A Game of Kings

20211218 A Game of Kings

In SCP-087 there is an endless spiral stairwell - let me tell you about the time I was on it, and trapped in a temporal war.

You can climb 87’s stairwell up endlessly, as well as down, and there aren’t any doors, and then one day there were doors at each level. That’s how this story begins, in our world there is grass and mountains and seas, not an actual staircase, but the gods of time saw it appropriate to have our time move in only the two directions, as all time does, but in the wrong direction, as our time has become.

Crawling around the battlefields a soldier hiding himself and moving found that the world had a wall, the air was thick and blurry, while all appeared to be the other side, beyond time’s wall was another world more advanced, he ran to his camp and told his cheif, but was called a liar, he ran many miles nonstop and told his king, who eagerly believed him, soon taking a secret army to crawl thru the grass all the miles to the portal without words, only gestures the entire distant journey.

The king silently signaled and they all crawled quietly thru time’s wall, and found their world aged beyond the echoing reflection they’d seen behind it, now with more trees, deeper valleys, higher hills, and mountains worn in new places with larger cities on them and many new lights, as silent as before they crawled backwards into their old realm and stood guard with only one boy with the king to return to his castle as they waited watching.

In the second world was a land now of channels and lanterns, steeds and armor, roads and cannons, a more amenable time with words more sonorant and clothes of fashion, where a collapse in the mountain diverted a river to an unsuspecting valley, with great loss families were emotional, but for the old riverbed a people soon were desperate without the certainty of water, as these things are, it came to war, fought as alliances became languages for many years.

Across this time, as far away from the portal of the tribal people and their Restless King, another portal opened to the people of the mountain war and thru came a scout, hair groomed but unmanaged, clothes worn but clean, his fashion old, but his boots newer than the time, his weapon a rifle under his cape, his radio under his hat, and his pistol under his belt, he seems as far beyond time as those bushmen beyond the next, which is where he’s heading-to, he finds a village of three houses and other buildings, careful to not speak, careful to not disturb, watches until he is watched, and leaves the village, returning at night to steal a horse, he’s quickly conftronted and drops the persons impeding him, and rides off, in the day he walks the horse slowly wandering, but they have been at war so long there are no wanderers of their people, quiet observations and enjoyment of the air he falls into a trap, and he is captured by them, who find his weapons, his tattoos more of military than of memory, unsure of what the comms link is, uncertain what the rifle is, but smart enough to understand after examining the pistol, quick to call the prisoner and test the theory they shoot the soldier dead.

Beyond the second portal in the soldier’s world they assume he’s dead, and send a small army thru and attack them and retrieve him, they make it seem as if the mountain people had been attacked by the dry valley, in their departure they are attacked, some are captured, some are killed, their weapons are taken, and they see the others escape thru the portal to the third age, they are confident and chase them thru the portal clueless to the other side, and met by many as their portal is inside a great fortress, blinded by flood lights and covered in red lasers of sniper rifles, they are quick to realize what superior weapons are and slow to even breathe, our commander, who may or may not be myself, at the time, asked them to be allies and help in our war of this third age, but the mountain men refused for being in their own war, wishing to return to it for the honor of battle, to my surprise, and shock, believing them against my better judgement, but then they asked why, and learned the soldiers wanted passage back into the second age, austere concern lead to dire warnings that even with numbers and advancement it was a terrible war, pleading for some of our weapons to win it, they were denied and given the reason that the gunpowder was in such short supply, again asking them to stay and fight for us with their old ways, they politely refused while asking for the weapons, not the ammunition, which they would trade for the gunpowder, a great silence in the negotiation ended in confirmations and exchange, as they returned to the second age.

The soldiers are pissed, they want passed the second into the first age, in accord with their mandate, they don’t want the gunpowder, unrefined in cheap hemp sacks spilling dry silt of it, they come thru the portal being watched into the second age and give more weapons, some escaping into the mountains on electric motorcycles, they raid the dry valley people and steal their armor and insignia, staging a false flag attack on the mountains, then they steal mountain men attire and do it again on the valley, then returning to their proper clothes introduce themselves to the valley fighters and tell them they can only give ammunition, seeming apologetic for not offering weapons, the valley people’s leader says it’s okay to the soldier spy, because they will fight the same way and take the more advanced weapons in traditional methods, here and now the soldiers finally find the portal to the first age.

Soldiers enter the first age, they see the great pasture, the mountains high and endless across the horizon, loudest the wind and quietest the hunters hiding in the swaying grass with unswaying blades, the soldiers see one of them and stop talking, stopping walking, waiting for more to show themselves, in respect the hiding hunters all reveal themselves, it gets too quiet, the soldiers nervously aim as the hunters keep standing farther and farther back, in fear one could count a hundred thousand nomads prepared to battle any portal visitor, the Restless King orders without words them be captured, but they think it’s an attack and open fire, some nomads die, some soldiers die, most make it back thru the portal.

The nomad army begin to approach the portal while others immediately begin ceremony of consecrations and dismantling the dead, their armor and tools, their bones for weapons, their skin for leathers, their body for hunting dogs, and they too approach the portal, on the other side in the second age they make their first sounds laffing at the traps of the mountain war, and cry at the beauty of a horse, examining the traps they are right to assume there is a war in the second age not meant for trapping pet horses, they move forward quietly and are so many that some improve the traps making them more deadly, or more effective, before slipping into the grass, spreading into the realm with the crawlers crawling and the walkers walking in small groups of two or four to seem like herders or refugees, when confronted by the fighters of the second age they throw their weapons down, except one dagger, barking some language unknown or lost to time depending on the perspective, their tattoos are more memories than militia, like spiders on hands and feed the crawlers shoot them down and snatch them under the tall grass, examining their bodies they steal the armor and wear it perfectly, walking stogedly like sentries and more modern men tend to walk, when confronted by the mountain fighters they surrender, and again the hunters quell the threat with smite, the hunters pretend to be them are split in two groups of the two and head in two directions, each town they find they arrive in ruse and run the rage of retribution.

The general of the third age comes to the court of the second age and the Mountain King, offering trainers and a bride for an alliance, the mountain king knows it’s a ploy to plant spies, but welcomes the bride and noble if not tenative truce, 3D CHESS, the nomad invaders in falsified uniforms attack, and meet the soldiers’ heavy weaponry, light artillery, the silent communications they reluctantly learn are the comm link radios, the camoflaged uniforms they slowly realize are militant, the’re are heavy nomad losses, of one half, of one half, of a group, the soldier general escapes early and the eyes in the grass stay hidden.

The mountain king feasts in victory celebration, but the nomad hunters seek the bodies of the soldiers, killing the mountain guards, taking their weapons, taking the soldiers’ weapons, and their camouflage uniforms, and their comms links, and make it to the portal avoiding speech, repeating a single word they heard, sparingly, and enter with the courage of a rite of passage, they ender the third age and the soldier’s era fortress, immediately they see the impressive fortifications, but are unimpressed by the architecture, they begin explaining themselves in a language that both sides now know nobody is going to understand, revealing their tribal tattoos, and giving the soldiers the proof that they know what the third age has been doing to the second, the general watched the whole thing, impressed he approaches, the nomads give the dogtags of the scouts that reached the first age, the general is impressed more/again, they spend a week learning to communicate, the general asking them to return and keep attacking the second age, they don’t want to weaken the barrier to the first without knowing why, he tells the tribalists about a story, one of the words in the story is ancient to him and at present very holy to them, so they agree, and do, but they are indiscriminate in threat reduction and benevolent to the innocent, because they also remove the advisors and the bride offerings are kidnapped, drawing the mountain fighters into the valley fighters, and the valley fighters into their own traps and better ones.

The general wakes to a portal event, an alarm sounds and a black mirror portal opens, a shuttlecraft enters from the fourth age, they open fire like reunion, their ammo depleting or their caution presiding the shooting stops, their technology already broken or unpowered, the shuttle opens fire on their weapons, a silence and a pause then a cosmic sound makes anyone with a weapon go mad with thoughts and grab their heads falling and stumbling, a low tech cannon pops up and pops a shell at the shuttle, the shuttle retreats but the portal stays open, they open fire at the portal, with no catharsis the general is pissed and orders them to remain firing the cannon and march it thru the portal after the shuttle, so they do, on the other side their weapons are gone, the security arsenal is simple but noticable, this fourth realm quite like the first, a pallisade or mansion with vines of flowers and a fountain, a patio is where the shuttle lands with the cosmic sound again affecting the soldiers, this time only making them dizzy until passing out, they wake with the general opening his eyes to the shuttle opening, from it a man and a girl half his age exit, the man introduces himself vaguely, only calling himself the administrator, and offering the young woman as a bride for him who would teach the third age technology beyond their knowledge, the general is unable and unready to speak.

/end
/twist
Here in the fourth age a soldier looks at the administrator, looks at the mountains, and realizes a symbol on the administrator is familial, as is his own, in the rules of their forgotten or unknown written language, the soldier takes off his helmet, his jacket, his shirt, kneeling arms wide and eyes closed.

/twist+
the administrator speaks to the nomad pretending to be a soldier, in words only they understand, standing and approaching there they hug and the nomad cries, it’s the actual king from the first age, alive in the fourth age.

/darkest-timeline
the general is scared, unspeaking, the administrator has all the soldiers killed, as nomads rise from the grasses.

/the-end

A Game of Kings

mjbanks/swehttamxam

A Cup In A Waterfall

Logic will do to chaos what spirit does to warlords. Considering that if their debates were instantaneously turned into a game show they'd all be sent home early.

It's my belief that dark matter is the water, and the big bang is just a bubble of light matter on the surface of our omniverse pool, that would be just about big enough to make us small enuf to witness a blackhole as the invisible gravity that pulls against the smallest states of matter, and that we're inside the atom, and viewing it simultaneously -- and I'm still kinda loving the idea that black holes are the byproduct of really fast space vehicles and we just lack a complete picture of how space and time work. 

Hell the idea that the deep has little between worlds it's not much different from society. The middle ground of space and time, I kept thinking until I was thinking. I kept listening until I was listening. 

Two enemies in the light and truth, the scarcities of reason, the scarcities of resources, and in that act, being the enemies until they were enemies. It seems disturbing to peace and long life that two worlds would be one war. Needless to say that the cost of your own ranks means you weren't meant to lead them. 

Now onto the ones afraid of laughter and standing. The subject, in the old sense of the word a person is subject to rule from another, would be forced to joke until the warlord laffs. The warlord, would have to stand and find something entertaining. One learns to speak to fight, one learns to fight to speak. 

There is a fun game of words called Improvement. Two warlords sat drinking tea, in a monastery far from their homes. They decided to discuss the shadow downhill until they could truly be discussing the shadow. Then decided to discuss the growing grass until they could truly be discussing the grass. The name is the rule, improvement, and serves as the basis of conversation. In order to be wise enuf to debate or conversate, they made rules against disagreeing. Only statements of perception, this improves communication -- and only questions, this improves perception. 

One very much loved shade and all shadows, and the other very much loved grass. 

Blades of grass grow in light. 

Blades of grass grow in light making shadow. 

Shadow of night lets grasses cool. 

Shadow of night lets grasses cool while they wait for the sun. 

They argued and argued for twenty days, but in the spirit of improvement, so that their armies wouldn't fight until they were just fighting, so their armies wouldn't die until they were just dying, the two philosophers never got emotional. 

Understanding they are very much two different people. 

Understanding they are very much two different people, with important different perceptions. 

There we are, left to understand that the two philosophers found a fusional goal, the way fog surrounds what we can see, and covers what we can't see. Our memory is synthetic, not a photograph. This risk of passing bad analytics, or bad logic, we can pass to ourselves. Analyzing sometimes takes the form of doubt, the way fog also reveals nothing. So it is, the vague image of peace had to be held in their focus until the fog lifted when they could truly have peace. 

Words have power and shouldn't be wasted until they are truly wasted. Your memory is a cup in a waterfall. Learn to learn, drink good memory until you can drink the river of time. Toss bad memory until you can fill the space. 

A blade of grass does not steal the light any more than a brilliant star steal darkness. And when a star dies, the other stars don't share thr light, they become one, as they shine until, they are shining. As two, as one. It is that nature is the governing principle that we should strive to be natural, not at each others throats. If you all need to collectively worldwide meditate maybe you should try something easier first, like tea or waterfalls, instead of blades and darkness. 

There will be time and space for that until there is only time and space. 

Fires of Shadoworld

Fires of Shadoworld - mjbanks

A world in a handful of houses, secret orders of secret languages each, by special skills, and special weapons.

The secretive societies and varying varieties with narratives imperative and motives different and the same, here is the briefest longest saga ever written.

With cutting edge technology was great house of night.

Secret society color darkness can see all past perfect without future, in their mind can dream like waking in history.

It is here I tell you the setting is a world the size of yours, but spins so fast that days and nights are short, Shadoworld.

It began with the war for the Pasi ocean, and the nations of Prima dominated the night skies and begin to control the water, and the nations of Seco made secret ships, an orbital war fought, an act of sabotage source unknown pointed the weapon at the world and weapons impact turned a continent upside down, tossing molten lava in a place we now call the Obsidian Sea, and spinning the planet faster.

A royal man of Seco in orbit while the nations and lesser countries fight over names unawares.

A royal woman of Prima joins him, pregnant and aloof and out window looking.

They are watching the planet spin the opposite direction of their orbit and the daylight passing as if hours were minutes.

The royal man plays chess in deep orbit, the pieces of Seco and Prima, the armies of which have defenses of lesser orbit and ground weapons.

The royal man moves the pieces of his family, she moves pieces of hers, controlling the low-orbit satellites.

The magician winds his watch in the city built from the upside down ruins beneath the edge of the Obsidian Sea.

Title credits?

The magician drinks the water filtered thru the charcoal and obsidian overworld and the nutrients of the ancient once buried soil make the magician's eyes glow.

A dream he tosses and turns about the day the earth turned, all the fires and the millions of altars at the edge of a newly molten sea, of the nations born that day, of the oceans boiling away, and a finger pressing a touchscreen wearing a ring like his.

He wakes and watches a multi-channel video, switching with the keyboard from camera to camera, following a squad of assassins, switching between them and the man wearing the ring, back and closer and forth, until entering rifles aimed and autarch alone, a passage filled with fallen guards, and another.

One angle their leader seems to say 'any last words,'  another angle the autarch says his final phrase, the prince replays the phrase trying to make out the words.

The magician uses his magic power to become strong and enters a cage with a once small beast, now large from science and sorcery of the day the world was changed; it can't be trained, it will not attack uniforms of one side nor other, nor can refrain from killing trainers of either cloth; especially hating the magician's internal light matching the lasers that struck the earth.

The ringed hand had hit the button, the two forces stopped firing at armies and air forces, concentrating their weapons at the city in the sky.

Societies banded together, clearing entire cities into levies to stop the lava from spreading, behind the barriers areas of land like a great dry moat, agricultural potential ignored, and defended from the great fire until meeting and dividing at the other half of the reformed steaming planet quickly becoming one jungle.

The comm notifies there is a Prima caller, underneath a city begins covering with faint lines of lights.

The comm panel notifies a second caller, now Seco, underneath the city in combat slides by view from the satellite, more times in night than day, the passing daylight seems to hide the battle, only to show it resurge in nightfall.

At the Seco base, equal shifts sleeping, and training, and eating, and learning, at all times, the leaders plan their next stratagem, their leader enters and they bow to a witch in black robes as she approaches their digital target diagram.

The image becomes real, across the Obsidian Sea, in the caves near Atlan, where the wizard asks about the tides of Paralon, the fires at Blackwater Gate, and the light of Anipri, and is told the tides are opening, the fires are broken by diamonds, and the light is washing slower by a centillion.

There the quiet places were old towers of industry and new cities of obsidian mining or colonies made of containers in marshlands once deserts.

The wizard needs passage to the Atlan reservoirs, but his patrons learn his plans and demand more of him than any worth.

As Seco chieftain waits for words, his daughter, commander of the Turquoise horde demands payment in a secret worth much more.

The wizard pulls the demon blade and kneels like servant, pushes it sliding over smooth mined floor.

Fighting heard from distant mountains and thunder, the Seco return lightning and storm, the sounds draw closer and the wizard is escorted by the command structure elite to safer confines.

I see the commander obscure a coin, and one side of the battle moves away when ammo low as both sides sleep and repair.

I woke up too late for this reality, but I can keep working until I make what I need.

Kept hitting the snooze button and now by body is full of subspace anomalies, the thought of immortality is being blocked by psychic inter-dimensional pirates trying to control the collapse of all matter into a single point, after downloading data from proton sensors a dimension of fluid space attacked an anomalous neural network overloading the primary isotherm energy packs from an already volatile state to critical

As the research laboratory exploded I was forced to use my magic to survive, and seek answers.

While the witch ordered her warriors scavenge the site for critical resources, she looked for the wizard's body, hoping to find at least the magic and science he was making, not knowing that he shielded it from the blast himself, and gave it to the first new recruit in passing before heading toward the witch's home base.

She makes magic from the pieces she finds; at night he infiltrates the enemy base walking in shadow, with access to archives sends all the information to another code-named 'razorwolf', then is discovered, the enemy base uses weapons made of the wizard's own magic, only making him stronger, as they barricade against him firing dark pistons, he vanishes as a second wave of them bring dark rifles, wasting munitions where they only think he is.

The witch tries to divine the location of the wizard by the pieces recovered; under the heat of two suns she sends troops to each place see imagines in her magic vision, each place only traps and tricks, she smells the tatters of the wizard's robe, she falls into a diving daydream, her sentries gently approach her, whispering to wake her, the one fearfully voted to wake her is met with a wall of white light.

The wizard meets with fighters insurgent rebellious, using the information from the witch's fortress they connect to the royal satellite and download files, from both house Seco and Prima.

Each document full of caches and depots, forts and training grounds, royals and regents, targets and agendas, then among the photographs of hypocrisy with members now foes friendly, perhaps the treaties of the past or treatise planned to last, then among the technicians proof of dates and movements recent and soon, set for conflict, as the wizard sees an image of the man of Seco and the woman of Prima and their newborn.

The wizard has lured and attacked soldiers, but now has no more places to hide, one of his attacks on others heals himself, he is outnumbered and chased into public arena.

As her troops chase him, the witch arrives to the hunt, the wizard's commander orders a counter attack, and the witch's commander begins a firefight, the protectors retreat and the attackers move into an area with many innocents, the witch orders them to halt, when they refuse, she uses a magic fear to freeze them in place, as the defenders attack the frozen, the wizard electrocutes them all, healing his wounds.

A day later and the witch is at a launchpad, wearing the wizard's uniform, fighting the wizard's men, when the witch's troops come to support her, she attacks them also.

The wizard walks thru the shadows, thinking about what he knows, escapes his allies, hides in crowds thru the city, less than footsteps, quick as whispers, enters a safe-house, a weapon pointed at his back.

The witch meets him, they bond then make love, he giver her his uniform, she leaves, meets the wizard's allies, infiltrates her own base.

Attacks the wizard's comrades, attacks her own comrades, while the wizard sneaks into the launching area, breaks into the secured control room, convinces the operators to ignore him, gets caught, stops an attacker, makes an ally of a controller sick of the war, another person comes in the room, attacks the wizard, but kills the controller who just switched sides,

The wizard throws him out of a window, finally able to access and open the rocket-ship, but unable to launch the vessel, but that's what the witch does for him,

He shouts at her to run from the launch process, because he broke the control room's windows throwing that guy out, suddenly the witch is inside the rocket with the wizard, she'd put a spell on a villain to assist, who realizes his moment of clarity is just that as the rocket launches

They approach a military space station, security waiting for them, guns drawn, eyes open and serious, the doors open and a blast of air and then silence, only fog exists the doorway, nothing can be seen, as it pours out and air clears the witch lies on the floor, they approach and a flash blinds them, by the time they can see the wizard yells threats, the security shouts a final warning, while the witch is missing, now behind their leader, whispering a magic that orders them pause, then all of them a poison grips their stomachs, the pain puts them to sleep.

The wizard and witch take a military shuttle and approach the outer royal satellite, slowly approaching they formally request docking for repairs, the royals confirm the shuttle's authenticity, hiding their faces from the pilots, the shuttle docks, the doors open, guns are already drawn, holstered, the wizard and the prince hold forearms, matching wolf tattoo to royal symbol, witch and princess hug, matching branding and royal bracelet.

Sixy (Soul Embraced)

Sixy (Soul Embraced)
m.j.banks

What I've been doing is going to a title generator site and getting six random titles, then using them as chapters of a short story, making a draft, giving it a title myself, then abandoning it in my drafts folder. Typically I let the story replicate the titles' implications and write it start to finish, some adjustments. Let's do that.

Give me some titles..... wow, okay...

1 Sharp Dreams, 2 The Laffing Memory, 3 Stream of Sword, 4 The Time's Voyage, 5 The Stones of the Flying, 6 Sword in the Dreams

Some regret for committing to this, but whatever. It did print "laughing," no need to spell it with the wrong letters. The goal is be germane and on second draft make each chapter a page, long enuf to read, short enuf to finish. I'm going to make it extra short and then sleep.

Q music.

1 Sharp Dreams

Man walks in field, but it's a dream, wakes during attack, but their numbers are too small, spy makes it into his tent, stabs with a magic blade that puts him into a coma, a nightmare to him, his first battle and none of his experience, or armor, more difficult than memory,

2 The Laffing Memory

With the awake, the invaders attack, but only the outskirts and only to irritate, attrition, psychological, sending requests for impossible demands, coupled with the coma of the man, they are depressed, the coma-assassin comes back with the poisoned knife and the blood on it, giving it to a warlock, aftereffect of magic done on the nightmare blade, yes I fit this into a ton of my stories, not so much the star this time, a moment for the affect and glow of the evil foe

3 Stream of the Sword

Warlock takes the nightmare blade, drops the blood onto his sword on tented altar, short like a footstool, itself curved in a shinto-like fashion, let's just go with samurai warlock and likewise ceremony, attire, colors, red and black only, clothing, tactical, the blade glows a hue and color that fires can have, his complexion darkens away from light, radiating only the energy weapon, not a fire/light saber, just a vibration or energy signature, blue steel*, the assassin sees in its reflection the room slide from right to left, but the warlock sees no reflection, but a window into the soul of the man in a coma, and for whatever reason, stabs the assassin in the chest, while the warlock kneels over the dead assassin, his eyes burn with the same fire as prior, yet in the dream world, the warlock manifests astral (projection) w the assassin's body

4 The Time's Voyage

Warlock gets to see a time before the countryside was different, ravaged less, brighter more, still the ongoing conflict, still a spy, can see the coma dude's side, but not his own, because the memory of the comatose, learning the terrain of their encampment, finding people dressing as spy's against the warlock's side, sees someone rush into the scene, hears them tell about their enemy has found a warlock to their side, a nod to himself, a vision of the next chapter, approach the younger coma dude, but coma dude starts into fear and chaos, starts to recognize the assassin, launches into a fight with the warlock in assassin skin, but it's a dream, and yet the assassin's soul carries the nightmare blade, coma dude in the real world is part physicality and all stress asleep, so in the dreamworld he's sortof fading, insight being that weak tether to the dreamworld makes the dreamer's ability stronger, idk, and wrests the nightmare blade from the foe/villain, stabs him and the blade's magic shows a light, extremely overwhelming to the dream dimension, everyone is thrown from the dreamworld, the warlock opens his black blood eyes, turns the blade into the assassin's body to end him, agony, certainty's gaze

5 Stones of the Flying

maybe it's, ok right, the warlock goes on warpath, the stones are explosive and send people flying or he throws stones that go 'flying thru the air' and when they land, the stones swallow the souls of opponents, how many of those does he have, he knows is way thru, maybe stones help people fly and there's an aerial battle, final fantasy fanfix way, or the longest to write, dragons controlled by stones, or people controlled with stones against their will, with a backstory on controlling power anchored earlier, not important, but he knows the layout and where the secret lair is and heads right for their leader, woke coma guy ha

6 Sword in the Dreams

speaking of backplants, he sees the warlock and recognizes him, guy gets the upperhand against the warlock, but the warlock traps him, the guy snatches the nightmare blade, in his hand it's bright and blinding to stare-at, warlock starts losing, tries to leave, the stones work against him when guy has the knife, tons of interstitial dialogue i imagine to what extent im not really sure, the blade draws blood, the warlock's wounds bleed black, but each stab shines with bright darkness as the warlock screams the coma guy can read the warlock's mind, a vision cascade of who hired the warlock, to surprise its someone he trust, and that there are spies within, all sorts of bad news, the warlock dies with cut throat with quick delivery, the coma doesn't waste time, he's got enemies w/in ukno, is there a twist, hell yes there's a twist, the assassin that the warlock had killed, groans and moans, struggles to reach into the muddy tent earth, ahead of himself pulls himself toward the warlock's sword, struggling toward the low altar of the blade, toppling it cuts his fingers around it, the assassins eyes grow black, the blade glows the same color, the assassin starts to stand, and drinks the same specific mixture of tea the warlock had drank, two of this, three of that, one of these, stir counter-clockwise


/////////

I've 16 of these now, oh right the title. Thinks. Open to suggestions. Looks at phone.

'Soul Embraced'

Thanks for reading.

m.j.banks

Las Guerras Tinieblas

Darkness and the flowing water, a current and cascade of noise so constant it seems forgotten, the sound of pressurized hydraulic machinery releases a burst of gas unlocking several large bolts one by one, air exits the doorway and an a shadowy figure enters thru it and approaches a much larger bolder shadow-outlined man. 

Master

What news bring you that none will speak? 

Messenger

Many breaking at point of force that met the translucent at the dawn.

Master

Make sure they have to be their wisest forge and make them allied by the nearest animal regiment. 

Messenger

Sure as so, but the nearest breach of they duty bound by westerly a two phase sight. 

Master

How make for sign is the widow wall, can they be given one returned?

Messenger

Sure as so, my shadow, but destined will and have for known at the transparencies numbered, fighting be, for a skirmish as the red waters of the balanced, the many heads on the shore. 

Master

By an imbalance of their account this to it I'm sure. 

Messenger

As so, and yet your kin, ....the

Master

Soon defeated, to match my heart. 

Messenger

The, soon defeated, by numbers merely missing and not by, the count is blind.

Master

Then digging graves looking down fly the cemetery, or you will sow what they reap. 

Messenger

These are not told by the other voice to tell you naught they are likely here. 

Master

You could've led with that, what is wanted? 

Messenger

Missing is the report, not made, not relayed. 

Master

Bade make worry tales will hurry alacrity, if not for this darkness, accursed darkness. 

Messenger

Forgivances, my shadow, lost at the borderlands by swimming beneath the grass. 

Master

With the humans? 

Messenger

Yes, with the humans, my shadow, soon as so, would that it were. 

Master

Send half of the oldest wave at the demons in the sunset region, do by time what showing their tallest make to figure behind a closed tribe, closed mind you. 

Messenger

Say what make I at our fangs, my shadow? 

Master

Counted, ...and I will count them approached I. There will be a mirror by the voicing animal.

Messenger

To voice?

Master

To have voiced made so when they finish digging, I will bring them what I find to plant. Maybe then will they remember my promise. Then reflect with mine, we might see each other in this darkness by makings done. Go now, relay. Until there is light. 

Messenger

Until there is light. 

\\\

\

Hero's Eye

You might list a dozen more steps before you finish the laundry and move on to the second chore on your original list. If you had to consider every small, low-level detail of every task in your day, you would probably never make it out of bed in the morning. Using a higher-level, more abstract list makes your day manageable. Abstraction makes complex tasks look simple.

Now that I have your attention I want to write-on-record. Let's look at this like a problem, just in case there are a few suicidal punk bitches still out there. Unfortunately, I only know what I know, and that often doesn't grasp with reality and certainly is at war with populism, I'll explain soon enough if that was a cliffhanger thought.

When I looked at the numbers of suicides in the military, I was stupefied, questioning my faith, if this is you, I don't mean to be condescending, frankly these are the people supposed to defend us, and for some reason they cannot save themselves, for matters of legality regarding libel, we can say their resolve has dissolved. The numbers of the dissolved are at record highs, for this I, a (lifelong) fiction hobbyist, considered that account of them had merely slipped into the field of espionage and taken new soluble identities, but for the numbers this couldn't be completely true. In my interests, anything possible, I even minimized it, considered 'it is only them and not me' and likely am in the hereafter. Theoretically, I could blame anything plausible and almost anything assumable, that state of nature to the nature of the state, it's a long list.

I like fiction, but we need an actual event to make the leap of faith, then we can continue. It is important to realize, there are people in our time that strap explosives to themselves and then explode, we call those people inbreds. They are following an unspoken code of honor held amongst old thieves and newborns, if you can't handle it yourself, don't ask for favors to get it done. What these people don't realize is soldiery and police are a piece of any family and the ones we have are just that, merely for a bigger family. Corruption is a poisonous specter, an enemy of mortality, like any other a view in depth at this is my point.

I've said before that enrollment practices could be improved if recruiters would play movies about demolition engineering and talk about the shooting range, they make a lot of promises and the shared understanding of threat goes largely unspoken. If killing isn't your business, then economics is your game, because it's a supply and demand game. There are people who commit military abandonment, I'd like you didn't do that, but being in a distinguished military you came from a successful country and you'll make some good babies and teach some good lessons, in some remote impoverished corner of the world. In my own ordinary way I briefly denied it was true, I imagined that it was a way for anarchists and speechifiers to discredit the service altogether, but then I realized they can stop enlistment. 

That only leaves one scenario that fiction embraces well but to be curt isn't easy and is written using universe. There has been a death in combat, enemy or ally, that has happened, and what we call grief floods our vision. That, coupled with all the formative concerns a fighter thinks, becomes a problem and instead of letting it go, they feel that the person is dead, that time should erase the dead. To remove them from ever existing, in regards to never becoming an enemy, to never adding a kill to a list, to never putting a human weapon so far from the west. It begins to pile, and when it shits is rains.


Often is the case that when the spies and spooks snap and commit treason, their minds are filled with thoughts of what they want, basically that they keep hoping for fantasies until they betray the groundwork. So I offer you this advice: don't imagine those who you have left or lost or laid to rest have something better, for they have gone from this place, imagine them in heaven (or hell) as if they had not made the bad choices that took them. All bad places are roaming prisons, and any place can get bad real fast. The trauma afterward supposedly can be terrible, and some can't make it on the outside either, your dreams should be what you miss the most, this is true for everyone. Imagine something that has no choice, when we dream it is no different, a beautiful lady can't resist you because you're broke, or a steamy dude dream, it's a different age.

In any case, don't imagine what you think someone else needs to make it through the night, or you might miss them and what prop item you gave them in your nightmare; think of what you want for yourself after this and think on it; I always think about the one food that I miss the most, that I'm going to eat when I get home.



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