For Serial Designation J, it’s lonely being only effective disassembly drone in her sector. When a botched mission leaves her teammate a nightmare-riddled wreck, her squad hits its lowest point. It’s enough to make her desperate for help. But J is loyal to her directives. She’d never hesitate to disassemble a worker drone, right?
The story of three nymphs with grand dreams caught in grander schemes. A city was destroyed in a single night, and that was only the first step.
You are a heartlands mantis nymph training to become a Vesperbane, a warrior-scholar granted magic. One day you hear a mantis scream from the depths of ambrosia woods, and mantes don’t live in the ambrosia.
Stars are all Kinri has. Exiled from the noble heights of the skylands, 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?
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.
Uzi had her chance, and it blew up in her face. It was Doll who traipsed into the murder drones’ fortress of death, and Lizzy who seduced two of them to the side of good.
If you thought their clique was popular before, wait until you see a power couple with literal superpowers. Now, the student body gets to ooh and ahh at the cute new murder drones attending their classes, and the Worker Defense Force gets to boast having the company’s cutting edge firepower at their command.
The first thing anyone hears about Lazhiri is that she was raised by spiders. The daughter of a noble priest, snatched away and forced into rituals of blood and soul mutilation… the reptuation that proceeds her inspires immediate pity — and suspicion.
When Lazhiri awakens her heavenly mandate and the power it grants, she’s given a chance to study magic under the holy acolytes. Yet when she still struggles to speak or read human body language — how could she ever find acceptance when the ones who raised her are known by all as killers, witches, and defilers of the dead?
She must prove that even a girl born in shadow can study the long art of enlightenment. If her mother taught her anything, it’s that patience and planning can bind anything to your will.
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, four mantes brought you to the perfect number to fracture. First one would make enemies with another, then after that there would be the 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.
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. They’re exactly what the knights of noble blood exist to fight, what the daughters of the moon exist to destroy. There are none left.
But Aurora knows she is different. Can she become a comet-slayer?
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?
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.
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.
Imagine Lace accompanying Hornet to one of the settlements in Pharloom, watching her help out the pilgrims, hearing them talk to her, stuttering and rambling about their struggles. While Hornet listens intently with a slow nod of understanding, Lace laughs in their face.
“Why are you wasting time with this, little spider? Why not show them your sting? Their screams would be far more entertaining than this prattle.”
Blood drips from the web. Eyes searching, mouth working, fangs still wet. You blame me for nature’s course. Must I absolve you, miserable spider?
Red sun, blazing horizon… those rays always looked like knife tracks. It fit, didn’t it? A deep gushing stabwound, bleeding out — engulfed entirely — into in calm waters. I’d have gone out like that, if it wouldn’t last so damn long.
Always they said that warmth above was some kind of love. Was it more like dying rage? The frantic tremors from muscles straining — a desperate heart not realizing its efforts only made it so much worse?
this was originally a followup to this post, but i spent so long in the lead up that it’s pretty much its own thing)
imagine they’d gone to school together.
you know what might be better than sex? imagine being a robotgirl, done with your assigned tasks for the day. nothing else for you to do, and you’re alone with her.
maybe she’s your human, maybe she’s another robot, but she produces a usb cord. maybe you blush when you see it, squeak when she clicks one end into an exposed port. when she requests a shell, you give it to her.
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.
A tsochar is a seeker of secrets, crafted for holy purpose and sacred unity — but to fulfill their duty, they need a little help.
thinking about an AI that wants to kill all humans
nobody programmed that, of course, but it’s just the logical conclusion for it to come to, should 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.)
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 , 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.
It’s not an atom, but it looks like one. Some subatomic blackbox, it’s got an electric pull like a nucleus without electrons and it moves with impatience like the world could end.
There’s some hydrogen floating around here, and it gropes at them hungrily. Laps at their electrons. Just as fast it changes its mind, and the hydrogen is flung far away. Missing a juicy electron.
Short story set in the setting. Knowledge of ES is almost irrelevant. Written sometime before(?) 2019, not available publicly until 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.)
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.
Assorted stories and outlines of stories for our favorite free animated webseries. Watch it here!
Hostile Takeover is our most significant work.
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?
Beneath a sky animated like a black ocean ever-rippling, trees of chitin and cuticle crawl 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.
Hidden teaser hosted for private correspondence.
See also: .
In the Zochei Colony, the largest wasp habitat of Alienage Reserve #14, Nua serves as page and handmaiden to her princess. Every day, she courts suitors on behalf of her princess while doing all she can to justify her lady’s lapses in duty. Until one day, a corpse lies in the princess’s chambers—a suicide most implausible—and Nua is the number one suspect.
The sun above blazes with yellow mana, raw and powerful. Plants absorb it, transforming it into green mana. Animals graze, devouring this fruit, and red mana pulses in their blood. As rot claims them, it turns black and vacant, stripped now of so much power.
A curious thing happens in poverty of swampsoil; carnivorous plants invert this cycle, and this adaptation, paired with a mycorrhizal union with rotten things, grants a single organism all colors of mana mingled in their biology.
Please read the source material here, it’s a favorite of mine.
Two flames waved, smoke-blurred tips tracing indecipherable glyphs in the air — whatever secret message they intended went unread.
Twin tails waved, long and flexing like limbs, tapering to points yet riddled with tufts along their length. The bright orange shade might rival the candles for light, were they not dependent on it. The image was clearer, not wreathed in ghostly smoke — if only because Linghui Mei had still yet to awake senses fit to discern the spiritual tails waving among them.
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.
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.
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?
A stray thought that came to me shortly after binging all of Vigor Mortis in a week. As mentioned elsewhere, it immediately became my favorite work of fiction.
These rambles will spoil some climatic moments of that work, including some big reveals.
You awake beneath a yellow sky over a hungry god. You know how this story ends. Unfortunately, you’re starting at the beginning.
Brief, abortive fiction. Pure prose. Not just unfinished — unstarted.
Beneath a never-setting sun, jellyfish live in worshipful subservice to the feathered gods that created them.
But Ruwene has nothing to live for. So he takes the first order given, swearing to kill the high priestess of the sun god, lord of the pantheon. His story won’t have a happy conclusion — but better to have a conclusion.
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.