Most people learn via crawl, walk, run. I jump.

Most people learn via crawl, walk, run. I jump.

I always jump.

First, it was jumping into houses engulfed in flame. Then it was jumping out of planes to combat forest fires. Then, I jumped through the inferno to reach that smooth slab of rock. All because the veins in it glowed. That's when I changed. I didn't just jump from place to place.

I jumped right out of reality.

Now I'm adrift in this place full of stars, mists, and monsters. You'd think I'd want to go home. But here's the thing. I can't go back to being me. I'm different. That stone or this place did something. I'm part of something more. If I do make it home, I'm not going to stand by and let the monsters there keep pounding on my people. It's time someone stepped up and took the fight to the invisible fight.

This place I call Nowhere changed me. I can see those who hide, and I've found or made all types of tools to fight them. My journey here hasn't made me less prone to leaping. I've become quite the hunter-of-tears as the locals call me.

You can call me Pheres.

Art Source: "Kairth" by OakKs
Story and Characters: (c)/by Corey Blankenship

I was quickly running out of time and that fact seemed to be lost on everyone else present in the hotel.

I was quickly running out of time and that fact seemed to be lost on everyone else present in the hotel.  Either they had either never had Miranda Fox as a guest before or they were all very good at hiding the effects she had on people.  I wasn’t sure which scenario was happening and I didn’t have time to get to the bottom of it.
 
A senior member of the hotel's executive staff brought the elevator down to perform an obviously impromptu inspection of the junior lobby staff and I decided I’d had enough. Grasping my single case from beside me on the floor I used it to my advantage as I wove in and out of the immaculately placed lobby furniture.  People gladly got out of my way so they didn’t get smacked with my case.

"Excuse me sir." I ignored the concierge behind the counter as I made my way behind his station and kept moving.

"Sir?" The concierge clearly wanted to chase after me but he’d been summoned to take part of the inspection.

At the end of the hall I opened and entered the door to the manager's office without even providing a courtesy knock.  The act caused the manager to spin around in his chair away from the filing cabinet behind his desk.

"Can I help you?" He tried to look past me out the door to his office and down the hall and cocked an eyebrow as far up as it would go but it didn’t help him see any better.

"Yes you can." I sat in one of the empty chairs facing his desk.

"For a man who's paying such an exorbitantly large fee to your establishment I'm surprised that I'm having to wait in the lobby instead of the suite I’m paying for.  I'd like to be shown to my suite now please." I sat the case I brought with my on my lap and ran my index finger across the glossy top.

"Well your stay here with us, is very uh..." He paused to try and find the correct wording.
"Mr. Smith is it?" I nodded in the affirmative, he continued, "Your stay here is exactly the issue that is causing the delay I’m afraid.  We don't typically accept guests in our rooms for half the year sir.  In addition, never before has anyone attempted to pay for a stay all at once, in cash, at the beginning of..." I frowned at him, which caused him to stop talking at least, and moved the case from my lap to his desk and clicked open the locks.

Spinning my case around it was made clear to the hotel manager that only a single pistol lay atop a thick nest of cold hard cash in the case.  He adjusted his position in the chair he sat in, eyeing the contents with the filter of a man filled with life experience. "My business with this hotel is about to begin and I need to be in my suite once it does, I'm sure there is a way to expedite this matter." I nodded at the case.

"We have no business being done at the hotel today or even this week so I'm not exactly sure what you are refer..."

I moved the case back onto my lap.  I closed the latch.  The money was still inside.  The pistol I placed on top of the case where we both could see it. "You may not be privy to everything going on here today sir.  Trust me, if you'd like my money and like to have the room occupied to a quiet single occupant who's more than willing to pay your going rate up front in cash, what do you care?"

"I don't really.  I certainly don't care this much." The manager leaned forward in his chair and grinned at me as he reached out and spun the pistol away from him.  It was clear to me that he was not disturbed by it at all.  If I had more time, I might enjoy a drink with this man, or some target practice.

"Crude I know, but expediency is my priority right now.  I promise to make it up to you by being the easiest guest you've ever had.  You'll not even know I'm here."

"Well Mr. Smith your room is in fact ready.  I don’t see any further reasons to delay you.  Follow me and I'll take you to it." He stood and walked to the door, holding out his arm to indicate I should lead the way.  I stood up and he followed me from out of his office out into the large lobby where the staff was lining up to receive a guest.

"When it rains it pours." The manager shook his head as he pulled a key from its hook behind the counter as he led me out and around the concierge desk to the elevator bay.

I could all ready feel Miranda Fox’s presence even though she hadn't entered the hotel as of yet.  I had no more time to waste.

"I'm not the only big spender here today I see." I stated coyly as we waited for the elevator.

"No, Miranda Fox will be staying with us as well.  Do you know of her?"

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure." I lied.

"Neither have I." The elevator doors opened and both of us entered.

I fought to keep a huge grin off of my face as I could definitely feel her presence as she entered the grand lobby from the outside just as the elevator began its climb to the top floor.

Once there the doors opened again revealing a long hall sparsely adorned with plush carpet and beautiful furnishings.

The manger led me directly to my room where he opened the doors wide and automatically began his standard tour of the large suite of rooms.

"Here." I tapped him on the shoulder. 

Gaining his full attention I closed the case and handed it to him.

"Please extract whatever amount you feel is an adequate tip for your expediency in clearing up any issues that may possibly remain.  I'd like the case to be placed in the hotel safe for me as well."

The manager looked me up and down clearly never having met anyone like me.  I was now leaning toward the fact that none of the staff or guests in this hotel had ever experienced Miranda Fox as a guest.  Were they ever in for an experience of a lifetime.

"I have my doubts about you sir, however I’m simply the manager of this hotel and the owner has agreed to your lengthy stay here with us.  Rest assured I’ll be keeping my eye on you and I will be holding you to your words downstairs." With that the manager turned on his heels and exited my room without so much of another word.

I quickly closed and locked the front doors after putting the no disturb sign out on the door knob.  Next I moved around the rooms for a quick hunt for any modern literature.  I gathered up each piece and placed them in the bottom of the trash bin.  I closed all of the windows.  I pulled all the shades.  I unplugged the television and placed it on the floor of the utility closet.

I re-positioned an extremely large plush chair so that it was out in the middle of the room away from any other piece of furniture.  I could feel her presence much stronger now as I began removing articles of clothing from my body and tossing them on to the floor.  Looking them over, I made sure they were all timeless pieces of clothing.  Nothing could be left around to remind me of the modern age we now live in.

Once I'd removed everything but my under shirt and under pants I sat in the chair and began to concentrate.  I closed my eyes and controlled my breathing.  Soon, with practiced ease, I’d begun to slow down my heart rate.

It didn't take long for the old familiar feelings to return.  The present began to disappear from my mind like a receding tide.  The past began to roll into my brain like a thick London fog.

It was true.  My years of research were finally paying off.  All of that money was not wasted after all.

It was true.  It was true.  It was true.  It was true.  It was true.  It was true. 

Miranda Fox was some sort of special woman with special abilities.  She was a woman who projected a 'bubble' if you will, wherever she went. 

Whomever was in the vicinity of that bubble, if they were sensitive enough to feel it, were mentally transported back in time to 1934 which is where I would be living for the next six months now that I’d been caught up in Miranda’s bubble. 

Art Source: "The Moment" by Meluxine.
Story and Characters: (c)/by Caine Dorr
#1930's, #action, #adventure, #AltHistory, #dieselpunk #caindorr #superpowers

"Tompkins there's been a change of plans."

"Tompkins there's been a change of plans." CFO Tad Henderson whispered out of the side of his mouth upon using his corporate 'all-pass' to gain entry into my cubicle.

As I'd been data diving for several hours at that point I couldn't hear him.  In fact I didn't even know he had entered into my cubicle, something I'll have to change next time I engaged in corporate espionage.

"After an emergency review the board feels that Nakayama Tech has more to offer us if we purchase them outright rather than implementing our original plan of..." My cubicle security had picked up his presence all right, but since he had the 'all-pass' I wasn't alerted digitally in the data dive to his presence.  There was no reason to stop the digital assassination that I'd been assigned to perform only hours before, and I couldn't' anyhow - not without completely unplugging from the system I'd dove into..

"Can you hear me Tompkins?"

I felt him tap me on the shoulder, but my mind was busy processing the zillions of ones and zeroes of the world wide web being pumped into it for the last hour.

"Uhm, I really need you to listen to me now Tompkins, this is important."

I saw him wave his hand in front of the data visor that covered my face, but just like the shoulder tap from earlier, it registered more like a dream than reality as I'd all ready been data diving for ninety minutes. By then, and quite frankly, I didn't expect another visit from the board today.

"I'm serious Tompkins.  You need to cease and desist right this instant.  The board has decided to deal with Nakayama in a different arena.  They do not wish to garner the attention of the local... STOP!"

I could feel my chair being spun around away from  my desk to face him, but it didn't matter, I was neck deep in the world wide web at that point.  He could have had my cubicle moved to the sub basement and I wouldn't have been able to pull out of the data dive just yet.

"Oh my god.  I need you to STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING RIGHT THIS INSTANT!"

I'd later learn through my cubicle security video that he was screaming at the top of his lungs, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me, trying to get me to stop the mission he'd assigned me that morning.

"This a direct order from the board.  STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING IMMEDIATELY!"

I only had another hour to go before my mission was complete....

Art Source: "Cyberpunk Assassin" ~ KM33
Story and Characters: (c)/by Caine Dorr

"Uh Oh. Those trees ain't trees, Frank."

"Uh Oh. Those trees ain't trees, Frank."

"Yea, I know, Ralph, they're likely Yuggspawn-"

"Don't call me Ralph. I'm working."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously. The name's A.U.X."

"If I still had lungs, I'd be sighing now, you know."

Laughter echoed hollowly inside the diving bell-like helmet. "Yea, Frank, I know. Must really suck to be a disembodied spirit--the one disembodied spirit--that just so happens to power my rig now, huh?"

"You have no idea..." Frank's ghostly voice was laced with weariness, with a hint of sarcasm thrown in for good measure. "...and by the by, I'm not wholly disembodied - I can condense into clouds now and again when I take a mind to."

Aux slogged onward through the putrid green quagmire, moving steadily closer to the massive beasts that loomed like silent sentinels. "So, Frank, what do we do about these Not-Trees?"

Frank chuckled, and a puff of eerily green smoke next to Aux's head took on a slightly brighter glow. "We? Well, I won't be doing anything. They can't do anything to me----aaaaaaAAAEEEEEOOOWWWW!!!"

Aux's bucket-like head swiveled, well oiled gears and motors humming, bringing his single blue ocular porthole to bear on the basic location where he thought his friend might be. "Frank! What's the matter?" Aux bellowed.

"It's those...things. Their minds are....ripping into me....AAaaaaaaahhhhHHHHH!"

At that moment, the entire swamp shivered as one of the tower-sized crustacean-things moved one of its many clawed and barbed limbs. Multiple eyes glared balefully down upon the armored man-machine known only as Autonomous Unigenious X-terminator, or the A.U.X."

"Looks like you won't be alone, ol' buddy."

Art Source: "Bog of Bugs" (c)/by Kisufisu
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #AUX, #Ralph, #adventure, #swamp, #Cthulhu, #yugg, #yuggspawn, #creature, #monsters, #Frank

I should have known that this was to end badly...

I should have known that this was to end badly...

###

"So, tell me what experience you've had with this sort of...venture, ahm..." I shuffled several scrolls around on my desk, seeking the man's name, and my fingers fell to my heirloom vambrace--the one worn by my father, and my father's father. The bas relief moldings of the Flail, the Edge, and the Shield thereupon were familiar and comforting beneath my fingertips.

"My name is Yythan the Wise and I am surprised that you've not heard of me, Brightblade's Child." The man's skeletal face got somehow harder and I could feel the disapproval wafting off him like greenflies from a rotting corpse. I'd never met a man whose face seemed so perfectly hand-crafted for frowning. "This will not be my first sojourn into the lightless depths you seek to plumb, and if the skeins and signs have been read properly, then it will not be my last."

I nodded, preparing myself for the disappointment I fully expected after I gave breath to my next question. "Excellent. Tell, me, wizard, of your thoughts about the Cult of Ith."

The man's dark orbs flickered, but I could tell that the wyrdweaver knew well his craft. He showed nothing of the fear that I was certain coiled behind his eyes. "I bear the marks of a Thrice-Tried Acolyte of the Ascended Ones True Path. My Brothers and I bear the Bloodstains of Z'aal. I have no fear of the Lurkers in the Void, or their pitiful servants."

I licked my full lips, feeling the sweat bead on the back of my neck. The first hurdle had been cleared...I was amazed. Oh, Sacred One! Was I truly a step away from beginning my Life's Call? I pressed on, throttling my desperation with a garotte of detached calm.

"I see." I scribbled something meaningless on a piece of parchment with a nub of charcoal. "I assume, then, that you possess the boon which normally accompanies your status?"

Yythan's skull like visage was as motionless as the stone idols he worshiped, but he nodded. It was a small, calculated movement.

I took a fragment of my impatience and forged it into some steel, which I then slipped into my words. "...and I would know of them, if you are to partake of the Brightblade coffers."

The wyrdweaver blinked, his frozen face melting. Slowly, he began speaking. I noted, with some curiosity, that it took gold--or at least the mention of it--to truly get the man's blood up. "Four are they who accompany me, and who have bound their fates to mine.  The first will likely be known to you, as he hails from your homeland. Gunther the Gaoler--"

"The Ox?" I interrupted, incredulous? "He severed ties with the Thralldom in order to bind his fate to you?"

Yythan nodded and for the first time since I'd met him, he seemed almost human. "Though I know not his entire tale, Ox is now my Boundling. He came to me to settle a blood-debt--not for himself--but for his own Boundling, a Smael known only as Rooter."

Now I was truly stumped. "A...a...Smael? I thought they were extinct...it is said that they all perished in the Kin Cleansings!"

The wyrdweaver merely nodded, his dark eyes glittering. Perhaps this old crow loved something more than just gold, after all.

"So, Ox and Rooter. Ox, I know. He is as large as he is mighty. I know nothing of this Rooter, but if he is truly a Smael, then you walk with a breathing legend. Yet, you said Four are Pathbound to you."

"Aye." Yythan continued, "A Sceaduman there is also, swarthy of skin and dark of deed. The shadows call to him, and in them he is most accustomed. He is known only as Saal, but it is said that he has walked the amid the Corridors of Ith-y-itil and again seen the light of day." The wyrdweaver licked his thin lips, his tongue like a pale, wan worm, and completed his presentation. "Finally, H'yrga there is, priestess of Rok. She has been my Boundling longer than any other--since her departure from the Echelon, in fact."

I cocked a brow. "A D'weorh, blood-bound to a man, whom she will likely outlive by five times?"

Yythan nodded. "I held no sway nor ruse over her. She came willingly, and for her own purpose."

This, of all, was the hardest for me to believe. Why, in all the known worlds, would such a woman warrior-priestess do such a thing?

 "I know your thoughts, even without my crystals and chants." Yythan said. "And I have and answer, but it is not of me. It is of she."

"And? I would know this, mind-reader..." I replied, with some disdain. I could see my hopes and dreams failing. This man was mad.

The wyrdweaver chuckled. "Yes, it was her purpose, in fact. She said that she would Bind her Fate to mind only because her god, Rok, had told her to do thus."

"And why would a god do this?" I asked, ready to end the interview with this insane spellspeaker.

"According to her, it was, 'So she could ultimately aid the Bairn of Brightblade, free the peoples from the tyranny of the False God Ith, and to kill it forever.'"

I should have known that this was to end badly...

Art Source: "Dungeon Explorers" (c)/by cwalton
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #gaming, #adventure, #group, #party, #dungeon, #explorers