snippet – Page 5

10/10/2024 Snippet, CALL OF THE MOON-BEASTS.

Getting into it.

I do not understand people sometimes, Commander. By now Tobias could hear the emotional overtones in Asenath’s voice. He supposed she had finally automated those subroutines, which was nice. Did she not understand that you are in an existing relationship?

“She did,” Tobias muttered. “She just didn’t know how seriously I took it. Now she does. — So, next up is… Marcin Grabinski, yes?”

Yes. Painter and mathematician. Refugee from Baza Heweliusza. Technically the highest remaining POLSA representative who remains accessible to us. Tobias found Asenath’s pauses considerably more ‘natural,’ now. I do not understand why he and the other Commonwealth refugees did not throw in with the Europeans.

“I’m not,” Tobias muttered. “I’d tell you to remind me not to bring up the subject, but I don’t need you to. Anyway, he was doing stuff with asteroid mapping, if I remember. Nothing theoretical.”

10/05/2024 Snippet, THE GOBLIN.

The trick is to find bits that are interesting, but don’t give away any of the awful bits until you read them on Patreon.

Subsurface tunnels in the elf-woods don’t last long, since the trees’ roots will seek them out, but when you start from the boundary zone you can get a few interconnected hidey-holes set up that’ll last a week. I was nicely ensconced in the one farthest back into the elf-wood by the time the Wild Hunt rumbled by, a dozen feet above my head. Even muffled, they sounded nicely unhappy, and ready to take it out on anyone they found.

Just how they were supposed to be, in other words. I waited until the rumbling faded, then started scrambling up the narrow passage that would get me to the surface. Idly, I wondered how many of the bigger fish I’d get before they swarmed me.

I managed three. One was all I needed, and two would have been respectable, so three was something to be proud of.

10/03/2024 Snippet, THE GOBLIN.

There’s a certain mutual loathing going on here. Let me tell you right now: there’s not going to be a romance option, either. The idea would make either one of them recoil in disgust.

The vist let me know she was awake with her screaming. Well, as much as she could scream through the ballgag. I didn’t actually need her to talk for this next bit to work. Listening in horror would be just fine.

I knew she would immediately charge me, given what I was doing, but I didn’t turn until after I heard the sound of her sudden tumble to the ground. After all, I was perfectly safe. I’d checked the chain and ankle cuff, and I knew just how much range it would give the vist.

I looked over. Nothing seemed obviously broken, which didn’t matter either way, but the vist hadn’t been improved by her involuntary roll in the filthy ground. Which was her own fault, so I decided I didn’t care. “You no move,” I told her. Technically, the vist and my people spoke a common language. In reality, the vocabulary had changed, and the accent, and I had more words to work with. So talking to them could be a headache. “Chain on foot, chain on tree. Chain on tree tight . You move close, tree choke, tree die.”

10/02/2024 Snippet, THE GOBLIN.

I don’t know whether to put up the truly horrible bits here. Because some horrible bits are coming.

You didn’t want to dry-gulch an elf while he was inspecting an elf-wood clearing, because that was exactly when he would be paying most attention to his surroundings. Picking him off before or after he got there just left you the vist to deal with anyway. So you needed the two together, only both distracted. There left a couple of good times to intervene, but you had to be careful then, too. Elves can move fast, when they’re not distracted. The important thing was to call your shot, so I waited until things just felt right.

I don’t know why the elves make vist do either submission ritual out in the open — no, wait, I do. No elf would ever drug or swive a vist in a vist shack, or really do anything else in one. If you think my contempt for the vist is vast, it’s nothing compared to the elves. They never miss a chance to demonstrate just how more important the elves are than everything else on this world, and a vist drug submission pushes a lot of elvish buttons. Probably even more than the swiving does, even. Alas for the elf, he was too engrossed at the sight of a vist writhing in ecstatic delirium from the drug to notice my approach until I was two feet behind him. That’s the nice part of an elf-wood. No leaves, no loam, just hard-packed dirt that soaked up sound.

10/01/2024 Snippet, THE GOBLIN.

So, hey, you know how I don’t do grim, much?

Yeah, the rules are gonna be different, this month. Starting with how I’m going to try to do a 3K story every week for Patreon, just because I want to icepick a couple of ideas instead of lingering over them. I’m also going to be invoking more horror this month, too. Just because.

The Goblin

It’s an elvish lie that we can only come out when it’s dark. There I was, deep in the elf-wood, wasn’t I? Right in the middle of the Bright, too. No bursting into flames, no screaming at the light, none of that. Thanks to my goggles, I wasn’t even squinting. See? Total lie.

The elves know it’s a lie, too. They just tell the vist different to keep them in their hovels at night, and too afraid to go far into the woods. I mean, sure, my people do stay out of the Bright unless we have a reason to be out and about then, but that’s just to make it harder for the enemy to see us.

It’s tricky, hunting your prey in an elf-wood. The trees kill everything that isn’t them, so there’s no brush or thickets to hide in, and any branches that fall off dry out and break up within a couple of days. I had to slip from tree to tree, trusting in my bark-colored cloak and ability to guess when it was safe to move. It also helped that I knew where the prey was going, more or less. There aren’t many places in an elf-wood that are different from each other, and I had already scouted out them all.

I try to be prepared ahead of time like that.

Snippet the Last, DEADLIME.

Actually, writing a ‘mere’ three thousand words had its points. Less BS, more getting to the action. Will contemplate. I got more stories to tell of these two if you like them.

Moving through woods that used to be an Old American ‘suburb’ was always odd. After hundreds of years, a lot of roads were inexplicably still there. The ones that weren’t left behind grassy paths that were only now starting to sprout trees. The path they were on was one of the latter, and the only thing that bothered the two men was the way it left them with slight rises on either side.

Both men instinctively knew how the way to track monsters was to follow your nose. There was just something about the way unnatural creatures smelled that couldn’t be scoured away, or covered up. And everybody knew the Universal Dominion to (and too close to) the west — easily the biggest monster-maker on the continent — didn’t even try to get rid of the smell. They liked it when people got a whiff of evil on the breeze. That made regular folks afraid, and fear was one of the Dominion’s best tools.

Which was one reason why Oxamn and Nat went after the hodag without really even thinking about it. Monster-killing was what fighters did. Besides, if the damn thing were breeding spawn it’d just make sense to kill it now, before the problem got too big for two swordsmen.

09/26/2024 Snippet, Shorter story.

I have decided that I hate THE LAST DAYS OF UNHOLY TOLEDO because I don’t know who the heck my heroes actually are. So I’m going to do a quick 3K word story that establishes them in my head. If nothing else, this will make me far less cranky about the situation.

Dead Leemah
(Just outside of Lima, Ohio)

Nathaniel Smart-Mouth did not want to die. He certainly didn’t want to die in a monster-haunted dead city. Ruins were where stupid people died, starting with the ones foolish enough to go into ruins by themselves.

Unfortunately, he was not the only one with an opinion on the subject. The tribesmen who had chased him into Dead Leemah in particular had a burning desire to see his liver. He wasn’t entirely certain that they wouldn’t eat it after, either. The Ohio Marcher country was big enough to hide a lot of horror in the hard-to-find places.

A dumber man than Nat might have taken comfort in how the sounds of pursuit had been fading over the last fifteen minutes. A more optimistic one might have told himself that surely the tales of ‘Dead Leemah’ were exaggerated. Since he was neither, Nat instead kept moving, trying to stay alert but not anxious about whatever peril lurked ahead. Better the monsters ahead than the ones behind.

He hoped that wasn’t him being dumb and optimistic, either.

09/25/2024 Snippet, THE LAST DAYS OF UNHOLY TOLEDO.

Trying my best to reel this one in.

The Monsignor pursed his lips, looking backward himself. After a moment, he shrugged. “There may be something back there, yes. As I have said, the spellcraft is weaker here than it should be. Perhaps some spirit has taken hold of frayed magic, and reweaved it into a form more pleasing to it.” He shrugged. “No matter, as long as it contents itself with easy prey.”

The Monsignor turned … only to find Maddox’s arm blocking his way. “Unholy Toledo had a name for showing contempt for the wits of others. Which is why there’s an army at its walls.” The Monsignor’s nostrils flared at the accurate accusation. “We may be underground even now, but I am no fungus, to be kept in the dark, and fed shit. What can we expect from the rest of these miserable chambers? For clearly you know.”“Oh, I do! My circle” — Nat’s eyes narrowed, for that was not a word one liked to hear a mage use to describe his associates — “long had the task of preserving these pleasure chambers. Ha!” he went on, seeing Maddox start slightly. “Not all tastes are as coarse as yours, fighting-man. Those of us with more rarified psyches require subtler delights. But it is fair that you know what you face.”

09/24/2024 Snippet, THE LAST DAYS OF UNHOLY TOLEDO.

Getting there!

Nat discovered the reason for those hose-mouths soon enough. “Damn!” he shouted as a stream of gray filth splattered across his shield, befouling it with a quickly-hardening slime. He smashed the shield in the foul attacker’s face, wincing at the fresh screeching. “Don’t let it get on your skin, right?”

“As little as possible!” yelled the Monsignor, his face a snarl of hate as the tip of his staff glittered an evil green. It trailed a brief green mist, too; but when the mist met flesh, the flesh bubbled. “They overwhelm their victims, trapping them in… their spray…”

He stopped in surprise, and perhaps mild dismay. Maddox and Nat had paired up, back to back, and around them was now piled a heap of stinking spider-things. Even as he watched, one monster spouted at Maddox’s head, only to have it intercepted by Nat’s now-encrusted shield. One quick stab later, and it was shuddering in death on the floor.

Nat fumbled with his shield. “Disgusting!” he rasped, and looked wildly for the doors. “We must move. Do these things ‘know their place,’ too?” he asked the Monsignor.

“They do,” the Monsignor admitted. “And they are deadlier than this. I wonder if the spells are failing.”“Maybe they are, maybe they’re not,” Maddox spit. His face and beard had streaks of the spider-thing’s spew smeared across it; but if they hurt, he showed no sign of it. “Either way, run!”

09/22/2024 Snippet, THE LAST DAYS OF UNHOLY TOLEDO.

I need to speed this up.

They gave the sneerers a wide berth, and were avoided in turn, but the deeper they got into the room, the more oppressive its atmosphere became. Oppressive, offensive — and steadily more surreal. “I don’t know why these statues bother me so,” Nat muttered as they cleared yet another set of pedestals. These were empty, and… dusty? It was hard to tell, in the nightmarishly colored air. But there were a few stone figures, each carved to suggest that they were wrapped in linen cloth. “In fact, I almost think that the stone is moving,” Nat went on.

“Those aren’t statues!” the Monsignor rasped. “Keep looking up!”

Nat jerked his head up, and this time he saw something move in the high ceiling above. “Is that one of your monsters?”

“Almost certainly.” The Monsignor hissed frustration. “You two are alive because it cannot decide which of us to attack first. Go off by yourself, and it will strike you, the moment you lose focus. These fools thought their magic powerful enough to let them face and trap the creatures, taking the power for their own. You can see how well that worked for them!”