Story Seed - Regret

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My final goodbye. I couldn't say how I knew. Pain wasn't new to me. Nor was weariness. I'd been walking the Walk for so long I can hardly remember anything before I began it. But today was different, my old body was wearing thin. Pains that I usually dismissed or ignored, caused me to wince and stifle groans. And for the first time in many months I woke tired; weary to the bone and feeling that this was more than just a bad night's sleep.

Looked up to the early morning sky, the moon rode low in the west, a gibbous egg shape belted in green and ragged along one edge where the the treeline broke the otherwise smooth shape. The stars shone in a blanket of deep blue that faded as I turned eastward. The horizon was already taking on the golden light of pre-dawn. I wondered for the ten thousandth time how it was that decades of walking the Path had seemingly brought me no closer to the end, or even a return to the beginning.

For the first time I found myself thinking that the Wandering Walk might be a futile lie; a path to nowhere walked by those hoping to find meaning in what none were willing to admit was a meaningless journey to nowhere. Was that a pain in my heart or in my soul that stirred in my breast? I don't know which.

I took my time to pack my meager belongings. My pack was light, but with time even a light pack becomes a heavy load. When at last I was ready I shrugged into my pack and found it heavy; the straps cut into my shoulders and the load seemed to drag me down. I grunted, settling the pack until I felt it sat as comfortably as it could.

At last I could delay no longer. The first unimpeded rays of dawn light were already lancing across the landscape and casting long golden limned shadows. I set out at last, a twinge of pain etching every movement with acid. After an hour I reached for the cypher I had carried for so many years and pressed it to my skull just behind my ear. I felt the pain slide away. "Farewell my home," I said.

I never felt it when my body collapsed to the ground. I never felt my body's passing. I never again set foot along the Wandering Walk. The datasphere has been my home ever since, and I feel neither pain nor want. I have learned the truth of many things, but the saddest truth of them all is this: I was almost at the end.

Story Seed - After the Apocalypse

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I stopped and drank the tepid remains of my water. The wind blew dryly, tossing sand about my ankles, and buffeting me with the scorching dry of the desert. All around me the decaying remains of long metal structures and some kind of standing platforms. I recalled seeing a drawing once of something called a boat. Perhaps these were boats. Maybe this had once been sea or ocean.

I'd heard the histories. The world was once something better. Something crowded with people. Something where plenty was more than a concept. All of that was before however. Now the world was dying, or at least it was here. People said there may be other parts of the world where famine and disease and war hadn't sow the seeds that death later reaped.

I shoved the empty bottle back into my sack and continued onward. The skeletal remains of the vessels around me were scaled with rust and marked with holes in places. I doubted there was scavenge worth my effort. I needed to cross this desert before my water supply ran out, and with only a single bottle remaining I worried that the desert would claim me.

Story Seed - Shrine

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The shrine was overgrown with growth. Roots and weather had damaged the statues and standing stones extensively. There was no sign of caretaker or inhabitants. Only the grotesque remains of the statues, now crippled and deformed by rooty growths, populated this place. Even unmoving they made for unnerving companions.

Shala moved forward along the damaged stone path, careful picking the most stable footing. The wind sighed through the canyon's stone walls, sometimes whistling as it caught one of the old stone sounding tubes just right. The effect sounded like the moaning of the long dead. Shala shivered, her grip going white knuckled on the mace hanging from her wide belt. The wind also brought a strange scent. One of cinnamon and rose, and incense and some fruit that Shala could not identify.

Shala rounded an open bend, skiriting wide the gnarled figures that may once have been saints or gods. The scent grew stronger. Peering up Shala at last laid her eys on the a great blooming tree, the last Tree of Ashsang. Once the Ashang grew in every city and every temple, a promise from the gods to the people. They smelled pleasant to all who beheld them, and bore fruit that were said to heal even the more grievous of maladies and filled the belly like a holiday feast. All that was before the Fall. Before the gods died, and with it their promise of protection and beneficence.

Shala approached the tree, and saw that though it flowered it bore no fruit. With no fruit there could be no seed, and no hope of restoring the trees throughout the land. With no fruit there was no promise from the gods to the people. Shala regarded the tree, and contemplated how she could restore the promise, and in so doing, make the tree bear fruit once more. The prophecies had proclaimed and promised restoration, if only Shala could determine how to fulfill them.

Story Seed - Storm Center

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The storm rotated around the two jagged towers. Some kind of white metal from a past age, they jutted upward like knives, stabbing at the sky. I pulled the oiled canvas cloak tighter around me, as another gust of wind brought a slashing fall of water droplets that stung like tiny darts. I trudged along the road, wondering if the tightly fitted slabs were built in the same age as the towers.

An hour later the winds suddenly died out as I crossed into the eyes of the storm. I stared upward in awe, watching and wondering how the towers maintained the twin interlocked vortexes. I pulled my gaze away and looked across the plain to the towers again, they seemed barely closer; I guessed they were a good five or more miles off. The eyes of the storm must be a dozen miles across each, rotating around each other and around some point above the towers. I shook the rain from my cloak and started again for the towers.

Another two hours later and I finally neared the ancient structures. Smaller, needle thin towers hundreds of feet high dotted the grounds around the towers. Like their larger brothers they seemed to be manufactured of a silvery white metal and even on inspection I could see no seam or join. I approached the taller of the two towers and wonder how many thousands of strides high it was. An unrelieved surface stared back. I wondered how many other nanos before me had stood here stymied by these strange relics of days gone bye.

I smiled and removed the small flat pane of glass I'd paid so dearly for. Within the glass lights and symbols seemed held in stasis. I placed the object flat on the tower face and tentatively removed my hands. It hung there for a moment before sliding into the silvery metal as thought it were melting. I held my breath in anticipation and was relieved when a narrow seam formed an ideal rectangular outline. The rectangle became a depression as the metal seemed to sink into itself, finally revealing an opening. Grinning I stepped inside.

Story Seed - Absolute Zero: A Visit to Venus

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"Venus doesn't seem so bad," I said, pressing my face against the window. Clouds roiled below, mostly sulfur dioxide and other toxic chemicals. Here though, as we approached Aphrodite station, the hellish planet seemed for more pleasant.

The pilot spared a moment to snort derisively between communications with station control. I ignore him. The station was a dichotomy of industrial and elegant. Atop, it was a beautiful golden geodesic dome. Below, it was entirely functional: airlocks, thrusters, cargo pods, and the like. The shuttle was gliding toward one of those airlocks now, cutting through the atmosphere under computer control. I'd never ridden in an aerodynamic lighter than air shuttle before, and it felt more like being in space than being into atmosphere.

While the shuttle docked I reviewed what I knew of Aphrodite station. It was one of six, at the moment, stations that provided research and atmosphere cycling. The Venusian atmosphere was just lousy with carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide among other unpleasant but useful chemicals. The stations cracked the carbon dioxide and sold the components; elemental oxygen was a commodity for anybody who wanted to breathe, and carbon in any number of forms proved nearly as valuable as a construction material.

So here I was coming to the second most hellish place in the system (trust me, Io is worse by far) tracking down information about shipments of carbon nanotubes. To put it another way I was looking for a needle in a factory full of needles... and hay. I wondered if I was chasing nothing, or if the information I had was accurate. As useful as carbon nanotubes were, I couldn't imagine why anybody would hide shipments of them, let alone in the quantity that appeared to be being masked, but then, that's why I was here.

Story Seed - Absolute Zero: Stillness

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The junction was empty and quiet. Life aboard a cramped space station was seldom describable by either adjective, but when you took the time to hack access to the unfinished expansionary sections of your home you could sometimes find time to use them. In this case the quiet was relative. The bulkheads still groaned their occasional protests to pressure and heat and there was the quiet hum of power distribution and the life support systems. Those last two were Karen's fault, but she really didn't feel like having to explain wearing a rebreather and heavy coat. Instead she hacked the station's grid and turned this junction on two hours ago. Long enough for the atmosphere to recycle a few times and warm up.

Her palms were sweating. She scrubbed them on her pants and cursed her nerves. This whole thing was insane, she wasn't entirely certain how'd she'd come to be here. It had started innocently enough but like a relentless rush of atmo out a hull breach she'd quickly gone from commiserating about the mining corps to agreeing to use her network access to pull data. Tomas seemed nice enough, and he said that if he and the people he worked for could prove the corps were falsifying records it could give the USG reason to sanction the corps. Maybe even remove their extraterritorial status. The USG wasn't perfect, but Karen had to think they'd fix the problems.

Karen realized she was feeling dizzy. She put a hand on the cold bulkheads and started for the hatch out of the section. She realized dimly that she could see her breath. Confusion and panic began a war in her mind. It took effort to realize that the air handling was quiet. She stumbled for the the exit and fell when the lights cut out leaving her in cold, still darkness. As she gasped for air she wondered if Tomas had betrayed her, or if one of the corps had found out about her hack and traced it back to her.

Story Seed - Absolute Zero: Return

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"Keady. Ee-Ell-Enn-Two-Four-Bee-Omega-One-Six-Epsilon. Over." The transmission was a bit rough, but the voice was unmistakable and the computer confirmed the command code before I even had to ask it to. I looked across the command center at Wan. "Wasn't Keady on Hecate station? How'd he survive that cluster?" I asked. It was a rhetorical question, of course, Wan hadn't left Absolute Zero in five years.

Wan just shrugged his shoulders and spoke into his headset. "Lakini, you are clear to approach docking port Two-Seven-Alpha. Welcome to Absolute Zero. Over." He flipped a switch, "Should have have security...?" he asked. I nodded and he toggled the interior security channel. "Security, this is command, send two officers to Two-Seven-Alpha." He paused, listening, then replied, "It's Keady." He cut the line and removed his headset, nodding to the junior comm officer.

I met him halfway around the room, "Hecate was obliterated wasn't it?" I'd read the reports but Wan had been one of those who had monitored system-wide communications.

"As far as I knew nobody got off Hecate alive. Of course this is Keady we're talking about so ..." Wan grinned even as I grimaced. Keady's reputation was legend, in that a lot of what people claimed he'd done was myth.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling a migraine coming on, "Yeah. Keady." I sighed, "Come on, let's get down there and try to find out how the hell this is possible. On the way you can tell me everything you know about this ship, what was it again?"

"The Lakini, and we don't have much. It's a private for-hire ship. Registered out of Vesta. Last berthed at Phobos two weeks back. Didn't file a flight plan when it left." Wan paused, probably scanning through the wireless feed to his ocular display. "Captained by ... Nicholas Alexander. Eh, no other official crew registered, like I said, private ship."

"And this Captain Alexander?" I asked as we rode the left down.

"He's a moonie. Used to run ice for Terra-Form on Mars. Left there eight years back. Resurfaced five years ago on Vesta when he registered the Lakini. That's about all we got in the data-banks." Wan stopped in the hall, "Sir, there wasn't record from Hecate about the Lakini docking. Do you think they were there?"

I stopped a few paces ahead of him. "I don't know," I replied over my shoulder. "But I think we're in a position to find out, and maybe find out what really happened to Hecate." I turned fully toward him, "Wan, I'm worried. I think our little private corner of the sky is about to get a lot less quiet."

Story Seed - Absolute Zero: Arrival

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Fifty thousand credits. More money than my little ship and crew could take in with a year's worth of the jobs we usually executed. Fifty thousand credits for a three month journey into the Oort Cloud to a station that didn't officially exist except as rumor. The risk was that my passenger didn't pay up front, but fifty thousand credits was worth the risk, and I could only assume that there must be something at the coordinates he gave us, otherwise he'd be as screwed as the rest of us.

Now I sat in the cockpit, the thin man known only as Keady hovering behind me as we drifted toward what he assured me was the much rumored Absolute Zero station. The asteroid, if you could really call it that covered as it was by structures and gantries, tumbled end over end relative to the view-port. This far from Sol it was dark and only the station lights really gave away the size of the thing. I turned and gave a questioning look at the thin spacer behind me. "This? This is Absolute Zero?" It was far more impressive than I could have imagined. He just nodded. I was about to press him for more information when the comm squawked.

"Unidentified vessel, your ship silhouette and transponder are unregistered. Come to a full stop and identify yourselves. Ship name and port of origin. If you fail to comply in ten seconds you will be fired upon. Over." The comm signal cut off, whomever ran this place was clearly in no mood to play games.

As if thinking the same thing Keady licked his lips, "You'd better comply. They have mass drivers and gigawatt lasers. At least the last time I was here they did."

I was already firing thrusters to bring the ship to a stop relative to the tumbling rock as he said this. I looked back at him again, "How ... how'd they get their hands on military grade weapons?" Keady looked at me with those dark ringed eyes of his and I just shook my head and turned back to my console. I flipped a switch and spoke aloud, "Station is this the Captain Alexander of the Lakini out of Port Vesta, please respond. Over."

The reply came quickly, "Standby Lakini." There was a moment of silence, "Lakini, please state your crew compliment, number of passengers, and business here. Over." Perfunctory and straight to the point.

"Five crew. One passenger. We were hired on specifically to get this man here after the disaster at Hecate station. Over." Probably more information than I needed to give them, but better safe than sorry. The comm was silent, my skin began to itch and I checked the passive sensors to see if they were powering on a weapon system.

"Lakini, who is your passenger? Over."

I sighed, even as station control went this was getting irritating. I thumbed the comm on and gestured to Keady to introduce himself. He nodded and cleared his throat, "This is Keady, authorization code Ee-Ell-Enn-Two-Four-Bee-Omega-One-Six-Epsilon. Over." I didn't know what any of that meant but I assumed station control would. I looked at Keady again, wondering who this man was. Not for the first time since pulling this man from a life pod floating in the debris of Hecate station I wondered just what I had gotten Lakini into.

"Lakini, you are clear to approach docking port Two-Seven-Alpha. Welcome to Absolute Zero. Over." The flight path sent by station control directed me to a large docking spar that jutted off the central mass. I keyed the ship to automated docking and let the computers do the heavy lifting. When I was done I turned but Keady was gone, and I was left once more wondering what lay ahead. I hoped it included fifty thousand credits.

Story Seed - Barter

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"What are you doing here?" the man asked. Tall and thin he held himself stiffly upright, gazing down with contempt at my companions and I.

"We seek council. The wisdom of the Order of the Hollaston is known far and wide." I bowed as I spoke, hoping the others behind me were following suit.

The figure regarded us silently, his inhuman eyes looking down a long nose as me. He did not look amused or terribly impressed with my attempt to curry a favorable disposition. After what felt like a millennia her spoke. "Our wisdom is ours. We do not seek or require trade. You have nothing to offer us for our wisdom."

I'd expected this. The Order was well known for its xenophobic isolationism. I bowed my head, "Indeed, I am sure that is often the truth, but in this instance your wisdom is superseded by a gap in you considerable knowledge." I reached under my cloak and produced a thick tome. Bound between brass slabs etched in hair thin tracings of runs and sigils, three hinges and three locks held the contents firmly shut, and secret.

"This tome we retrieved from the deep ruins of the fallen tower of Ullbac. Surely it contains knowledge long since forgotten within the realms?" I held the tome out with both hands, offering it, "Surely your council is but small payment for the ownership of such an ancient tome?"

The wizened figure stood silent, peering down at us through those strange eyes. I found ti unnerving, and swallowed hard to stand my ground. At last the silver grey eyes shifted from me to the tome. I drew a ragged breath, only realizing I'd been holding it as I drew in a chest full of fresh air. I waited and hoped, and wondered if such as the Order could be trusted with whatever lay within the book.

Story Seed - Seeker

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At last! My chest heaved as I gasped for the thin air and my weakened muscles trembled, threatening to pull me down and send me tumbling from whence I came, but at last I had found the monastery. I could see it with my own eyes, a glorious towering structure built out of the upward thrusting rock of a remote mountain peak. The last refuge for the long thought lost Brotherhood of the Trembling Hand.

I surveyed the way before me, I'd have to go down to go up, and the ascent to the structure did not seem to be aided in any way. Not for the first time I wondered if I would find an empty structure, guarded only by the long dead. I carefully sat, and took a precious few minutes as my body recovered some of my spent energy.

I regarded the flocks of birds that seemed to make this peak home, and the faint traces of greenery. Little more than scrub grass, lichen, and low shrubs. Could the monks have eked out a living here in isolation for so long? I began to doubt that they could.

The birds though... the birds gave me pause. Of course it was simple for them to access this place, flight would carry them here without the struggles of a difficult climb. If the birds could survive in this place perhaps the monks could. They may have secret gardens of edible plants and perhaps even hardy mountain goats that could forage the peak.

I struggled once more to my feet and set off, carefully picking my way. There was only one way to learn the truth.

Story Seed - Across the Sea

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"Tell me again about how the gods saved the city papa," Hiella pleaded as she wriggled under the covers.

"OK dear, ok, but tomorrow something different," Wollace said softly.

"Long ago, the old titans, those that came before the gods, lived in another realm and helped the people who worshiped them. Our city was a great center of their worship, and all the titans looked upon our ancestors with favor. The great temples held festivals and worship days and offered sacrifices to the titans and in return the city received their protection and grace.

"Many years passed. Many centuries. The city grew and the titans remained pleased by the devotion that the city gave them. The city was blessed, and obviously the favored home of the titans when they were on the mortal plane.

"None know what happened the day the titans died, or how a divine could even die, but there was a great sound of thunder from across the ocean. Soon a wave of water unlike any ever seen by man or divine came rushing over the ocean. The titans knew that whatever disaster had befallen the west was divine in nature, and would claim them as well. The four greatest patrons of the city sought to protect their worshipers and together they expended the last of their considerable might to raise the city above the water and out of reach of the great wave.

"The titans all perished that day, but the four who saved the city did not disappear. They became stone and continue to hold the city aloft to this day." Wollace leaned down to kiss his daughter on the head, "And that is how the titans saved our home."

Story Seed - Sultan

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I quieted my horse and looked across the glass-smooth waters of the River Inra. The sultan's palace loomed on the other side of the water like a man-made mountain, illuminated from behind by a gibbous moon. I tied the horse up under the arching curve of the bridge. Stealth was now my greatest asset and the darkness my ally.

I checked the straps on my clothing and gear and then slowly entered the waters of the river. The dry-stone in my pocket would keep me from getting wet, which was especially handy as I didn't want to leave dripping footprints for the palace guard to follow.

The air-stone in my mouth allowed me to dive under the surface and stay there for the two thousand paces of river that I needed to cross. Magic was handy stuff when you understood how to make the runes work for you in the simplest way possible. These two single rune stones had cost me barely a dozen crowns, a mere fraction of what a runed up weapon or item would cost. As a bonus the engraver had known from my request that I knew exactly what I wanted; haggling for price had been easy.

I emerged from the river and stowed my air stone away while I stared upward at the walled foundations of the palace. Twenty feet high and patrolled day and night, the wall was formidable. I let out a low twittering whistle and was rewarded a short time later by a length of knotted rope that descended not ten feet from where I was standing. I made my way to it and climbed, wondering if I would pay off the guard or be arrested. Fortune favors the bold, they say, and tonight was a night to be bold.

The guard was alone, and a small sack of coin made him smile and wander off. I took to a skulking trot in the shadowed streets and slowly made my way toward the palace proper. It was walled off from the rest of the island, but I already had a plan. A nearby building, slightly taller than the wall, was an easy way up. A long pole in segments, was a slightly less easy way over. I quickly broke the pole down as I crouched among the crenelations and surveyed the courtyard. The servants entrance was my next goal, one for which I already had a key.

It took time to get down from the wall. There were guards that needed to be avoided and by the time I made a quiet sprint to the servant entrance the moon was noticeably farther along its path. I unlocked the door with my key and crept inside. The smells of the kitchens, even this late at night made my stomach grumble. I ignored it, moving quickly and quietly, following the directions I had memorized.

There was no lock on this door, and while plain, it was a heavier door of finer material than the others in here. I opened it and stepped from the drab realm of servants into the richly appointed realm of the sultan. Plush carpeting and velvet curtains, and gold everywhere. I smiled at it all. Slowly I moved down the wide hall, thankful that in the dead of night there were only a few sconces lit, and those far between.

At last I came to a set of golden double doors, and pushed one of them open. The room beyond was dark and with a sigh of relief I slide inside, closing the doors behind me. A single candle burned in a gold and glass candlestick, but my eyes were well adjusted to the dimness of the light and I was able to cross the sultan's sitting room to the bedroom door with ease.

The bedroom was lit only by the moon's light through the windows, illuminating a massive bed of carved and gilded wood. A single form lay on the bed, it's shape softened by the covers. I stole over to it and looked down into the face of the sultan's wife. "Hello my love," I whispered to her.

Story Seed - The Thousand Rune Lock

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"Hurry up! Come on!" Naerl said, tugging her brother's arm to try and get him moving faster.

"Naerl, I'm sure whatever you found isn't going to disappear in the extra moment it takes to walk there like a civilized person." Horion said, gently chiding his little sister. He was older by almost a decade, and with their mother gone and their father often locked away with his studies Horion was as much partent as sibling at times.

"Don't be such a grown up!" Naerl yelled over her shoulder as she broke away and scampered across the lawn. She stopped at the thickly overgrown hedge that marked the end of the lawn itself and, as far as Horion knew, the edge of the manor house's grounds. "I found a thin spot and you won't believe what's inside!"

Horion frowned, he began to wonder just what Naerl had found. He thought back to when he was her age, seven years old, and always crawling about in the wilds outside the small house they'd lived in before their mother had died. Strange rocks, curious insects, and secret spaces had consumed his carefree life then.

That had ended little more than a year later when Naerl had been born and their mother had gotten sick. At last their father had won out and brought the family to his family's manor house with the hope that the nearby city would yield up a healer with sufficient skill to save his wife from the sickness.

That hope had proven to be in vain, and Horion had lost both parents. His mother dead, and his father now engrossed in his studies of who knows what. Horion and Naerl had been raised by relatives and nannies, and Horion had gone from a curious and excited child to a reserved and serious premature adult.

"This way!" Naerl cried, bringing Horion's attention back to the hedge. There was indeed a thin spot, and by the looks it may once have been an intentional opening. Nearl was small enough to crawl through the thinnest part near the ground, leaving Horion to push his way through, the branches scratching and clawing at his robes.

Beyond the hedge he took a moment to straighten his clothing before realizing that instead of an overgrown wilderness he was standing in what seemed a carefully constructed clearing. "It's a maze!" Naerl breathed excitedly, "And I found the center. You won't believe what's in the middle! C'mon!"

Naerl grabbed his hand and tugged and this time Horion found himself following her as fast as she was going. The maze was a blur of carefully trimmed hedgerows. wild and unkempt but still navigable. Horion quickly lost his bearings to a seemingly endless parade of left and right turns. Pulled along in Naerl's wake he could only follow and hope that she knew her way.

Suddenly the narrow and winding maze fell away into a large clearing nearly ten paces across. The ground was covered in low crawling ivy and dead brown leaves except in the middle where a portion had been cleared. An arrangement of concentric circles of stone around a central disc. Naerl pulled up at it's edge and pointed, "What is it?"

Horion stared at it for a long moment. What indeed, he thought to himself. "Let's me see." He bent down and touched one of the outermost stones. At his touch a glyph formed in glowing energy upon the surface and Horion drew his hand back so quickly that he fell backward, leaving Naerl giggling. "It's a rune, but ... it can't possibly be."

He moved forward on his knees and reached out for one of the inner rings, touching a stone there which also displayed a glowing glyph at his touch. The second glyph lasted only a moment before fading. Horion saw that both glyphs were now faded and he swallowed hard, "It's a rune lock, like on father's study door."

Naerl looked at the vast lock and then at Horion, "But daddy's lock only has eight runes!"

Horion nodded, "And this one must have nearly a thousand." He looked at Naerl, "What could possibly be so important as to be locked behind a thousand rune lock?"

Story Seed - Overland Travel

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I leaned over the rail and watched the world go by. The famous two levels of Lake Yibba. The waters of the upper basin spilling over and down into the lower lake. I could hear the thunderous sounds of the falls below as a soft rumble under the louder sounds of the ship. The creak of the wood and snap of the sails along with the sounds of the crew going about their own business.

I blew into my hands to warm them; the air up here was cool and crisp. I turned from the vista and located the captain. Shen was standing alone atop the aftcastle, hands clasped behind her back staring off into the distance. I shoved my hands into my pockets and slowly made my way aft. I must have looked drunken as I made may way to see the captain. I hand no legs for air travel and the swaying of the ship caused me to stumbled to and fro.

Swallowing bile I finally managed to grab rail beside the captain, envying her steady as stone stance without any kind of handhold. "Good day to you Captain," I offered as cheerily as I could manage.

"Mister Barrow," she replied. After a moment she turned her head toward me slightly, watching me from the corner of her gaze while maintaining a commanding gaze over the remainder of her ship. "How may I help you today?"

"Just curious when you expect we'll dock at Landsfall Port?" I was anxious to put something solid and unmoving under my feet. More, I was anxious to take the rune tome I'd recovered to the Aetherist's Guild for study.

"Soon enough. Well before sundown." She considered for a moment, perhaps seeing the consternation on my face, "Fret not. The Dart will be moored no later than third bell after midday Mister Barrow."

"Thank you Captain. I merely yearn for the Spires of Diamond once more," I lied.

Story Seed - The Raver

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One hundred strong rode out against the Raver. One hundred brave souls against the corruption of a fallen god. They rode out to the plains of Maredo, banners snapping in the wind. One hundred horses stamped at the earth and rolled their eyes in fear.  A sound like thunder as one hundred times four hooves churned and stamped the earth. The hundred formed up a line five hundred feet long and arrow straight. One hundred lances rising into the air like the proud vanguard of a limbless forest.

A grand knight rode at the center of the hundred; a knight that ninety-nine others all agreed was without fear or flaw. The grand knight narrowed her eyes as the creature rose from the broken barrow. The Raver was madness incarnate, a broken soul that refused to die. Fueled by the remnants of divine power the Raver continued on following the pained and insane whims of whatever drove it to act. The knight acted on reason and compassion driven by a living human soul. The knight and the Raver were inimical opposites.

One hundred knights, brave and true, charged across the field. One hundred knights wheeled to and fro stabbing and lancing and crying out at their foe. The Raver shrieked. It cried forth with madness and pain and its touch was ruinous on the minds of the one hundred. Knight turned on knight in madness fueled frenzy and soon the one hundred were broken on the field. At last one knight stood true and alone against the Raver, she stood firm, her boots planted in the muddy churned earth. All around her companions fought each other as madness confused friend for foe.

The Raver charged the knight but the knight stood fast. Her weapon she dropped, her helm she threw aside, and her arms she opened wide. The knight caught the Raver in an unbreakable embrace and neither rebuked its madness nor fell to it. Instead she understood and she accepted and she offered balm. And in that way the Raver was defeated, not with weapons and anger, but with compassion and understanding.

Story Seed - A New World

Image Source: http://funkylounge.deviantart.com/art/Paradise-648160280

This is inspired by a recent decision to do a one-shot of After the Bomb RPG on my birthday coming up. It was favorite of mine years ago, and I hope it stands up to a trip down nostalgia lane.

Nobody rightly recalls how it all happened. How it started. Some say it was a war for resources that escalated. Some that it was all an accident with an advanced defense system. Others say it was a disease that made mankind mad, and in its madness it lashed out, flailing at itself with weapons of mass destruction. However it began the world was bombarded in nuclear fire and the old world was destroyed. The world died, humanity was reduced from billions to tens of thousands.

Maybe it was the radiation. Or a chemical. Or some kind of disease that changed. Regardless, as humankind fell the animals rose. Mutations rapidly changed the wild and domesticated animals of the world. Intelligence. Sentience. Sapience. Hands. Even psychic abilities. As humanity gasped against their death, the animals took their first breaths as the world's new dominant "species." The remaining humans have either embraced the new citizens of the world or banded together against them. In the ruins of the old world both parties eek out survival. 

The wind swayed the trees and brought a new scent to my nose. I sniffed and then wrinkled my nose at the odor, some kind of synthetic volatile. Motor oil perhaps, or something else. I crept forward and peered out from the hedgerow. A mechanized soldier, one of the Empire's robot suited thugs. I sat back and un-slung my rifle from my back.

Not for the first time I cursed my underdeveloped legs. Walking on two legs was beyond me for more than a few steps, unlike some of my friends who were more human in that regard. Still, I shouldn't complain too much, my hands were well developed and I'd retained the superior sense of smell of my forebears. I lifted the rifle, then thought better of it. Instead I grabbed the battered walkie talkie. It's case was held together with old silver tape and the batteries were being held in by a rubber band, but it worked. I clicked it on and quietly called for help from my comrades.

I took up my weapon and waited, peering through the simple tube scope on the rifle and waiting for my allies. I didn't have to wait long. A bellowing roar preceded the arrival of Moose. Antlers down he charged the armored soldier, slamming into it with the force of a car. Hot on Moose's heels were Shifty and Fred. Shifty held a submachinegun that was comically large in the mouse's hands but the cleverly assembled recoil brace did its job and he laid down and impressive amount of suppressing fire. Fred was another dog, but his mastiff roots made him huge and he rushed out swinging a crude maul built from an old metal pole with a chuck of concrete still fused to the end.

Two other soldiers joined the first but I managed a lucky shot and got one just below the face shield of his helmet, sending the man down in a gurgling tumble. The stream of bullets from Shifty kept the other pinned down long enough for Moose and Fred to beat the first into submission. The third ran, his robotically augmented legs carrying him away quicker than any of us could, or cared to, follow.

"They're getting brazen," Shifty said as he reloaded an extra long magazine for his weapon. "This is way closer to home than they usually patrol. Things are getting bad."

Fred nodded, "War is coming."

Story Seed - Marksman

Image Source: http://aituarmanas.deviantart.com/art/Cyborg-Araneae-461010438

My comms bleeped twice; the operation was go. I mentally triggered the full suite sensor helm that was slaved into my biocomp. There was a high pitched whine as the electronics woke up and the external projectors came to life. The night fled like shadow under the noon sun. I flipped through the overlays and dialed in a combination of IR (25% opacity), active UV (20% opacity), passive light amplification (65% opacity), and ultrasonic echolocation (45% opacity). The world looked like a drug trip gone wrong, and the detail was washed out, lost beneath the optics enhancements. I dialed up the computer active framing assist to 85% opacity with a 70% sensitivity. My biocomp processed the incoming data set separately and the redrew the details I'd miss into my active display. I could have read the newspaper lying in the gutter if I'd wanted.

I gave my rifle an unconscious heft. My biocomp told me that it came in at 18.87 kilos, and the magazine was fully loaded. One hundred solid steel, polymer coated, 14mm slugs, lined up and eager to fly with the assistance of several dozen high Gauss electromagnets. I activated the smart gun overlay (77% opacity) and knew exactly where the gun was pointed. In this case at the alley below, and the picture in picture pop up on my active display was more than enough to know that there was smashed flat soda bottle at the end of my gun's current trajectory.

I shouldered the weapon and took a shooting position before locking my leg joints (100% stiffness) and dialing up the resistance in my lower back (45% stiffness). I'd barely feel the recoil at all. I waited, my reticle hovering over a bit of brick wall. I adjusted the IR overlay (65% opacity) and dialed back the passive light amplification (20% opacity) so I could better see the interior of the cheap hourly coffin bank. Details were lost as my biocomp adjusted for targeting beyond the wall and inside the building (projection accuracy: 73%). Lucky for me the uplink quickly communicated my problem with the field agent inside. His biocomp provided as much data as it could and my active display started to update with projected renders based on what he could see and sense (projection accuracy: 87% and climbing).

I waited.

Story Seed - Lost Kingdom

Image Source: http://zoriy.deviantart.com/art/Ruins-526838419

"Ten thousand years. That's what the legends say. This city was lost ten thousand years ago shortly after the gods came to power and favored humans over the sleen."

"That's ridiculous, the gods didn't favor humans over the sleen, or the taran for that matter."

Haaldr scoffed, "They didn't before the Fall, but ten thousand years ago maybe they did. Maybe the sleen didn't worship the gods at first and so they were on the skat list."

"Maybe," Uttol said skeptically, "but this place doesn't look like the forest had been growing over it for even a hundred years."

Haaldr nodded, "It is strange." The slender man knelt down and inspected a serpent statue. "Perhaps because it was never fully abandoned."

"I think that's probably right. Haaldr, umm, we appear to have ..."

"Yes? What?" Haaldr replied. "What is it Uttol?" he asked again, vexed. Finally he turned from the statue and drew a sharp breath, Uttol was being held at spear point by half a dozen savage appearing sleen. Their scales were decorated brightly with smears of pigment, and their lithe bodies were clothed in leathers and woven reeds. "Oh my," Haaldr managed before a trio or spears were brought to bear on him. "Well, it would seem my theories were right after all."

Story Seed - Source

Image Source: http://griffsnuff.deviantart.com/art/Soma-606362370

"Well this doesn't look good," Kendak murmured as they approached the cave.

"Why do you sssay that?" Ssaa'm asked, the sleen's voice drawing the words long.

Kendak gestured violently to the cave entrance, "Maybe because it looks like a human skull!"

"Oh, I sssuppossse it doess," Ssaa'm grinned, "But at leassst it looksss nothing like a Sssleen."

"Thank you, your concern is touching."

The pair cautiously approached. Water was pouring from one eye and into the jutting jaw of the cave's skull-like opening before flowing outward. This was the source of the river Decaas it seemed, or at least it's point of emergence from the mountains. The river's waters had been making downstream villages sick and so Kendak and Ssaa'm had set out to find the source of the contaminant.

Ssaa'm dipped a rod into the river, the clear gem at its other end began to glow a sickly green. "Ssstill the water isss fouled."

"Great, I guess we have to keep going." Kendak stepped into the cool waters and sloshed up to the tooth maw of the cave. Stepping over the jutting lower teeth he summoned a sprite of starlight to light the way. "Into darkness we go."

Story Seed - Amid the Ruinscape

Image Source: http://cd-stock.deviantart.com/art/Winter-Ruins-04-503162952

The snow crunched underfoot. It sounded like a child taking a bite from a pastry. The air was cold, crisp, and dry and carried the sound cleanly. I stopped and waited, listening. No other sounds but the whistle of wind among the ruins. The last cries of a dead city.

The snow and ice had penetrated this place deeply. It stuck between the stones like mortar, and coated boulders like moss. This place had been locked away in the frigid cold of the north since before the Fall. I wondered if perhaps it had been frozen here since before some prior Fall. Did the long dead citizens of this place worship gods whose names would never be uttered again? I didn't know. I would probably never know, which cast strange doubts in my mind. How could there be knowledge that the God of Knowledge did not know? Or did lost knowledge cease to be knowledge at all?

I shook myself out of my reverie and checked the crystal again. An artifact or cypher, I wasn't even sure which - so much for the god of knowledge! - the crystal was pointing me toward something. It had been leading me here for months. The bar of light drifted left and right as I moved my hand, the movement was ever more exaggerated as I had neared this ruined place, and I knew my goal was close. I followed it once again, allowing it to lead me toward whatever fate it held.

After an hour I found it. The ruins of an old building. A temple perhaps, or a library, or both. I liked it, the style was simple, clean, appealingly functional. I meandered for a bit, picking through the rubble of a collapsed room, before continuing to follow the direction of the crystal. It led me to a large table, the altar I supposed.

It was covered in ice and snow. Entombed. I prepared a spell, laid the energy out in a diffuse blast that melted snow and liquefied ice and in moments the altar was cleared of water that had fallen before I was born. I waited for the steam to blow away, or re-freeze and fall once again.

Then I saw it. Laid into the altar, gold and silver, a symbol. A book and a scroll in the hands of a human shape. My symbol. Partly chosen, partly gifted by fate. I began to wonder the nature of the Falls, and just how cyclical the rise and fall of the gods truly was.