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. Her prismatic hair, her divergent mind, her 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?
Duskroot is destroyed. A minor stronghold, its enemies were cunning and coordinated and its allies didn’t lift a hand. As vultures at a corpse, mercenaries hunt for 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.
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 jellykind.
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.
Stars are all Kinri has. Exiled from the noble heights of the sky, 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?
Meanwhile, 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?
What if J and Uzi swapped places? Okay, that doesn’t work — you couldn’t try to find two drones more inseparable from their identities as disassembler and worker. But if you swapped some other things around? How close could you get?
Would they still fall in love? Obviously. But how?
I have a few ideas, so here’s a quick lil write-up.
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. His squad leader wants him dead, and Uzi needs to know who her mother was. Knowledge is power — but power is for destroying things.
Try not to love everything you destroy.
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 her shadow. But who is the sun?
Uzi was pretty frickin good at her job. Her sick as a hell railgun totally works, and she has the body count to prove it! With a trail of dead murder drones behind her, she’s finally secured her place in the frozen wasteland.
Okay, maybe she had a little help. But she didn’t need J’s protection or anything. She could handle herself just fine!
Tonight, she needs to repair her railgun. Maybe tweak a few things while she’s at it. And sure, she’s staying up a little late to do it. (Don’t tell J.)
The railgun’s what kept her alive, after all. She needs to hone it to perfect — what else did she have?
Make no mistake: Uzi was a disruption. Unlike Lizzy, she was never one to text during class. Was. Now, Uzi seems to spent all day glued to her phone. It’s obvious: she’s made a new friend — or something more? No amount of rumor or gossip can’t figure out who.
Uzi certainly isn’t telling.
Storm-veiled stars, frozen city ruins, knives in the sky.
Railgun finished early, Uzi hunts.
Here’s a story idea. Premise is something like this:
It’s a mercenary world out there for vesperbanes. Elizi will do whatever it takes to put food on her plate — well, almost anything. She still has a heart. But if it takes a little finesse to get her fair share? Sometimes you gotta play a little dirty to stay in the game. Elizi does the best she can, and maybe one day, that’ll be enough. Till then, honor is a luxury.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
“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.