Serpentine Squiggles

For Serial Designation J, it’s lonely being only effective disassembly drone in her sector of Copper-9.

N was already a walking synergistic liability, but V couldn’t be more obviously stressed and maladaptively coping if she tried. When a botched disassembly leaves V a nightmare-riddled wreck, the squad’s effectiveness hits its lowest point. With disassemblers like these, you’d swear the worker drones show more initiative!

Meanwhile, Uzi Doorman is a cool, independent worker drone. After Doll abandoned her, she doesn’t need anyone else — all she needs is to finish her railgun and blow the murder drones anyway. Of course, if her plan goes wrong she’ll be helpless at their mercy. Dead, in other words.

After all, J is a loyal drone. Locate, shutdown, disassemble. A simple directive she’d never hesitate to carry out. Right?

J couldn’t get that worker off her mind. A worker, standing over her, those violet eyes gloating with incontestable triumph, that gun roaring with so much electromagnetic power it made her coils quake. A worker. How could she lose to this? But she had lost. More than lost. She was going to die. She was dead. Unless‍—

But it wasn’t enough that a worker had left her about to offer surrender. It had left her speechless.

Or: in which J holds her tongue, and Uzi holds her hostage.

It is the nature of comets to dazzle and destroy. These eldritch spirits from beyond the stars will grind kingdoms to dust with joyful ease. Only the power of a daughter of the moon can repel them. There are none left.

Aurora knows she is different. Her father is a plain man, and her mother is a mystery. Prismatic hair, a divergent mind, an inability to weave common enchantments — it must come from her mother’s side. But her mother is gone and no one will say why or where or anything. It’s enough to make her want to fight someone.

And Aurora fights — people, animals, spirits, it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t want to hurt them, but it’s thrilling. She’ll just have to become a hero — heroes get to fight things, right? And heroes get answers to who their parents were.

When a cursed storm leaves Aurora glowing in the light of the full moon, she awakens new powers she can’t control. Powers unheard of, except in those old stories.

But the word on the lips of churchmen is witchcraft — communion with unnatural spirits that spells doom.

Will she defend humanity? Or is she a threat to it?

Spend too long in the dark, and light is blinding, even painful. Uzi’s lived a life neglected and alone, but N’s smile could brighten any darkness.

Locked out of Outpost-3, the two of them face the world side by side. His squad leader wants him dead, and J won’t leave a job unfinished. Can they escape her wrath? It would be so easy to fly far away from this place, but Uzi needs to know who her mother was. Knowledge is power, knowledge takes power, yet what is power good for but destroying things?

Try not to love everything you destroy.

Everyone wants to peel off their skin and scream into the night. You’re just supposed to keep a handle on that.

Beca’s trying. On the run, she’ll get it right in a new town. She’s got nothing to her name save a pet raven, but a little pickpocketing will change that. Maybe a buglary or two. As long as she doesn’t tear someone apart in broad daylight, she could keep everything under control.

It’s a lonely life, but friendship is only temptation. She should just keep to herself. So why does she listen when the woman from the shadows talks? It’s an offer that could lift her off the streets for good.

The catch? She has to kill someone. Again. That’s definitely too much temptation.

Duskroot has been destroyed. A minor stronghold, its enemies struck with cunning and coordination while its allies didn’t lift a hand. Now, as vultures at a corpse, mercenaries are hunting for the survivors.

Awelah escaped Duskroot. She lost everything. Vengeance drives her, but can she kill a angel beyond death?

Ooliri has a mission to defend Duskroot’s refugees. He has to prove he belongs in a family of medical geniuses. But healing isn’t enough — can he bring the dead back to life?

Makuja seeks safety among the refugees. Death and servitude leaves her gaze empty. It’s easy to be a follower, but is there a purpose worth living for?

First, the three need answers. A grand scheme is unfolding, and Duskroot was only the first step.

Secluded in a backwater realm, the dragon orphan Malthec la Kaon is raised in ignorance and drudgery. He bears the stain of a name with unspoken history, his atrementous scales and sanguine wings the only hint of a heritage his ostensible guardians do not speak. Dragons are meant to be mighty and free, yet he toils in an unprecedented school for dragons, under the guiding wings of Devain, Whose Breath is Knowledge.

Each dragon has a unique potential, a magical Breath all their own, and the mentors of Devain are supposed to guide each dragonet to reach that potential. But where other dragons are given doting approval, Kaon is left to discover his alone and he has. But rather than breath of fire or frost, Kaon s special breath is weak, seemingly useless. Is this really his potential?

The dragoness Vessia is his only peer, equally neglected by the mentors and lacking any flashy Breath. But she rarely speaks, and endless mystery envelops her, and her knowledge and abilities. When she disappears, Kaon seizes an opportunity to seek answers and perhaps, true power. And perhaps, companionship.

You are a heartlands mantis nymph training to become a Vesperbane, a warrior-scholar granted magic. That’s the hope, and it’d let you escape this dinky farm-town plonked at edge of the heartlands, where the Ambrosia Woods breathes down its thorax. Unless — until — you you get noticed and sponsored, you’re stuck out here, peerless and overqualified for your tutors. Frustration and impatience come easy.

One day, alone, you hear a scream from the depths of those cursed woods. It’s a mantid’s scream, and heartlands mantids don’t live in the ambrosia.

Stars are all Kinri has. Exiled from the noble heights of the skyland empire, she scrapes by in the backwater crags of the land of glass and secrets. It’s a chance to make friends and live a simple life away from her family⁠ ⁠—⁠ that’s all she wants. She’s different now, and she’ll prove it. But can she even convince herself?

In the long shadow of her legendary alchemist grandfather, Hinte struggles to find something to call her own. Out in the depths of the town’s volcanic lake, she sifts for mysterious stones, and it seems she’s found it⁠ ⁠—⁠ but her new sense of purpose doesn’t escape those around her.

United by circumstance, the pair struggle to find common ground. When Kinri finally convinces Hinte to bring her along on a sifting expedition, she’s curious then baffled as the mysteries pile up, and her new companion remains tight-lipped and distant. Is this just sifting, or something more?

Beneath a never-setting sun, jellyfish live in worshipful subservice to the feathered gods that created them. They guide with grand benevolence — except for one treacherous god, cast out of their ranks to protect their subjects.

With nothing to live for, the jellyfish Ruwene takes the first order he’s given. He swore upon a dark altar that he will kill the high priestess of the sun god, lord of the pantheon. His knows his story won’t have a happy conclusion — but better to have a conclusion.

Do tapeworms feel cozy or confined, dwelling undetected in those prison walls of flesh? The host feeds them, yet growth must conform to viscera squeezed tight.

A certain ennui gnaws at Vil. (“Vili” if you must — do not use her full name). She has everything a girl could want — provided that girl does not want more than three plates each day, a bed to sleep in, and a life as a bargaining chip.

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Assorted stories and outlines of stories for the free animated webseries Murder Drones, a favorite of ours.

Sometimes, dead drones explode. Oil burns, emitting not tongues of flame, but holographic lines of aberrant code—and the dead come burning back to life.

Against these burning revenants, Nori Doorman stands above it all; other drones are nothing but insects in her shadow.

But who is the sun?

The sky is a black ocean that ripples above trees of chitin and cuticle crawling high. This world is scarred, and the only reprieve to plagues and malediction are vesperbanes, bugs who kill just by existing.

And yet still they dream—they promise to bring about a burning dream of peace, and every oath binds.

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Counterfactual.

There’s an open problem in philosophy – it involves understanding and dealing with these things called ‘counterfactuals’ or ‘what if scenarios’. “What if the Titanic didn’t sink?”, “What if Lincoln hadn’t been shot”.

The problem, in essence, is that these statements seem sensible, some would even say they have meaningful answers. The problem is that predicate logic literally cannot handle counterfactuals, a limitation built into the nature of material implication.

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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.

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