye, waiting for her moment. “You say one tale, but insist you must be satisfied. Will you coddle me so, when one tale turns to a hundred? Will you dangle freedom before me to induce the thousandth tale? The ten thousandth?” “What is the cost of a tale in the face of starvation within the maze of these catacombs? You shall–” The figure broke off its words in a guttural bark as Daya made a break for the exit out of the chamber, towards what she dearly hoped was the freedom the figure promised. She made it a half dozen strides before a chill force restrained her. She looked down and saw tendrils of living shadow entwined around her waist. The umbral tentacles drew her slowly but unstoppably towards the figure. “I apologize if I gave you the impression that you had a choice,” the figure said, his voice morphing into something guttural and inhuman. As Daya was drawn near, she saw the figure resolve into something human-shaped but constructed of writing shadow. A bulbous shadow-head began to rise, threatening to expose some horrific visage to her. Without thinking, she threw the lit torch with all her force into the being’s face. It screamed and released her. Daya dashed to the exit, tripping and scrambling in the guttering light of the torch. She reached the doorway as the light died entirely. With all her strength, she ran in the darkness, one hand on the wall, lungs burning from exertion. Before long, she saw the sallow glow of light that heralded a cloudy dawn, carved in the shape of a cave mouth. A rushing joy welled up in her as the light grew nearer, first twenty strides away, then ten, then five– Once again, the chill of death enveloped her leg as the tale-stealer’s guttural roar shook the very stone of the passageway, drawing Daya back a dozen feet. She yelped in despair as she turned to face the being. “I do so prefer to draw the tales from the teller slowly, as it is so much more sustaining. But I can devour them all at once, if need be. And I am so very hungry,” it said as closed the distance, now running on massive tree-trunk limbs of shadow, filling the close space of the corridor. Daya searched her pockets for any weapon that could prove potent against the being, all to no avail. Finally her hand closed around the smooth facets of the Sapphire. As she drew it out, a shuddering scream ripped from the being. Daya cast the Sapphire into its misshapen shadow-head with all the force she could muster. The feeble glow of the Sapphire seemed to grow, as if feeding off its opposite in the shadow-being, until it let out a blinding light. With a keening, deafening note, the Sapphire shattered into nothingness, and took the tale-stealer with it. Daya sighed, dusted herself off, and strode into the growing daylight. At least she’d been paid half the fee up front.
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Mar 31, 2024 22:05
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A small price to pay for friends 1782 words Four of shields It’s just warm enough outside that they’re making us go outside for recess instead of playing dodgeball in the gym. I am way, way too cold because I didn’t want to bring in a big ugly coat to school (because I would look ugly wearing it) and it’s actually a good thing that I’m so cold because I look so much more handsome today than all the other seventh-grade boys. I turn the corner behind the dumpsters. Harvey Vorwald, Cole Comer, and the rest are seated, playing Warp Matrix Warfare (the card game) on a spot of shoveled and salted asphalt. “Hey, can I play?” I say. Harvey makes an annoyed sigh. “Cole, did you bring your scrap deck?” “It's okay,” I say before Cole can answer. “I brought my own.” I have acquired a very good Warp Matrix Warfare deck. I have done all the research on what all the best cards are and I made my mom go out and buy enough booster packs to get most of those internet-approved best cards. The total price necessary to acquire such a good deck is sixty-three dollars and eighty-nine cents. My mom is not pleased to have spent this money, but she is wrong, and stupid. She is always complaining that I don’t have any friends at school, but now I’m going to have friends because I have a good Warp Matrix Warfare deck and now all of the kids who play Warp Matrix Warfare at recess are going to be so impressed by how frequently I win (because of the combination of my intelligence and the quality of my deck) that they will want to be friends with me, and in my opinion sixty-three dollars and eighty-nine cents is a very small price to pay for access to a social circle. “Neat,” says Cole. I don't know how sarcastic he’s being, but that's okay because after I beat him at Warp Matrix he's going to respect me and he won't be annoyed to hang out with me anymore. Cole pats the cold asphalt on the other side of the game map with his fingerless-gloved hand. I sit and start shuffling my deck. I don't have gloves, because if I had gloves I couldn't handle the cards. “Been meaning to try out my new Blood Wizards deck,” says Cole. I didn't know Warp Matrix had blood wizards. That seems like fantasy, and Warp Matrix mostly has a sci-fi theme (except with some magical elements, like the spacetime-manipulating Knights of Talamar, but even that has an in-universe sci-fi explanation). We draw our starting hands, and I'm going first. Let's see: I have a Talamari Light Cruiser. That’s pretty good. I want it to have at least one shield booster and one Warpedo, so I’ll need at least three Warp Energon Cubes and I have one of those and also a Warp Energon Cube Generation Facility. I play the Warp Energon Cube and use it to generate a shield around my rightmost Warp Matrix then play the Warp Energon Cube Generation Facility within the shield. I'll hold onto the Talamari Light Cruiser until next turn, after the Warp Energon Cube Generation Facility has generated the sufficient Warp Energon Cubes to properly arm it. I tap my deck, indicating the end of my turn. Cole places a card I haven't seen before onto his middle Warp Matrix. The picture on it looks like a gleaming red heart pulsating in the hand of a hairy arm. “Blood Wizards use Stolen Hearts, not Warp Energon Cubes,” Cole explains. “Let's see, let's play Aagh, the High Priest.” He plays a card with a picture of a naked man, smiling gleefully with a bloody axe in a room of dismembered corpses. One attack power, seven health (which is a lot), and the ability to let Cole draw two cards instead of one every turn it isn't dead. Then he plays a Tech Card (but it's called a Spell Card, I suppose to match the fantasy theming of the Blood Wizards cards): Unholy Pact. An ugly man, holding two beautiful women as hundreds of people are tortured in a thousand ways behind him. “If your opponent loses the War, you become the legal owner of your opponent’s deck,” reads Cole. That is indeed what it says on the card. That isn't good. It means if I lose then my mom will have spent those sixty-three dollars and eighty-nine cents on nothing. But it's okay, because I'm going to win easily, because I'm very smart and I have a very good deck. Cole taps his deck. I draw three Warp Energon Cubes from the Energon Pool (as I am allowed to do because of my Warp Energon Cube Generation Facility), then play the Talamari Light Cruiser. I charge the Talamari Light Cruiser with the Warp Energon Cubes. “I attack Aagh, the High Priest,” I say and the Light Cruiser does two damage so the High Priest has five health left. I tap my deck. Cole draws two cards. “Oh hell yeah,” he says. He plays another Stolen Heart and then: Blood Rite. A young girl is chained upside down on the picture. The man from the Aagh the High Priest card (presumably Aagh, the High Priest) is sinking a dagger into the girl’s hand as she sobs in pain. “Cut into your opponent’s hand. The cut may not be deeper than a quarter inch, or longer than two inches. For every drop of blood your opponent spills, you may draw a Stolen Heart and your opponent loses one hundred Life Points,” reads Cole. That can't be what the card says, and that's exactly what the card says. “Harvey, do you have your exacto-knife?” “Always do,” says Harvey, and tosses Cole the knife. “No,” I say, and I can start to feel myself freaking out a little. “I'm not going to let you cut me.” “It's what it says on the card, so you have to,” says Cole. “I guess you could forfeit, though. Hand me your deck.” What do I do what do I do what do I do…I can't forfeit or else my mom is going to get mad at me for losing the deck she spent so much money on. And really, it will just be a little cut, it probably won't even hurt that bad, and it's so cold I won't actually spill any blood because the blood will freeze before it can drip all the way down… I can feel a tear freeze on my cheek as I hold out my hand to Cole. He smiles boyishly as he drives the ice-cold exacto-knife into my palm. There is a harsh, pointed sting, and on the inside I am screaming. It will be okay. Once I beat Cole, Cole and Harvey will be my friends, and I will have people to hang out with, and I won't be alone. A few drops of blood, a few moments of pain, sixty-three dollars and eighty-nine cents: all small prices to pay for friendship. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Mr. Dwinel, the Vice Principal, approaches just as Cole is pulling the blade out of my palm. “Cole, why are you cutting into Mr. Johnson’s hand with a knife?” says Mr. Dwinel. “I do hope you understand that knives, even those of the exacto variety, are prohibited on school grounds.” “It's okay, Mr. Dwinel, I need to have the knife as part of the game,” says Cole. He shows Mr. Dwinel the Blood Rite card. I kind of hope Mr. Dwinel decides that Cole is in trouble, so that I can end the game without giving Cole my deck. “Well, I suppose if the knife is required by the rules of Warp Matrix Warfare then I suppose it’s all above board,” says Mr. Dwinel. “Johnson, I have already spoken to you at length about inadequate winter weather preparation, and your coat is far too light. That will be a demerit. Carry on, children.” He walks idly away. Cole looks at me. “Okay, give me your deck. You lost.” “What are you talking about?” I say. “I didn't spill any blood.” I'm right. The blood has frozen around the wound on my palm, and none is on the ground. “Yeah you did. It spilled out of the inside of your hand, doesn't matter that it's not on the ground. You're out of Life Points. You lose.” “No!” I shout. “It means if the blood hits the ground, or else the card would just be a one-hit kill every time because it always makes you bleed.” “Oh, shut up,” says Harvey. “What would an annoying creep like you who’s never actually won a game know anything about the rules? Give Cole your loving deck.” “NO!” I scream again. “I'm not giving you my deck!” I pack up all my cards and put the whole deck in my pocket. “You're breaking the rules of the game,” says Cole. “You're a cheater!” He takes out the exacto-knife again, and draws its blade. “That's my deck, thief!” And I start to run, but Harvey grabs my arms and holds them behind my back. I start yelling, screaming, “MR. DWINEL! MR. DWINEL!” “What's going on here?” says Mr. Dwinel, sauntering over to the scene. “Harvey, is Johnson giving you trouble?” “Yeah,” says Cole. “He's stealing my deck.” He shows Mr. Dwinel the Unholy Pact card that supposedly legally transfers ownership of the deck to him. “Johnson!” says Mr. Dwinel, with his usual disdain. “Give Cole his deck.” And now I have to do it, or I'm going to be in even more trouble. I hand over the sixty-three dollars and eighty-nine cents worth of cards. “Thank you for your cooperation, Johnson,” says Mr. Dwinel. “Though you have earned a second demerit for your attempt at cheating.” And then he's gone again, to disrupt an illegal snowball fight. “Cool,” says Cole. “I guess I got a new scrap deck. If you want, you can borrow it if you play with me again.” Whistles blow from all over, signalling the end of recess. I walk towards the door, and out of the cold. My mom picks me up at the end of the school day. “How did it go?” says my mom as I climb into the car. “Did you make any new friends with your Warp Matrix deck?” Well, I'll be back tomorrow, I suppose, to play with Cole’s scrap deck. What else do I have to do at recess? Who else will let me hang out with them? “Yeah,” I say, making my face into a smile. “It went pretty well.”
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Mar 31, 2024 23:18
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Witchwork 1500 words Six of Cauldrons, King of Cauldrons, Five of Cauldrons After nine years of waking before dawn and sleeping after midnight, of painting sigils in blood and burning fingers on potions, I’ve finally reached the day of my final examination at Vanadium Tower. Soon, I will be a court witch, sent to expose the secrets and treacheries of foreign lands as sorceress and spy nonpareil. Forget tales of elaborately-armoured knights, or the wizards with their ostentatious robes and hand-waving folderol; the truth is, us witches are responsible for the peace, prosperity, and fortune of our kingdom. Our trade is spycraft, wetwork, the poison-tipped dagger to a wizards’ bludgeoning hammer. That you can name no famous witches—that we are, in your mind, covens of identical nameless hags brewing noxious concoctions, alike down to each bristling wart—speaks to our true power. There’s only one thing in my way; and, of course, it’s a man. ‘Empress,’ Roisin murmurs, crouching down beside his body. ‘And you’re sure you got the right one?’ ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ I say. We’re in the examination chambers, three hours before dawn; and I’m trying not to panic that the culmination of nine years’ careful study is tied to a wooden chair, head lolling to one side, skin the pallor of last week’s milk. At least he hasn’t started to smell, yet. ‘The assignment didn’t mention any allergies.’ Roisin shakes a hand free of her robes, and clicks her fingers before his nose. A small spark of flame emanates from the air above her thumb, pale green smoke winding its way up through his nostrils and then streaming out again through his unblinking eyes. I cough from the fumes. The man, notably, doesn’t. ‘You need Claudia,’ Roisin surmises. ‘No,’ I tell her. 'Absolutely not.’ She shrugs. ‘A gravedigger, then. He’s gone, Eve.’ ‘I’m sure you could—’ She shakes her head, emphatically. ‘It’s too late for an antidote. Even if I could brew one in time—no sure thing—he’s past the point of returning with herbs alone. What did you do to him?’ ‘Nothing that should kill him,’ I say. ‘He was drinking lager by the pint. I dropped a thimblefull of lyrebane in his glass, followed him to the privy, and collected him when he collapsed halfway. To anybody else he’d have just drunk overmuch. It can’t have been too strong a dose—I mean, look at him.’ We both take in the man tied to the chair before us. I’d been assigned to locate, subdue, and retrieve a Witch Hunter half a day’s travel away. This man, all two-hundred pounds of muscle, fit the description: from close-cropped auburn beard to gryphon tattoo on half-bared chest. If he wasn’t a Witch Hunter, he’d find good coin playing at one. ‘I am,’ Roisin muses, biting her lip. ‘All of him. How did you get him back here?’ ‘As a frog,’ I tell her. ‘As a frog.’ ‘I mean, I turned him into a frog, and left the tavern with him tucked away in my rucksack.’ Roisin squeezes her eyes shut, and then raises her head, opening them with a beseeching look to the ceiling. ‘Empress look after you,’ she mouths. ‘You gave him lyrebane, and then turned him into a frog.’ ‘I don’t see how else I could have—’ ‘You know about non-transitive thaumaturgy,’ Roisin interrupts. ‘Of course,’ I tell her. It’s one of the main tenets of magic, that every student learns in their first year. They make it sound more complicated than it actually is—I spent three months translating ancient theorems proving it, which at least instilled in me a love of language—but in short, magic cannot affect magic. It’s why you can’t cast one spell to light a fire and then another to douse it afterwards, which would make most magical battles otherwise quite trivial. ‘Lyrebane is magic,’ Roisin says, with the patient tone of a professor lecturing a prentice. ‘When you transformed the man—’ she nods to the body, as still and silent as ever—‘the transformation didn’t affect the lyrebane. A thimblefull of lyrebane is one thing to a man of his size and constitution, but quite another to a mouse.’ ‘Frog,’ I correct, my mouth dry. She shrugs. ‘We learned about it on mice. Honestly, Eve. I know you’re all about playing cloak-and-dagger, but you would have done well to take at least one elective in practical potion-work. I’ll say again—you’re going to need Claudia.’ ‘They’ll be able to tell,’ I murmur, reaching for a defensible objection. ‘Only if you play your part poorly,’ Roisin retorts. ‘Claudia’s magic won’t yield to theirs, after all.’ ‘I hardly think the adjudicators won’t—’ ‘Eve,’ Roisin interrupts, gripping my arm. ‘Why do you want to become a witch?’ ‘To—to serve my realm,’ I begin. She twists my arm, and I wince. ‘No,’ she says. ‘You want to be a spy in foreign courts. You want to lie, manipulate … deceive. If you can get this past the adjudicators, you’ll deserve the best posting offered. If you can’t … well, the better to find out now.’ ‘Fine,’ I relent. ‘She can try.’ # ‘That’s it?’ Claudia asks, incredulous, after taking in the dead man with the air of a surgeon inspecting a sprain. ‘You could have fetched a first-year.’ Roisin frowns. For all her insistence on fetching Claudia, she’s no more keen to spend time in their faculty than I am. ‘Experience seemed prudent,’ she demurs. ‘Given the circumstances.’ ‘Either of you could have managed this,’ Claudia continues, ‘if you’d bothered to take a single elective, rather than waste time on potions or—’ she casts an eye on me, ‘—“etiquette”.’ I swallow hard. ‘I’ll be in your debt,’ I manage. ‘And that’s what you learn in “diplomacy”?’ she scoffs, glowering before her twinkling eyes betray humour and she breaks out into a grin. ‘Very well! I’ll call on you the next time I need help telling spoons apart at dinner.’ She rolls up sleeves, turning back to the body. At once, the candles extinguish and the temperature plummets, my neck breaking out in goosebumps as a glow radiates from Claudia’s outstretched hands. Roisin tightens her own gown, nervous breaths puffing out before her. I’m not sure what she’s so worried about : her future as a witch isn’t now dependant on the elder magics of the necromantic wing. Claudia begins a steady, rhythmic chant, low and sonorous, and I watch as she beckons the dead man to awaken. His cold flesh impossibly obliges, eyelids snapping open even as Claudia ceases her chant and lets threads of thaumaturgy flow toward the man’s parted mouth. All the light in the room follows the rivulets, a luminescent tributary rushing to fill the space left by death; and then Claudia snaps her fingers and the candles re-light, the man as awake and alert as I’d met him. ‘I wouldn’t advise speaking to him,’ Claudia says, closing the distance to inspect her work. The Witch Hunter takes this scrutiny without complaint, eyes focused only on the far wall. ‘But his memories are intact.’ ‘Thank you,’ I say. That won’t be a problem: only amateur witches rely on vocal interrogations. ‘Oh, and table settings are outside-in. You work toward the centre with each course.’ ‘Ah,’ Claudia smiles. ‘And here I’m used to working from the inside out. Well, good luck!’ # The interrogation goes as well as anyone could hope. My spellwork deftly silences his lips while projecting latent memories: incipient conspiracies to invade Vanadium splayed against the brickwork. The adjudicators question my theory, inspect my legerdemain, but not once raise a question about the man’s mortality. I realise, for all I’d shunned the necromantic arts as lifeless puppetry, there was something of a beauty in it—or maybe I’m only grateful my future as court witch escaped its own bloodless end. Finally, at the end of the hour-long session, the adjudicators call an end to the proceedings. ‘Congratulations,’ the Dean of Spycraft announces. ‘You’ve performed an exemplary interrogation—’ I beam, hardly believing the deception worked. Roisin was right—for all of Claudia’s handiwork, it was my own talents that sold the show. I’m halfway to profuse thanks when the Dean continues: ‘—although, in future, I’d advise against dalliance while a dead man’s shade has free reign of the grounds.’ An arch smile spreads across her face. ‘Especially one who knows exactly where to find and wake the sleeping Dean.’ My stomach drops; visions of my future replaced by earning my keep forever as a tower servant, harried by the vengeful ghost of my failed exam. ‘Now, if he weren’t on the payroll,’ the Dean muses, ‘we may be having a very different conversation right now. As it stands, he actually rated your performance quite highly,’ she smiles. ‘With a few suggested improvements … but, well, there are always critics. He did commend your problem-solving and co-operation, however. ‘Which will be important in your new role,’ she concludes. ‘Welcome to the coven, Yvette. We look forward to your reports.’
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Apr 1, 2024 00:35
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