Damn I Am Pretty Art Laboratories

Morris and the Hole. My jaw stung from dealing with Staph's Drop.  The catacombs under the university always seemed to go on forever.  But eventually the horse trails end. Near the bottom of the catacombs, just before you reach the geysers and the acid lakes, is little spot.  I never expected to find something that felt like a small town in the giant sprawl that's Crux.  But down here, you can find it.  A tiny collection of hovels gathered around one man's hole. I made my way over to the bar.  The tavern known as The Hole has no walls.  It just sits in the open, next to a bottomless hole in the ground.  Pulleys hang down from it, where the tavern owner also keeps a elevator that goes down to the Bottoms. People don't go to the Bottoms, not unless they really like useless trash, acid and weird animals you don't want to see more than once.   A Face: The Owner of The Hole.  Morris is an odd Tiefling.  He's a wholesome bu...

#InTransitMonsters  is a  #firstdraft   #novel  about Technology as Messiah.  Humanity is about to fall, and is forced to create monsters to save itself.  Can these giant monsters succeed, or will humanity's old ambitions damn the species to extinction? Previous | Start | Index Charlie (H +2 Days) My BrainSys activated about eight hours later.  Even though I had been unconscious, my Oneiros clicked on.  It reached out. My dream-avatar floated alone in darkness. "What happened?"  I paused.  Then I answered my own question. "That thing."  Ugh. "Talking to myself is a bad sign."  It wasn't. My dream-avatar gazed into the dark.  What was this dream?  Where was all the darkness coming from?  I motioned to the darkness, turning my hand into a raw beam of sunlight. It didn't illuminate the darkness. "That's strange.  What about the others, then..."  My Oneiros felt around me, connecting to...

#InTransitMonsters  is a  #firstdraft   #novel  about Technology as Messiah.  Humanity is about to fall, and is forced to create monsters to save itself.  Can these giant monsters succeed, or will humanity's old ambitions damn the species to extinction? Previous | Start | Index  | Next Ghale (H + 1.1 Days) I sat next at Martin's bedside.  His bedroom had a nurse's transit installed into it.  Medical equipment had been moved into place around him. "It's... kind of nerve-wracking."  I told him. Each ragged breath from Martin sounded like it cost him.  It sounded like the air had been pressed out through rags.  Martin looked paler than I'd ever seen him.  It made part of me wince a bit in sympathy.  The machines felt like they were Martin's entrails and organs.  The cleanliness of the space only made it worse. It felt like we were inside Martin's own body.  A cybernetic maze of things keeping my el...

A brief tale set in the City of Curses, #Crux .  Agu Burning-Storm is a Tengu Gunslinger, and she's never found her people as fascinating as the foreigners in the city below her.  But sometimes, she can take things a bit too far.  Here's a #flashfiction of a sort on it.  IDK if this is complete, but it feels like it is a complete beat.  I need to collect these stories at some point I think.    Audacity is what gunslingers do.  It made her clan elders frown at her.  But so long as Lady Burning-Storm gave her usual mad approval, Agu knew they couldn't stop her. "My past lives are too boring to be left in charge."  The raven-head tengu girl laughed to herself.  Even though Tengu couldn't truly fly, Sato Agu Burning-Storm glided through Crux with glee. This foreign land always fascinated her.  Even after drinking Blue Rose Tea on her twelfth year, Agu never could find the ways of her people or her own past lives interestin...

#InTransitMonsters  is a  #firstdraft   #novel  about Technology as Messiah.  Humanity is about to fall, and is forced to create monsters to save itself.  Can these giant monsters succeed, or will humanity's old ambitions damn the species to extinction? Previous | Start | Index  | Next Foxtrot (H + 1.1 Days) I popped atop a building, within one of the crumbling egg-domes of Fontana.  I could see Uniform, Charlie and Whiskey.  The centipede-tentacle things swarmed all three. "Shit."  I spat.  "I've got to go... I'm sorry..." I set the girl and the dog down.  The blind girl shuddered as I put her down. "What?"  She glared around at me.  "What?!" "I've got to go..." I hesitated.  "I gotta go.  I'll be back in a spiff." "Hey!"  The girl yelled at Foxtrot.  "Don't leave me here!" Sorry, I thought,  I didn't listen to Charlie, and she'll probably think I did t...

#InTransitMonsters  is a  #firstdraft   #novel  about Technology as Messiah.  Humanity is about to fall, and is forced to create monsters to save itself.  Can these giant monsters succeed, or will humanity's old ambitions damn the species to extinction? Previous | Start | Next  (34) |  Index Charlie (H Day +1)  I cringed under my helmet.  Whiskey continued to work on the bunker for us, while the others scouted in pairs.  They were establishing a perimeter. @Kilo: The city looks intact from my position.  It could have a great place to establish a HQ from. @Whiskey: We could also build a few different sites across the surface.  Like this bunker. @Charlie: We need to know where the Enemy is.  All we have are satellite images from Earth. I turned around the corner into the Bunker proper.  Whiskey sat on the ground.  Her goetic nanos gave the room an air of blue sparkles.  Surfaces glowed hot w...

#InTransitMonsters is a #firstdraft #novel about Technology as Messiah.  Humanity is about to fall, and is forced to create monsters to save itself.  Can these giant monsters succeed, or will humanity's old ambitions damn the species to extinction? Previous | Start | Next |  Index Foxtrot (H +1 Day) Mars is nothing like Nubia.  The sand, the rocks, they all feel older somehow.  I felt so much lighter.  So much faster. @Foxtrot: I finally get to run. @Uniform: Yeah.  She let you loose.  You look so much happier than you've been. We both were scouting around the city Charlie had assigned us.  The last Dream-Meeting she'd spoken to each of us about our assignments.  One at a time, with no one else to experience the same dream she'd given us orders through.  Again, I felt frustrated by her.  Everytime I try to explain my feelings to her, all she would do was turn on me.  Why did I keep trying? Uniform and I cres...

The Skein is a plane of dreams in the setting of #Crux.  The Skein connects the minds, and serves as the spawning ground of dreams and ideas. All reality, planar or otherwise, all that exists, comes from a single point in the multiverse: The Aether.  The Skein grew out of the Aether.  But where the Aether burns as eternal possibilities cast in flame, the skein is a web that all minds touch. The Skein is where dreams dwell.  They are born and they die.  Each time a mortal mind imagines, it spawns something new upon the web of the Skein.  Ideas are hard or difficult for most to kill.  Their imaginations are tied to the Skein, only the most psionic, most potent minds can control what they create in the Skein. Walking into the Skein itself is mind boggling for mortal minds.  The vertigo of walking physically through one's own dreams can drive madness.  The Skein is the land of dreams, but physically walking in it is far different. Skei...

#Crux, the City of Curses is a dark setting of industrial fantasy, guns, curses, horrors and the people that have to live with them.  This time, I explore the Prince's City Watch, ever corruptible remnants of a more primitive age. The Prince's Due "Eh?"  The City Watchwoman turned her nose down at me.  "You mishear, Ursyklon?" I winced.  She had her hand on her pistol.  I gripped tight to the box.  "We've had a bad month-" "You know, it's collection time."  The City Watchwoman shook her head.  " The Prince calls his due for people on this street." I winced.  "I..." "Do I have to make this serious for you?"  The woman brushed back a lock of her dark Tomasi hair.  I saw scars on her neck.  I knew the price for not working back in the Wolf Quarter.  The City Watch always squeezed for some sphinxes each month. I never was the fighter my littermates had been.  Price of being the runt.  I...

Start | Previous (30)  | Next |  Index #InTransitMonsters is a #firstdraft #novel about Technology as Messiah.  Humanity is about to fall, and is forced to create monsters to save itself.  Can these giant monsters succeed, or will humanity's old ambitions damn the species to extinction? Lhyst (H Day +1) My BrainSys gabled static woke me up.  Again, it wasn't working properly.  The alarm work just give me static, and that was the most I could get the implant to do. I let out an annoyed moan.  "Stupid BrainSys." I turned over in my pallet of blankets and other detritus I'd gather for my bed.  I'd rather sleep than have to deal with Mars.  Again. A wet, sloppy dog tongue slammed against my cheek.  Stupid dog.  I should've eaten him a month ago when I first found him.  "Damn it Red." "Woof!" "Yeah, so?"  I sat up.  I felt around for him.  My fingers found his fur.  After giving him a bit of a ...

The Force Awakens I decided to write my thoughts on TFA.  #TheForceAwakens.  One quick thing before I go deep into it: Rey.  I love stories with strong female characters.  What a fucking awesome way to introduce a new badass! Also, there might be cursing.  Just so you know. Star Wars is kinda religion for me.  For me and a close-knit cadre of friends, it formed the core of our identity for awhile.  We didn't dislike Star Trek.  But the Expanded Universe formed this mythological panorama for us.  When they said they'd chosen to abandon the EU as canon, well, I started to refer to myself as "Protestant." I think I have to retract my opinion.  The hot sloppy doggedness of the new Star Wars changed my mind.  Fuck me.  I didn't expect them to do something Lucas wouldn't do.  Neat. Ok.  Time to get into this mad ramble then! The Changes The thing about The Force Awakens is its unabashed callbacks. This make...