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Yoruichi posted:Given that you have specified well-chosen words, rather than the usual hastily assembled nonsense, could we bump the deadline til after the weekend? done
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Aug 30, 2018 12:05
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Some critlets for last week Rushed rites There's a common critique of bad fiction that it doesn't have 'character development' and like all the standard rules you can break it when you know what you're doing. You don't know what you're doing, or rather if you do you don't show it here. Your protagonist is an rear end in a top hat in every way that can easily be described. Which is what you were aiming for so fine, mission accomplished, but then you just sit on that accomplishment like a toddler on his potty, grinning. Aleius hates everyone, and everything, and is lazy and selfish and then dooms everyone and gets eaten by cliche zombies. See how that's an exact summary of your story, and also an exact summary of a boring story we don't want to read? the words themselves aren't terrible, though padded well beyond any reasonable necessity. Challenge your characters, make them work for it. Heights the opening of this is bordering on the cheesy, with its OMG SENPAI stylings but it commits to its story and makes it work, rotating smoothly around the 'no one's ever ready' line, and buoyed by the various interlocking metaphors - rising lift, rising sun, the view. There's a whole sci fi conceit that you convey very smoothly, without resorting to As You Know Professors or infodumps, and I think that's the essence of why this lands so well, because there's no friction in the telling of it, and the lines are clean. Nice work, for all it could have been generic with less precise execution. Boom room I confess I was reading this with a grin, because it's a delightful tdome wacky at first with its aphorism-happy blowjob mums, chairchucker light low-affect stylings and bizarre happenings, but you need to at least make an effort to wind it all up otherwise people feel a little cheated. I really wanted to know the insane way cubic zirconium eye lady and neck-bomb Pete might have worked out their mutual befuddlement but you bailed on it, and although tbf I bailed on writing a story at all, what you turned up isn't that much better. I'll let you in on a secret, which is that at least half my stories I get three quarters of teh way through and have nfi how they're going to end, but you know what? the end always comes, eventually. you didn't even tell us about the bomb collar, which is one of those ironclad literary rules man. never leave the unexplained bomb collar hanging, i think dickens said that. Myocardia I have a considerable fondness for your technicolour psychopunk ravings, but you need to take a step or two back towards consensus reality. The idea of duelling magical roombas is so amazing i wanted something more solid to stand on to enjoy it. Not to mention having your roommate kidnapped by the chrono sushi delivery boy, it's magic, but if everything's crazy it risks blurring into a smooshy wash of colours. I don't even think it needs that much - next time just twist the knob a quarter turn towards, idk, kitchen sink realism with David Thorpe-Walsford worrying about getting that raise so he can afford a new toaster. Then hit us with the sentient psychic waveforms and the cyber-insect catacombs. Up to you, but you're leaving readers behind at the moment. Map reading This is weird because i was literally just reading that insane thread about the goon who wanted to walk across the mojave with a shopping trolley, a six pack of twinkies and a dream, haha what are the odds. This is not dissimilar to Yoruichi's in its solid execution of a straightforward idea, but fumbles the touchdown because it takes teh focus away from the character who's been in all kinds of idek peril, like fires for miles, and slaps it clumsily on the fiance, who to be fair has been a part of the story but only as a sort of human wiki page. It's a well drawn picture of what it's like to do the things that happened in it, but it lets out all the air it's painstakingly puffed into the tension balloon, without giving a sense that the character has actually learnt or changed. Seeds this is a fantastic opener, just tremendously visceral and creepy, and it gave me all kinds of goodwill for the awesome story i was about to read BUT then you did two things one of which is to not link the subjective experience of the hex with the rest of the story - it's clear enough on a reread but if you're going to sucker punch the reader like that at least help them up - AND you forgot that it's is only ever short for 'it is', you moron, you buffoon. Ultimately this doesn't really pay off its strong opening because it gets mired in a soup of abstractions and Capitalised Entities. there are enough meaty chunks in the soup and the prose is zazzy enough for me to acknowledge it might have earnt its HM, but I think you were probably lucky. Planning and Action 'like the assmaster he is' made me lol because i'm fundamentally and absolutely a 12 yo at heart, and I liked the line about rick's parents whispering their rueful judgements of his character to each other. And in fact this is a really very nice piece, keeping the focus on the kids as it should with grownups and teachers as distant but ever-present figures of retribution. the kid voice is really well judged, recognising their essential retarded kidness without treating them like idiots. Yeah, I think I'd have given you Thranguy's HM, but possibly yoru would have kept the win by virtue of your protagonist being essentially an onlooker and collaborator ratehr than instigator, for all he clocked the odious rick one right in his dumb chops.
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Aug 30, 2018 14:23
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Before Sunrise 1355 words sebmojo fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Sep 3, 2018 03:37
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Interprompt! 400 words, 'the deadliest pudding'
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Sep 3, 2018 07:22
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stop introducing your goddam stories we can tell how dreadful they are you don't need to explain it
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Sep 3, 2018 11:50
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 Week CCCXVIII: two from column A, one from column Bwell hello thunderdome, it's been a while this week we are going to explore our emotions. give me 1200 words on the two emotions I will assign you, the emotion should be experienced by a character in the story. because that is far too simple, there will also be a picture. flash rules will be hideous, so request one only if you are prepared to write with ultimate ferocity entries close friday 2359 pst, stories due 2359 sunday pst, Selector inspectors Mojo Sittinghere mockingquantum Chooser confusors Djeser - depressed, bored Third Emperor - angry, shocked Staggy miserable, determined Fleta McGurn - disdaining, excited QuoProQuid - inspired, trapped Antivehicular - disgusted, proud NOTHIN CHANGES ERRYTHIN MATTERS Thranguy - jealous, amazed Tibalt - trapped, energetic AllNewJonasSalk - miserable, amazed apophenium - trapped, disdaining skaandscreenplays - terrified, cocky m. propagandalf - gleeful, homesick lippincott - insecurity, rage benny profane - delight, suspicion 12 CHARACTERS THAT HAVE OPINIONS invisible clergy - diffident, envious CHARACTERS ARE MAGIC TREES OR KIWIS babyryoga - rage, fury sebmojo fucked around with this message at 09:26 on Sep 5, 2018 |
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Sep 4, 2018 10:16
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Depressed, Bored  Angry, Shocked 
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Sep 4, 2018 10:32
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If you don't like your emotions then  for a reroll
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Sep 4, 2018 10:33
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Staggy posted:In. Miserable, determined  Fleta Mcgurn posted:In and Disdain, excited 
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Sep 4, 2018 11:06
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Inspired, trapped  Jealous, amazed  Disgusted, proud 
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Sep 4, 2018 12:36
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Tibalt posted:In. Trapped, energetic  AllNewJonasSalk posted:It's time to try again. In. Miserable, amazed 
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Sep 4, 2018 12:42
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Trapped, disdain  Invisible Clergy posted:Congrats on the win, sebmojo. Diffident, envious  Benny Profane posted:In with ferocity - let's see one of these hideous flash rules. Delight, suspicion  flash rule your story has twelve distinct characters, all of whom must voice an opinionLippincott posted:In for an emotional week. Insecurity, rage  Gleeful, homesick  Terrified, cocky 
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Sep 4, 2018 21:00
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Antivehicular posted:If it's possible to get flash rules after our main signup, I'd like a flash rule, please. I'm hungry for a challenge. My flash rule is stop requesting things and politely enquiring, demand them as your goddam loving right, that goes for everyone Also in your story nothing must change but everything must matter
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Sep 5, 2018 00:04
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Next person to sign up gets these: Emotions: Rage, Fury  sebmojo fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Sep 5, 2018 |
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Sep 5, 2018 04:27
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Need one more judge vvv you're in sebmojo fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Sep 5, 2018 |
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Sep 5, 2018 04:28
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BabyRyoga posted:in again! sebmojo posted:
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Sep 5, 2018 07:53
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Invisible Clergy posted:"Consorting with Kiwis" is my favorite book in the enchanted forest chronicles. mm interesting sounds like you want that flash rule after all: your characters are kiwis or magic trees
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Sep 5, 2018 08:33
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Djeser posted:give me a reroll Anguish, ennui
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Sep 6, 2018 01:15
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Also for djeser: Exulansis
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Sep 6, 2018 05:44
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Lead out in cuffs posted:gently caress it, I don't have plans this weekend. Delight, terror 
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Sep 6, 2018 22:14
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Anger, glee 
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Sep 7, 2018 02:54
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i don't think i'll close off entries this week, just pick a couple of emotions and a picture if you want to write a story hell yeah fingerguns
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Sep 8, 2018 07:10
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ThirdEmperor posted:
that chef only knows how to cook sauerkraut
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Sep 8, 2018 07:55
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I feel whimsical, you may all have an additional two hours
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Sep 10, 2018 08:13
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Very well. Prepare your chitlins for judgment, which will be tomorrow sometime.
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Sep 10, 2018 13:02
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Judgment will occur after three interprompt entries
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Sep 11, 2018 03:49
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Judgment for Week CCCXVIII This was a good week, not in the quality of stories (which was laughable and appalling) but because I had a good time relaxing and hanging out with friends. Unfortunately into each life a little rain must fall and sometimes the rain is made of vomit, poop and homelessness - AllNewJonasSalk your hilariterrible romp of poor excretion decisions and regrettable socioeconomic circumstances Macadelic had some good turns of phrase, but they were the wee bits of carrot in a spreading pool of chuck, and no one really wanted to pick them out. Imagine being tied to a chair under a spotlight and the judges turning to you, their faces clamped in horrific iron masks, and intoning LOSER in eerie atonal synchrony because that's roughly what happened minus all the descriptive detail. That's it, no dishonourable mentions this week unless you count Invisible Clergy with Starlight - I regret not clarifying in my flash rule that I meant the Kiwi bird rather than New Zealanders, but luckily you faceplanted adequately with a dull mishmash of vaguely antipodean cooking stuff that did not at any point resemble a good story - and derp with best friends. Derp, you started telling a sad story about a friend dying then you started telling a wacky romp with oh, so many dildos, but the two stories did not at any point meaningfully resolve into one. Happily we didn't hate everything, and Staggy may take an honourable mention for Running up that Hill - an extremely simple but immaculately told tale of being fat and becoming less so - as may Antivehicular with The Blameless Prisoner - flash rule compliance cuts little mustard round here unless it is done with immense panache, and that's what you managed with this story where nothing happening is the point, and the mattering is an elegant outgrowth of that like a tiny beautiful flower growing out of a hideous magic realist mountain-sized carceral atrocity  But the winner is none of these stories so in a sense they all failed (though not as badly as the couple of actual failures) because they weren't the winner, which was Eyes, by Djeser. This was probably the best picture so you had an unfair advantage, but this hits the crazy-in-the-mundane target it's aiming at with precision and force. Advance, Djeser, and ascend the scarred and hallowed steps of the Blood Throne for the sixth time.
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Sep 11, 2018 04:27
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I have heard it said that the way to summon judges is by doing more interprompt story's but they must have the word prompt concealed within them
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Sep 11, 2018 06:35
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ThirdEmperor posted:Hmm looks like you dropped your glove. Here! sebmojo posted:
ThirdEmperor, you're well past due for this, so you're about to lose that sweet av unless you pony up.
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Sep 11, 2018 22:21
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Yoruichemperor Brawl And That’s How I Became the Lord of Hell 1135 words The sun burned black and the sky turned the colour of blood the day the ground opened and swallowed the jugglers. Parents cried and hugged their sobbing, terrified children. I clenched my fists, dug my fingernails into my palms to stop the tears and swore an oath: I would get my girlfriend back. I feel like I have been advised in an extremely precise way of the sort of story I'm about to read. It was the same all over the world. Jugglers and the unlucky juggler-adjacent this is a good phrase, arch but you've created the space for it with your first para and the title fell, screaming, into sudden holes in the earth. That knife-spinning, jester-costumed bastard grabbed her arm and pointed in alarm at the suddenly blood-washed sky. Her coins spilled from her hand, missed the hat at his feet and scattered across the pavement. this is a nice closeup detail, sort of juggler-apocalypse battleship Potemkin pram thing Then the juggler fell, and took my only love with him. I barely had time to move before the dirt crunched good verb shut and Karen was gone. International teams of investigators and scientists dug and scraped at the disappearance sites but found nothing. this is telling rather than showing but it's the good sort where you're just clarifying what the story isn't about The next to go were the magicians. Under a bleeding sky and an ebony sun I like the thesaurus approach here, it's effectively wry the earth opened thousands of mouths and swallowed them, leaving behind nothing but confused rabbits and playing cards drifting down through the air like red and black confetti. I I did not do my best to get on with my life. I couldn’t; I was alone. Nothing had meaning without my love. I like the reversal of the cliché at the start of the para, but the hell-fridged girlfriend could probably do with a line or two of characterisation I stopped going to work and spent my days pacing the city. I repeated my oath, over and over, burying my grief under impotent rage. The next time the sun writhed and blackened and waves of blood surged across the sky I was in the middle of the city and I saw it: the first signs of a circle of asphalt dissolving into steam around black-booted feet. I sprinted, and got my arms around the police officer’s waist just as the ground disappeared. His mouth opened in a hoarse scream and together we dropped, an immeasurable distance, into Hell. good brisk pacing, though I'm sad we never hear about this cop again he was a human being with thoughts and feelings fyi It was dark, and hot, and full of jugglers. actual lol The sulphuric air stung my eyes and nose. Tongues of flame slipped from cracks in the rock and licked at my ankles. I yelped, and low laughter rumbled through the cavern’s walls. I grabbed the nearest juggler. “Where’s Karen?” I shouted. His face was grimy with soot and streaked with sweat. He kept his clubs spinning through the air even as I shook him. “Try further in,” was all he could stammer. I walked, the ground hissing against the soles of my boots, for what felt like days. The passage of time was impossible to measure. Magicians produced impossible white rabbits that immediately burst into flame. Sweat-soaked jugglers spun their clubs and moaned for water, while dead-eyed police waited, truncheons ready, lest any allowed their clubs to hit the ground. this is clever, briefly explaining the plot (such as it is) without lingering, which is important to this kind of brisk nonsense storyThe scaled and horned denizens of Hell this is sort of weak though looked on and howled their amusement. I heard, at last, the familiar tinkle of a jester costume covered in bells. The juggler’s knives glinted in the firelight as they spun. His face paint was streaked with tears and at his feet lay a woman’s body. “Karen!” I screamed, and threw myself down upon her. But she was already stiff, and cold. I turned her lifeless face to mine and pressed my lips against her waxy cheek. gracious how forward, Karen doesn't get a fair suck of the sav in this story It felt all wrong, a disgusting parody of a kiss. Overwhelmed by grief and revulsion I snatched one of the juggling knives from the air and slapped the flat side across the juggler’s face. “What did you do to her?” I yelled, brandishing the knife. He cowered, and the tang of urine hit my nose this is an odd observation, since everyting is all sulphuric acidy and brimstoneful, and having him piss himself is almost the definition of unncecessary given how berserk everything else is. I'd cut. “It was Satan!” he said. “He killed her!” I clenched my fists, fingernails biting my palms. Satan. I love the Seinfeldian italics here. I swore a new oath: I would kill the Lord of Hell. aww yeah The ground shook and laughter echoed across the cavern. “So you wish to challenge me, mortal?” said a voice like hot wires stabbing into my ears. I dropped to my knees with pain and He rose from a fissure on a gout of fire. My breath caught in my throat; He was devastatingly beautiful, like the smooth, translucent blue ice of a deep crevasse, right before you dash your brains out on rocks at the bottom. Strange forms writhed under the soft fabric of his tailored suit. nice description, and good on you for not going to the generic hell description well since you've dipped plentifully from there so far I hauled myself to my feet, ears bleeding, and thrust the juggling knife towards him. “I will gently caress you up,” I said. “Slowly, so that you almost enjoy it.” “What?” Satan’s face twisted with distaste. “To be honest I feel a little bit uncomfortable now.” I dropped my arm to my side. “Oh, sorry, that came out way weirder than I meant it to,” I said. There was a moment of awkward silence. ok yes lol, that's p good, and the sort of swerve you want 2/3 of the way through this kind of story Behind me lay Karen’s body, all that remained of the only person who had ever loved me. so you keep telling us I repeated my oath to myself; my rage was righteous. I whipped my arm up and hurled the juggling knife into the Devil’s throat. He was not expecting that. The knife plunged into His ice-white skin and black blood splashed out over His chest. He sank to his knees, hands wrapped around the knife’s handle. Satan began to laugh, a hideous gurgling. Black bubbles oozed out over His lips. “You’ll never see Karen again now!” He gurgled. “Her soul wasn’t destined for this place, but now you, you....” He crumbled to the ground, His last breaths expended in gasps of laughter and the soft popping of bubbles of blood. I felt the many eyes of Hell’s winged and fanged creatures focus upon me. They began to howl and stamp, an exultant rhythm that echoed up and down the halls of Hell. The Devil’s body burst into flame. Oily black smoke billowed into a roiling cloud above the smoldering corpse, and then coalesced into a javelin of black flame, pointed straight at me. Horrified, I stumbled backwards. I tripped over Karen’s body she plays a role in the story! albeit as metaphorical top-of-stairs rollerskate, but still and fell, arms flailing. The javelin flew towards me with unholy speed and slammed into my mouth. Burning blackness flooded my being and with it came a tumble of memories and terrible, terrible knowledge. The Devil could not be killed. I had murdered His vessel, and now I would serve as the next. *** I smoothed the fabric of my suit and reclined on my throne. I laughed; the tearful antics of the jingling fool before me were was going to ping this for grammer but i guess you are correct here Selfish Century 1197 words There was probably some kind of ironic moral to my boyfriend plunging to his death trying to leap the poverty quarantine. World-famous rockstar billionaire Emmet Celestine in his sleek luxury racer with all the trimmings crashing at terminal velocity down into the earth and coming apart into a spray of shrapnel, each piece worth more than the lives of the crowd they went scything through in a spray of blood and metal, cutting down grandmothers and children with shards of oak dashboard, the flying fragments of his skull. ah, it's a that-kind-of-story showdown, well that will make my job easier Whatever the lesson there was, I guess I didn’t learn it oh god don't cheat me like that was there a ironic moral or wasn't there because I took the tiniest fraction of the insurance payout and bought a new car with all the trimmings. Walnut-wood insets on the steering wheel from the last sickly trees in the greenhouses. Leather seats. A servant AI with my boyfriend’s personality matrix loaded in. “Boo.” They got his voice and his total self-obsession right. “I can’t stop thinking about the jump. I think I can make it.” “You thought that last time.” I guess he hasn’t figured the moral out either. me either please help me auhtor guy Someday, I’ll do the therapeutically correct thing and replace him with one of the generics. Today, I say, “The beach.” We’re out in a soft electric pur and a hard screech of rubber, racing through through the slats of light where the red sun shines between the cracked, faded out plastic pillars of the endless parking complex, a mausoleum where the cars whisper to each other in voices of the dead. fancy and effective image, but you're juggling a lot of plates and there's still no clear point ‘The beach’ is a really a dam, a great wall holding in an artificial ocean. It’s pretty lame. Nothing but a long curving road we can cut loose on, with the reservoir beside us an endless sea of repeating black plastic balls, cracks of water visible between as they bob about. The casts are cluttered with silica-pagan talk radio today. Voices extolled our redundancy, praised the thought of steel and circuit carrying on over our bones. In the distance, Emmet dominates the striated pink and orange of the sky, a buzzing hologram ten stories high flicking his hair and spraying off sweat that, rendered in light, scatters like diamond. He’s already carrying on without himself. Weird, but I don’t think about it. it's a good image, but you keep telling me the protag doesn't care From here we can see the great hole in the city, where the skyscrapers fall away and leave a hollow where the sunlight rarely pierces, where ragged polyethylene tents cling around the roots of parking complexes that dwarf any monument ever built. this is another great image A broken stub of highway extended halfway across the gap, and if you were narcissist, an idiot, drunk, yeah, maybe you’d think you could make it across. “I could’ve made it.” But if you could still think that with the dead sobriety of a machine brain, then it starts to sound convincing, maybe, a little. “What happened was, I pussied out. I bailed. Flesh gets scared, but this time…” I turn up the casts, keep the hallelujahs for the revolution of the machines on high to drown out the one trying to talk to me. this is a bolus of fairly neat worldbuilding and a couple of blandish characters but so far it's not much more, just an ennui-laden lady going for a spin with her robot ex -- World-famous rock star billionaire Emmet sat and stewed, in the smallest chair at the farthest end of a feast table made of solid gold, of agate and topaz and emeralds where every famous musician there ever had been were all kind of, eh, chilling. losing control over the tone here Nervous jitters in the air as the archangel at the end of the table went over the plan, and Emmet rolled his eyes and let ‘em wander out over the vistas of eternity. Everywhere was fluffy clouds and goodness. Despite literally everything in his life he’d even gotten special, probationary, wings. Because he was going to save the world. Big plan being, descend from heaven on wings of fire, throw the biggest concert the world had ever seen, avert the big nuclear fiasco wait what, isn't this new? that would wipe the last cities off the face of the earth and bring the last dregs badly chosen word of mankind together with the power of music. If angels weren’t so loving sincere he’d have thought it was a joke. No there was only one guy in heaven who got Emmet, and that was War. Big guy, red horse. Waiting to catch Emmet’s eye when he turned away from the hoity-toity poo poo. “She’s going for it.” The metaphorical embodiment said. “Nuh way. Boo isn’t stupid.” War has a neck like a hamhock tatted to the gills, sideburns, broken nose. A face made out of worse decision than Emmet had ever had the chance to make. Even the whole jump thing, that barely got him into War’s league in terms of reckless incompetence. I like this guy, nice bit of description “Why don’t you go see for yourself?” -- It goes like this. The greats, every platinum-seller and every genius, come down on wings of fire out of the ashy grey clouds to throw the greatest concert the world has ever known and save humanity. you just told me this bit of your extremely carefully constructed plot Which looks awfully like missiles raining down, and so keys turn, codes are punched, little red buttons pressed by sweaty-browed and serious men. these men appear to come from a different story At the same time, coming down through the stratosphere, souls start to break away, scattering off as the archangel limpy tries to coral them back; Emmet isn’t the first to break away, but he’s not the last, and he knows where he’s going. Meanwhile, Bouvardia thinks like this: If the world is gonna be crisped to prove a politician’s stupid point, she might as well crash a car to prove her dead boyfriend’s. CAN HE REUNITE THE STRANDS Right as the car lifts off the last of the highway, as the hood starts to tilt down and she realizes she’s not even close, she’s not even going to land besides his crater, that she’s going to punch a hole in an entirely different group of impoverished neo-paupers, clever Emmet’s soul smashes into the circuitry and his voice crackles through the stereo. “Boo?” And it’s different than the computer, somehow. “Shithead?” “It’s going to be alright.” He says, and he gets to be right because right then the first nuclear missile hits the skyscrapers behind them and breaks open into a second sun, and the shockwave lifts the car as easily as swatting away a fly. Wheels hit asphalt on the far side, shocks fail, The next nuke goes off and all around them cars topple, go dead, the electromagnetic pulse wiping the circuits clean, the blinding light frying Boo back into the leather seats and spitting Emmet out of the crackling circuits; their souls tumble out onto the highway and roll together kissing as all around, the cars light back up, and sing out ‘Hallelujah, hallelujah!’ in a newborn language as their programming comes back so jumbled there’s not a fingerprint of humanity left. ok that's fairly cool “What are we made off?” She asks when they break apart for the air they don’t need. Somehow it seems important. “Nothing, I think.” The world goes and the buildings crumble under a nuclear wind and they grope at each others nothingness like idiots. eeehhhh do you know I think you just about pull enough matching bits out of the jumbly grab-bag of random lego story pieces that this story hangs together. It isn't what I'd call coherent, but there's enough flash and sizzle to the images that it's basically ok. Judgment These are both breezy tdome nonsense stories, and therefore need to have flashy wordplay, a reasonably propulsive throughline and a good snappy beginning/ending if they are going to be successful. If Yoruichi hadn't flubbed the ending and skimped on the emotional connection with the dead girlfriend I'd have given it to her at a walk - as is, thirdemperor made it competitive with his murky but occasionally compelling tale of dumb useless people. I'd decided that if it was a draw 3emp's late entry would be counted against him, but in the event Yoruichi's story is just more fun to read than its competition, and hangs together better on its own breezily absurd terms so it's not a draw. Yoruichi Wins
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Sep 13, 2018 05:13
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Sep 17, 2018 13:15
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Tibalt posted:Hell yeah, give me the full Monty, I want a random story and a found object. I'll need to go scrounging for a flash rule too. In, this is me too
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Sep 18, 2018 23:43
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If you want archive access go to the page that gets you archive access
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Sep 21, 2018 06:29
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The Marble 1200 words Sergeant Obrynn pushed aside the flap of her tent and shambled in, then blinked at the figure waiting inside in the gloom. “Whatever it is, the answer is no,” she said, pulling out a chair and lowering herself into it with a sigh. The ground shuddered as the Eastern Battery fired again at the Marble, a rippling roll of thunder that set the light bulb swinging. She eyed the man sourly while the noise made talk impossible. He was squat, a fashionably long civvy beard plait curled around his neck. He had a new uniform with the quartered circle of a science officer and seemed to be counting the discharges with curious, bright-eyed glee. Barrage done, the man pulled a notepad from his belt and tapped at it. “So have the kinetic impacts been showing any effect?” Then he looked up. “Oh, I’m rude. Apologies. Captain-Doctor Kernig, sent up from Regimental.” The Sergeant leaned back in her chair and banged open the cupboard behind her. “No, like I said. Nothing works. We’ve tried it all, over two long years - laser, artillery, bombs, microwaves, even a nuke. The Marble, and therefore the rebel city inside it, is impenetrable.” She pulled out a slim bottle, splashed an inch of rum into a tin cup and tossed it down. “The bastards put their stupid drat city inside a perfect sphere of bullshit that the best efforts of our glorious interstellar empire are unable to penetrate at this time or in the foreseeable future.” “That’s amazing,” said Kernig. “We’re stuck on station by the order of his Imperial Majesty until we get through and the entire planet is finally conquered, so that is not the word I would choose. Stuck on this grimy rock while the Fourth moves on to glory in the stars. Regimental, you say?” Kernig sat down at the little table and leaned forward his hands pressed wide against the thin metal. “Yes! This, this forcefield is something beyond our understanding. If we can’t get through it, we can at least understand the people who built it! I spent five years digging up relics of the Ancients on Bantur 5, twenty lights spinward, you wouldn’t believe the things I unearthed! I’ll just need your approval and a few of your men, and I can -- Sergeant?” Obrynn was staring past his shoulder, eyes distant. She put the bottle down on the table, with a click. Then, like the sun rising over the mountains, a smile broke over her craggy face. “Yes, yes. Captain Doctor. I’ll detail a squad to assist. Digging, eh?” *** Six months later the boom and crump of gauss artillery had been replaced by the rumbling grind of excavators. Obrynn stood on the observation tower he’d had built to oversee the diggings. Far to the west were gaping trenches with ant-trails of trucks and haulers dragging their loads to the spill zone around the city. “How do you feel, Captain-Doctor, to have been instrumental in a great Imperial victory?” she tossed over her shoulder. There was no reply. She spent another moment admiring the ramparts that were mounding up around the Marble, then turned. Kergin was staring tight-lipped at the screen on one of his devices. “This is barbarism,” he said. Obrynn smiled lazily. She was finding her face a lot more amenable to that expression lately, not least because of the increasingly congratulatory tone of the missives from Regimental. “You knew we were fighting a war, yes? If we’d beaten the Marble with force of arms there would have been barbarism a plenty, enmounding them in earth is poetic by contrast.” Kergin frowned. “You have your next command picked out, I suppose? When they give you your reward?” Obrynn shrugged. “I may have considered some options. It’s important not to play it too eager -- what?” Captain Doctor Kergin was staring at the Marble. Obrynn turned, to see a quarter of the rampart shrug and collapse, burying dozens of the diggers and hundreds of men. The wind carried the screams. *** Four years later the earth was up to the top of the Marble, and Obrynn and Kergin stood atop it. There was a warm wind, and the sun was going down. Obrynn took a swig of rum and passed the bottle to Kergin, rolling the fiery liquor round her mouth as she stared down at the last gap in the Marble’s four hundred thousand ton blanket of earth. “Less than a week,” she said. “And they are locked away forever, in silent praise of our glorious Imperial Majesty.” She sighed, but it was not a happy sigh. “Regrets?” Kernig’s expression was sardonic, but his eyes also had a haunted look to them. He’d spent the last few weeks in his research compound, working on a new set of readings he’d managed to extract from the force field. Beside him was a rectangular flat black box with something written on it. “Soldiers are supposed to be good at waiting, but this has tried me. Kernig. I’ve… been glad of your company. Sometimes at night I think I can hear them calling from the inside, you know? Natural I suppose. They will know nothing of this, will they?” Kernig handed back the bottle. “No. Nothing goes in, nothing comes out. Would you… walk with me?” Without waiting for a reply he started scrambling down the long slope to the surface of the Marble. Obrynn, took a sip, then shrugged and followed him. Kernig was kneeling in the middle of the thirty meter wide space that had yet to be covered in earth. Obrynn stamped on the field, which felt like stone, then squatted next to Kernig. “It’s still the damnedest thing you know. It’s a pity you never worked out what it was.” Kernig looked up, his face ghostly in the dim light from the twilight sky. “Oh, but I did.” The device on the flat field next to him, in the circle of black paint they’d used to indicate the exact centre of the dome, was blinking steadily. “This is something I found on Bantur 5, and it’s taken me this long to fathom its workings. It’s Ancient technology, Obrynn. All of it. This would change everything. We could control these fields, make our own Marbles.” Obrynn felt dizzy, like the field beneath him was moving immensely fast while staying put. “But… you don’t want to.” Kergin just looked at him, and his face in the gloom looked impossibly sad. “We don't deserve it. Anyway, you wanted to get inside, Sergeant?" They were paused for a moment, staring at each other in the dim light, then Obrynn lunged for the box and Kernig slapped down on it like he'd been waiting for just that and there was a sickening sense of being rotated in every direction at once. Sergeant Obrynn was falling, spinning, through suddenly warm and bright air, a city spread out below him. Beside him fell Kergin, laughing wildly as they tumbled, the hidden city hurtling up to meet him in its first and final embrace.
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Sep 24, 2018 08:01
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Antivehicular posted:
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Sep 24, 2018 10:52
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Rural Trainboys (125 words) 
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Sep 25, 2018 05:57
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In, my object is a set of keys
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Sep 26, 2018 08:01
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Sitting Here posted:ok you're in this is looking like a regular shindig, i will help judge it
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Sep 30, 2018 09:17
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Jingle Jangle, Motherfucker 630 words I hate it most when he jingles his keyring like a retard then flips it around a finger so it slaps into his palm. He’ll do it three or four times in a row. Jingle, whap, jingle whap, jinglewhap. I’ve taken to tensing up before I slap into his hand, not that it makes much difference (no muscles). Now, I’m not alone on the keyring – there’s his bus pass token who never says anything, the pretend key who is actually a tiny folding knife for carrying onto airplanes (thinks he is extremely clever) and the key to the new Mazda, who’s an rear end in a top hat. “Ooh, I don’t need to be stuck into anything, it’s just the way of the future, it’s adorable how you’re actually mechanical”, how about you just get hosed you smug Bluetooth bastard. The old Volvo key I actually liked before he got traded in; he was sympathetic during a dry patch. See my owner, who is so stupid it’s weirdly entrancing, like a dog that only ever walks on its rear end, spent three months carefully not juicing up the front door lock with a squirt of CRC lubricant. If not for the stolid support of my Swedish bud I’d have probably broken off in there from pure chagrin at my owner’s fatuity. Speaking of which, he just plumped his fat rear end down on the couch. I wouldn’t care normally, but he didn’t put us back in his pocket properly. We’re dangling out, just the bus token keeping us in. I dangle for a bit, working out the angles, then I nudge knife-guy, and wobble in the direction of what I’m looking at. He’s, well, pretty sharp, (sorry) and he gets it. We start working our way out. We’re only a few swings in when Mazda McFuckface notices. He’s outraged, which to be fair is his natural state of being. Birds gotta fly, snooty wifi car-dongles gotta snoot. I tap him sternly on the side as the owner swings around to lie on his back. Don’t gently caress this up for us is my unspoken but extremely clear message. I’d grin at this point if I had a face, because my owner just reached down to scratch his arse and I see my new knife buddy grab onto his sleeve, just casual-like, and only for a second, but it’s enough to pull us all out of his pocket as he finishes his odious task. And, with a subdued but triumphant jingle, we slither down between the cushions. It’s rare you get a real set of accomplishment as a house key; avenues for self-actualisation are few. Sliding down into that densely crumbed canyon is one of the high points of my existence to date. I glance at my new friend sneaky plane knife and we sort of mentally high five each other. Mazda, though, just looks terrified. He’s explained before how extremely expensive he is, and how devastating it would be to the Customer (that’s what he calls fatass) if he were to be lost. Yes, subjunctive and all, like I said he’s an rear end in a top hat. We clatter into a heap between the cushions, and there I sit, luxuriating in a balm of self-satisfied loathing. We could be down here for weeks. Then ... something about the Mazda’s stricken expression catches at me and I feel weirdly sorry for him. It’s not easy being a working key, but at least you get lock action on the regular. These modern keys, they’ll never know the sweet feel of yielding tumblers. Ah, well. I jingle a little the next time fatass moves, get my shoulder under his car alarm button, maybe he’ll put enough pressure on to trigger it. Who knows, maybe I’ll get to make some real noise for a change?
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Oct 1, 2018 07:58
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I will be a judge
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Oct 2, 2018 19:48
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