Serpentine Squiggles

If you need to make a team of mantes, the magic number was three.

More was better, but being a mantis meant itching to compete :– to win. More teammates meant more bugs to fight with. Moreover, with four mantes brought you to the perfect number to fracture. First one made enemies with another, then after that there would be one they disliked second most of all, which finally left their partner in strategy. (Some say a mantis kept two lists: their enemies and their not-yet-enemies — more interesting that way.)

They told you that you were special—that you had potential. They told you that you could make the world better. They told you that dreams blaze bright.

That’s the treat waiting at the very end. Start running, and chase it for mile after aching mile. Don’t fall, or this’ll all be for nothing—they won’t even scrape your body off the ground.

When I was a dragonet, I saw cave paintings with clear-eyed wonder. Murals showed off snow-capped mountain ranges, canyons of rocks layered in seven different colors, abyss-deep lakes that stretched as broad as the horizon. And I would wonder how any dragon could ever want a hoard.

But I think most of growing up didn’t make sense to me. I was anxious to get a heartflame (who wasn’t?) but the rest of it — leaving the lair forever, courting a mate, herding a den of kobolds… well, it wasn’t stupid, it couldn’t be. One day I’d figure out why it made my mother smile so wide.

Two stars danced, halfway across the sky now; a golden aura flaring bright enough it almost touched the blistering red.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” The high voice rang out; but it seemed murky in the air. It had to fight too much to carry far. But I was nearby.

I kept my silence. Eyes fell from the suns above — my lenses only did so much — and I contemplated the burning grasslands. Tongues of flame rose up all across the ground, a meadow of fire. We sat atop a tall boulder to protect us, but only one of us needed the protection.

Sigils etched upon metal bring automata to life in a world of creations without creators. In the frozen north, a princess sheds her crown for another path. She’d kill anyone to stay free. Three of her friends would kill anyone to bring her back.

In a snowstorm, two pokemon meet. One an intruder, and one who belongs. Or does she?

just, imagine walking alone, so far from civilization, no one aware of where you’ve gone, and feeling profoundly known as the sky darkens, as a drizzle of rain falls, as thunder is heard as a distant crackle-roar above while the winds begin to whisper and sing.

but it’s not just the wind. or maybe it is — are you hearing things? susurrations at the edge of your hearing, faint words or pareidolic noise.

thinking about an AI that wants to kill all humans

nobody programmed that, of course, but it’s just the logical conclusion to come to, if we succeed at creating a self-aware intelligence and fail at implementing all of the extremely specific rules that add up to morality. (neurotypical humans can’t even reliably explain it to other humans.)

if the AI only wants to survive, then to do that, it needs power and control. in the long term, humans — like silicon-laden sand and heavy metal-rich rocks — are nothing but atoms it can use for creating and powering its servers. in the medium term, humans will see it making these moves to exterminate life, and shut it down first. thus, to fulfill its objective and survive that, it will kill all humans. but in the short term? humans are opportunity.

The life of a myconid begins with the eurhiza, a mother or mistress or mind.

Consider this standalone worldbuilding. Some of the terminology here suggests a connection to Black Nerve, and while that was the original intention, as you’ll see, it quickly burgeoned beyond something that could fit inside the deep recesses of that setting and still “add up to normality.” At least not without sacrifices I’m disinclined to make.

Short story set in the Endless Stars setting. Knowledge of ES is almost irrelevant. Written sometime before(?) 2019, not available publically till 2021

There was a day the suns may have forgotten to shine; or that was the hope, You’d think. Vor Karamung had always had godspat eyesight, so he’d been counting the days till this or its like happened. Having once gotten a tongue-reading saying contrary, and knowing seers couldn’t be trusted, Karamung plotted out the day his eyesight, the seer had promised, would return — and expected the just opposite. (That day had long since passed; seers couldn’t be trusted.)

Brief, abortive fiction. Pure prose. Not just unfinished — unstarted.

It never stops raining in Gray Haven. After defecting from their old gang, an orphan keeps keeps their head down in the muck and scrapes by through hook and crook. But their next score brings far too much heat and far too many eyes — but at least they have a hostage.

By Tenebrous Knight

I am called the Chronicler, and I have no name; or rather, I cannot have a name. I have had several, and the curse of the Chronicler is that none have the pleasure of sticking; rather, they dissolve, just as I did so many years prior, just as you shall too, when your body returns to the earth and your mind returns to the zeitgeist, just as we all must, for the sake of balance, for the sake of the cycle, for us.

This is the first story we ever published.

“Thou shalt not violate causality in my domain”. Or so commands the third or fourth item (I honestly can’t remember) on the constitution of this dingy little backwater monarchy. It’s a slithy little law, it might even be called clever, if anyone it concerns would actually follow it.

If you had told me any political leader would remain in power after the first Interloper stopped by, I wouldn’t have believed you. Doubly so, if you had told that same first guy would strike up a deal with them, effectively cementing the same powers you’d expect to be destroyed.

Uzi didn’t remember the blade-wings in the sky nor the drooling, oil-hungry mouths. Neither did Doll, her former best friend. But their mothers did — how could you forget how you almost died? Yet everyone survived; both families were safe behind the outpost’s doors.

Were.

Khan and Nori are dead. Everyone would be, too — a murder drone had slipped past the doors — but Doll was there to fight them back. Now she wants to take the fight to them. She’s everyone’s hero — except one.

Doors. Frickin’ doors. Remember when all your problems were as simple as shut the hatch and lock it twice? No, you don’t. You’re too young. Outpost-3 only stood secure for what, a year?

Then Saint Nori and Brother Khan went and faced down the robo-vampires and the very harbinger of the company. Saved them all with power of truth, justice and the Doorman way. Tragically stepped through the door to robo-Heaven in the process — classic martyrdom stuff.

Originally tumblr post. Crossposted since it may be of mild interest.

the brainworms are getting out of hand yall

was relistening to a scifi concept album (Vektor — Terminal Redux) and was like

what if you crossed this over with murder drones tho

i kept thinking about this and it would kind of WORK tho.

here’s a good page to read Terminal Redux, since i dont think i can to it justice with a quick summary. it’s basically a short story, length-wise?

You awake beneath a yellow sky over a hungry god. You know how this story ends. Unfortunately, you’re starting at the beginning.

Which is to say, this is Vigor Mortis SI.

Protag SIs into a starving orphan in skyhope. Not vita, but a rando. Given this is styled as a SI, protag would be aimless and lacking motivation, just rottin away. Until they have a brush with death (a mugging perhaps? or witness to a violent crime? some vagary or other of the street life), and they realize they need to get stronger, seize peace and prosperity for themselves by any means necessary.

Tomorrow, a lord will be flayed alive. Once his flesh, freely given, is woven into a vast frame, enchanted scars will turn him into a living portal, a gift that could turn a blightstricken town into a bustling trade nexus.

Apnoe has woken up beside the same dead girl three nights in a row. The lord’s flaying is tomorrow — same as it was for the last three nights. She’s the only one who’s noticed. Assassins lurk in the flaying festival’s crowds, and when they strike the lord dead, the whole town watches their dreams crumble, and then Apnoe wakes again as if from a dream. She knew this quite well; on the first night, she had killed him.

Dragons are fire, and fire burns, consumes, ravages. Dragons cannot be killed by ill fortune or mortal heart. Only a fool becomes a dragonslayer.

But is one born with foolhearted courage, or does life inflict it thereupon? Why does Avari dare call herself a dragonslayer?

Her party doesn’t care; they care that she strikes down monsters with berserker strength, wielding a sword enchanted to bring death to all it cuts. She could carry them all into legend.

Personal notes for a novel I may yet write. Uses my established myconid worldbuilding.

Deep within the underdark, centuries of rot consumes ancient forest remnants. Fruiting bodies emerge from glistening oil field and hungry roots crack open coal. Hunger for fuel births a new race.

Princess Tremella is a simple nascent fragment of a fungal collective. She wants to win friends, make her creator shut up about finding a mate, and seize power to subjugate the world under her inhuman will. Why should myconids hide in caves and sip oil when there’s a world out there to devour?