mumblingviking-blog

[mumblingviking-blog]

Short: Follow and Fade

My brain was seized by endless repetition of the moment, hours passed and the world had changed in the hallucination. I kissed in the dark and danced in the constant haze of shifting lights, never fearing for myself or others.

My self breathed with reckless abandon, smoke, haze, and aromas of our youth, chasing eternity in the finite experience. An attempt to forgive the cruel march and the inevitable rage of time. After all, why should beings of nature and natural law be kind?  Trees under the constant assault of wind rain and sun, fight only each other, forever strangling their own youth in an earthen cradle. Why do we dream of firestorms and passionless ice kings, fear inscribing my life upon paper and stone as I see the end of my 'self'.

Awaken my fell heart, chase the thrill of escape and the mundane act of vanishing from their sight. Too tall and unseen behind crimson braids and tawny locks draped against my heated brow. I work in discomfort, knowing truth and lies are without meaning inside of the haze and abandoning morality for selfishness, my true shield.

And so, tomorrow dawns and the light is shunned by dark drapes, obscuring walls, and my own eyes. Unseeing. Unfeeling. Outside of that prismatic vision and the rave's memory of me.

Waking up in the shade of a hotel and falling asleep while the others around shuffle their bags into elevators and depart the hallways. Ten hours after midnight and my soul is manic after drowning and floundering in liquid delight under intangible light. My eyes open to see the world I returned to, beige and empty cans. Cloudy glasses line the counter in style.

Absinth and wormwood, gin and tonic, rum and whisky and 43, watermelon vodka and thirteen paper cones of water. When my mind was melting I saw my lungs fill with gray and white clouds, water and the taste of sweet existence. Both fading and perfumed by alcohol, smoke, and sweet vanilla chapstick. Memory of night.

In my bewitchment she left, my mind unable to respond even as I watched the time slip by. This is how I know to prepare as too often the call of elsewhere beckons and in the way of my people, I go to follow and fade without my fine fellows.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Short: Inventing Siege Fireball

A man's three dimensional thinking combined with a skill or his nature as a caustic beast, carves out an unreasonably large model for fire magic. The magic's surface area determines the intentions and on such a scale no living being had the potential of execution even with this crutch. The man is chased to the caldera of a mountain spring, a dent like mount fuji, but singular and certainly not at the peak. A reverse frack. Magic fracking, that's not an anime idea I've seen yet. Oh wait, that's final fantasy's worldbuilding cardinal sin after Sephiroth came down.

The exposed and pooling magical liquid magic fantasy bullshit you want to name it, water in a magical place or otherwise an ambiguous liquid. It's valuable because it does stuff in artifacts that are essential to everyday use, it's literally oil. People don't have to deforest and the dryad population can declare peace between the two people, even if the relationship has become humans fawning over the dryad groves and ways. It's pathetic and if you can't have fun you should be trying and failing. Fawning is just the failure to engage and is pathetic and you're dumb.

The materials that are no longer needed in the workplaces has been gathered to repair the gear, trimming a bit from each piece of leather and leaving that with the church of health and forgiveness. If everything you had was lost in tragic accident, even your life ends. You need help. The church reported to the duke, who requested to take action from the kingdom's council. It was a jury of peers, the dukes of the dire lands. The man shows up at the church and pretends to be a town recluse whose equipment was designed for traversing the battlefield of an earth magic.

There is a land where no one lives comfortably at night even after surviving. Think the trenches of Arkfallen and the endless tides of remorse. No one lives in the ruins of that battle, it's just a bad idea. There is a small depression outside the clearing that was used to push waves of topsoil and ten other types of rock, all in rows of roughly cracked stone. It's low enough you only risk slipping in the rain but never flat. There is a magic pool that had been exposed there, the man is going there with his teaching tool for the true siege fireball structure of magic.

The battle was instigated when an unnamed group of men interfered with safeties and without communication they sent nine trains to their deaths. A tragedy led to a group of earth mages working in unison to bury the house of the man and all of his 'favored'. A landlord anarchist, now terrorist. The man brought his entire neighborhood, part farmland and part paradise, into a landslide that had happened to stone. An avalanche that rolls up the mountain and churned the area to nothing more that the now 'native' fauna. The trenches of Arkfallen formed from the removal of ten spans deep.

The were roughly parallel but the evidence of individuals in action served as a rekindling of suspicion to the Duke of their power in tandem. The thirty seven men shared an ideology that guided them in purpose, that wasn't the thought in the Duke's mind. The practiced hand could repeat. These earth mages were miners that travelled from land to land robbing the earth of metal ores, now proven when a knight paid for dinner in silver only to receive copper in the same denomination. The knight slew three earth mages and died clenching two silver and one copper. They had trusted.

After executing all but fifteen men for their actions, now investigated by the knights and auditors of the land. Taxes came due and heads rolled. That fifteen brought the knights to fifteen stashes, concentrated wealth for only their people. One for every head. They were given robes of thorns by the church of healing and forgiveness, identical and grown from a fragment of an artistic sadist's masterwork. Tailored in her window to skeletons. A spell from the church and the stripped men would make the clipping of the robes grow to surround and bind into the men. The vines touched bone.

Greed can be found everywhere but no one spread rumors of earth magicians carrying wealth. They were far to dangerous to invoke, akin to gods on earth.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Short: The Beating Winds

There was once a tree that was heralded as the fount of all life in the world, reaching across the sky and filled with the light of a thousand shining stars. That tree gathered within its branches so much starlight that one day it would collapse into the earth, buried under the weight of its own majesty. This was the first day of this tree, the end of the world.

On the second day, it sank so far into the ground that it became the bones of the world and the blood of creation gushed through the exposed canopy and into the open skies, drowning the world for long enough to let the third and fourth day to pass unnoticed.

There came a time, a long time later, when the branches ran dry and the bones of the world withered and cracked. This was the fifth day and these cracks forced the world apart as the tree began to grow anew and reforge itself. Only on the dusk of this day did the roots stop.

The bones of the world were forged into the seed of creation at the very center of the burning wood, revealing that within the char and burning wood was a green seedling that would sprout on the final day. At dawn, the branches had reached the edges of everything.

As the sixth sunset passed, a bird that once perched on the world tree returned, drinking starlight from the boughs as it had before. This pale bird was not alone on the fifth day, but the final day drove every living thing to the brink of insanity over and over, aside from him.

The crow that perched on the tree had never known anything but silence from the world, he had never drunk the sap of the tree nor made his nest there. The crow had been scattered to the winds and ignored by the passage of time for too long. Too long for silence to harm him.

In this silence, the air was heavy and the crow drank in the starlight. Soon enough everything not on the tree came to a shuddering and screaming halt. Even the wind that carried the crow ceased to exist, dead with every untold secret in a final unheard whisper. The crow wept.

The silence was heavy that night as the crow drank in the starlight. The tree had withered beneath his claws and the sap had run dry within the eternal boughs. Time had ended for the first time in the crow's life, bringing even the starlight to a shuddering halt. Time had ended.

The crow was unhappy on that bough, angry with the tree for withering away and the silence for calming the winds. The crow waved his wings once for each indignant caw. The silence vanished and time began anew. New buds formed from the old branches and new roots.

The crow had never meant for this to happen but was happy nonetheless. The stars were back in the sky and the silence was no longer holding him still. The wind carried him from the branches and into the sky where nothing but the beating sound of his own life was heard.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Conquering Adventurers

This tavern was built in the wilderness beyond humanity's kingdoms. This was an escape from law, land, and order. The bartender brewed in this undefended but defeated area. Monsters don't magically return, they have to migrate.

The adventurers bought their quests from the Tavern while they drank alcohol and cheered for every new arrival. Under that energy tickets were bought with travel plans and packs assigned to them. They were the harvest crews. They would secure tamed wilderness for the person who wanted to own that land. The Conquerer who sold the quest. The next morning once the alcohol had been released back into the ground, every party led by the ticket bearer. A new legal document that when presented back to the guild the Conqueror would buy it back for full ownership.

Adventurers were out of fashion these days, Conquerers were certainly better armored. Conquerors earned a lot. If there was something to be said for adventureres it was the advantage of living so recklessly, greedy courage. In the end, the adventurers often posted a quest themself to stake out their retirements. Pay the entire crew. There were no taxes, there were no roads or connections, the people who owned their new land owned it outright.

Conquering land was more than enough for one person to profit on, no matter the reason or current occupied force. Creating new land by slaying and the regular investments driving them onwards to hunt without any consequence. Who was living out here and not doing the very same thing? Take, take, give. There is a collective need to feed. A need to feed yourself and others, not just the need to feed yourself. We all have the need to balance the two. Quests are the reality of the new world, the need to expand your space not only to be upon but to leave behind.

Sometimes there would be a plant that would be farmed easily without a dominant predator nesting or burrowing. There were different numbers marked underneath their pauldrons on dyed cloth, whichever rank in the food chain. Being ranked higher meant fewer animals they were responsible for killing. The food chain tapers dramatically. Immediately the land becomes settled and produces for not one or two, but to satisfy the entire new population. All of those people who leave their homes to start with everything they've amassed? Conquered lands were tamed.

For years the conquerers would slay and humanity would grow into that space, until we didn't need to. Enough. Without the need to expand, there came the need to prepare. The conquerers who lived farther and farther away, and the people who lived on those conquered lands had never met the conquerers who hunted the native monsters. Now each conqueror rode in company of others and rode through the lands, taking the lands and building a road. This road was so large it could hold a battlefield across it, army after army to defend their lands.

The new kings were conquerors and their children were their soldiers. The adventuerors had never been kings. Adventures were quick harvests of special materials that were not known to the land of humanity, indulgence. The time of expansion hadn't come despite their efforts to build a newer and larger population and drive growth. This logic was accepted as humanity would stop expanding if what we had was enough to satisfy the population. So! A vote was taken and expansion was investigated to solve large inequalities like amputation and blindness.

The true nature of the vote was a census of the population that marked adventurers and their depth into kingdom. Adventurers could only live so far from the border of the kingdom's lands, otherwise retiring from adventure. If the Conquerors pushed back the borders then the adventurers would be domesticated to the kingdom, or move. The conquerers could aquire additional land by using the old legal code of conquering by doing quest for land. Out the riders went, down the conquerers road and towards the wilderness. The plan had been laid and hatched.

The best of all was that conquerors could use their own road and escort merchants who built economy for all. The adventurers who contained endless brotherhoods and alliances once again had more territory, if they wished. Their territory pulled them outwards, the interior of the kingdom supplying everything to the point of excess. The Conquerers of humanity had built a backbone to paradise, satisfied within infinity. Exiling the adventure.

The conquerors, divided on their persepective and locked in regional disputes, formed two kingdoms of humanity. They were all conquerors, but the sap wasn't honey for all the sticky resin looked like it. Even alone, at war.

This is dystopian for me and I am trying to embrace that feeling a little bit. Nasty but in this story the wilderness has no equivalent species. We dont have one. Emotionally I feel disgusted by the kind of perspective I'm writing. They're people though and this is how I think they would act. I'll try. I think I'm going to mkae them kind of good. Oh wait nevermind. They're the cops. They're the landlords. They're the employer. Fuck them. If your job adds a restriction to living and contributing in a meaningful way, with belief in your heart that the work is good, fuck you.

I think if that's the end the idea is that we can run away by isolating, do really well, and then be the same anyways when you've returned.

On a a societal level, can we reach that ideal that stops us from expanding? Without needing to because the horizon is now infinite? If we reached that ideal, the adventures would all be retrodden grass and live in the corona of humanity because no one else wants to go? I don't know, I guess I'm writing and choosing the outcome of that situation as a form of self expression which means I endorse you seeing this option. Even in the absence of interference I don't even see this happening like I've written. There's a wish there but it's on fire in the backseat.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Short: Fate’s World

You find yourself in another world, everything you do is influenced by the tapestry of fate, tangible as gravity and space. The world is warped and twisted as you step. Even with your 20-20 contacts all you can see is right in front of you. You've never worked out so the grass around you shifts with a fury that you're afraid to move, that's a twisted ankle for sure.

It turns out that there's a measuring tool that was made by a workshop of mages and it is the size of a cellphone tower. You walk across a parquet floor that is shifting below your feet, dragging against your shoes and slowing you down. Magical. You are more likely to understand and pursue skills within the measuring tool, which measures fate with a parquet tile floor. Nothing you've seen has been so certain as you see your own pattern, stepping and falling forward into a roll. You use dodge.

This was a commonly understood 'best roll' and you had practiced it in the three months of martial arts you tried 15 years ago. You don't even know how to run and vault like a champion, that wasn't what was on your mind at all! Such a shame, what a loss! Combat actions, just like that first step across the grassy field, are influenced by the user but require a target to activate. So, in order to successfully train and become healthier and more resistant to the dangers of this magical world. A Nemesis.

There wasn't a restriction on the kind of person using it, only the opportunity to dodge like an acrobat isn't very common. So the likelihood of you doing a roll and succeeding is lower in an inappropriate setting. Caves have stones and uneven walls. There are jesters, you hear on the street with your sensitive hearing, that dance for the king. Tumblers that dance anywhere. It's all about the pageantry, when people used to say 'up to fate's whims' it wasn't nearly so important to understand on earth.

Even within stepping distance people aren't hard to make contact. So much of this world is the opportunity to attack suddenly! A reaction that distances yourself is so very important when you can't use the high quality lenses to see! You're a peasant! A king couldn't wear a crown without fate's approval, and once you removed the lenses from your eyes and put them away you see.

It's already so much clearer, initially you were staggering like a drunk. You just removed a restriction on the affected sense. But this space is like a resonant plate, showing every possibility in range. You can't even see that far with low perception. Having a pole made for pole vaulting would certainly allow the acquisition of that skill. Being healthy makes it easier. You can understand this now that your ability to interact with fate was muted by the crime of wearing contacts in an isekai.

Restraint and morals, guided by the vague teachings of dead philosophers and dad-podcasts clips on the internet algorithm. You're shoved away as you wander into a group of muscular woodsmen, unaware of their party's size and influence of that size. It's ok. You only took a bruise because your body is incredibly resistant, vitamins are important and fate is inescapable. Fate knows that you eat a balanced diet, if a little heavy on protein and carbohydrates, and supplement with vitamins: Bonus!

So you bruise slightly and get the opportunity to activate dodge? That's a chance reserved for dukes, knights, and squires. There isn't a better way to do this, crashing through groups of people and performing a graceful leap to burn calories? Good. Once I'm away, their scout is sent after me to keep distance and restrain my actions. Dodge activates upwards when cornered. You're airborne and climbing the side of this building like it's a rock wall at a waterpark in the Midwest united states. How?

Well, the measuring tool is just that. A tool that helps define possibility into action, finding your limit. You can do it too. In the moment of escape, thrown upward by the tension of base reality against fate's weave like a trampoline. A perfect dodge. Fate's weave is broken here, your pursuers have been showered in raw possibility just as you were able to harness it to jump. Instead of chasing after you, they laugh and become more handsome. There's a flicker before it happened, without moving.

The appropriate thing to do is step away and allow the disengagement. You didn't want a fight and you even got a new skill! 'Flight of the Rat' isn't a flattering name but a launch that tangles the flow of fate? You can make your own escapes possible! There is no offense that fate can take because unless there's two mysterious forces in this universe, fate powers your skills. Fate doesn't want anything but fate can also be considered dead where nothing new happens. This world wasn't like this before.

Just as weather patterns are formed in the same way, year after year on earth, fate settles people in patterns. Methods to win. Methods to navigate the bigger ripples in fate. When an army comes knocking at the gate, being a non combatant is dangerous. To be a combatant in battle is freedom of movement the higher your rank. Fate opens before a captain of the King! Not you. When the army struck the gates, you were freed from the lock of fate like a gong waking you from a nap. You've been released.

Your skills are the acrobatics of a thief, despite only shoplifting a few times, and the slipperiness of a spy! You can steal. This is an opportunity that the city would be able to mourn after they survived. The grocer's stand was unmanned as he hid. So you eat a fruit and you see that you didn't develop an allergic reaction to the fruit. It's an odd thought but good to know. The jeweler shop on the private road wasn't so easy, it received a guard to keep out intruders or peasants. Not good enough!

Two perfect dodges later and a cloud of flour scattered into the air, wasting rations tsk tsk, and the guard has lost track. You collect necklaces. You collect rings. You collect ring. You collect one ingot of gold because your sack is already worn out. Something isn't right, why was a ring separated from the pile of rings? You had to do that twice, like it wasn't a 'ring' at all. With that realization fate bends around the ring and you put it on. Your soul feels weary like earlier, like the contacts...

----- Chat GPT expansion: The thief saves some people I guess.

As you ponder on your newfound skills and the possibilities they may bring, you notice that the city is in chaos. The army has breached the gates and is now wreaking havoc on the city. Buildings are on fire, people are screaming and running in all directions, and the sound of swords clashing echoes through the streets.

You realize that you need to find a way to escape the city and get to safety. As you look around, you notice a small group of people huddled together, trying to stay out of sight from the soldiers. You approach them and ask if they know of any safe place to go.

One of them, an older man with a long beard, looks at you and says, "The only safe place right now is the temple of the gods. It's located on the outskirts of the city, hidden in the forest. But it won't be easy to get there, the soldiers are everywhere."

You take a deep breath and nod, knowing that you have no other choice. You thank the man and set off towards the outskirts of the city, using your newly acquired skills to dodge the soldiers and slip past them unnoticed.

As you make your way through the city, you come across a group of soldiers who have cornered a woman and her child. The woman is begging for mercy, but the soldiers are mercilessly advancing towards them, swords drawn.

Without a second thought, you leap into action, using your acrobatics to dodge the soldiers and grab the woman and her child, then sprinting away with them in your arms.

As you run, you can hear the soldiers shouting and chasing after you. But you keep running, fueled by the adrenaline and the knowledge that you're doing the right thing.

Finally, after what feels like hours of running, you reach the outskirts of the city and see the temple in the distance. But the soldiers are still hot on your heels, and you know that you won't be able to outrun them for much longer.

Just as you're about to give up hope, you remember your newfound skill, Flight of the Rat. You take a deep breath, close your eyes, and focus on the feeling of fate around you. And then, with a burst of energy, you launch yourself into the air and fly towards the temple, leaving the soldiers far behind.

As you land gracefully in front of the temple, you open your eyes and see the woman and child staring at you in awe. You smile at them and say, "We made it. We're safe now."

And with that, you walk into the temple, grateful for the skills that fate has given you and the chance to use them for good.

----------Chat GPT DLC: The thief becomes a hero in a zombie apocalypse.

As you move through the city streets, your heart is racing with excitement and fear. You can feel the power of fate pulsing around you, shaping the world in ways you can barely comprehend. It's both exhilarating and terrifying.

As you make your way through the crowded streets, you notice a small shop tucked away in a corner. The sign above the door reads "Magic Emporium." You can't resist the urge to investigate.

Inside, the shop is filled with shelves and displays of strange and exotic objects. There are glowing crystals, enchanted potions, and mysterious books bound in leather. You feel a sense of wonder and curiosity as you explore the shop, but you also sense danger lurking around every corner.

As you reach out to pick up a small, intricately carved statue, you feel a jolt of energy course through your body. You pull your hand back in alarm, but the statue remains in your grasp.

Suddenly, the air around you shimmers and warps. You feel as if you're being pulled in a hundred different directions at once, and your vision blurs and fades.

When you come to, you find yourself in a strange and unfamiliar place. The sky above you is a sickly green, and the air is thick with the stench of decay. You stand on a desolate plain of blackened earth, with twisted trees and gnarled roots reaching up like claws from the ground.

As you try to take stock of your surroundings, you realize that you are not alone. A group of twisted, demonic creatures is stalking towards you, their eyes glowing with an otherworldly hunger.

You reach for your weapon, but your hands come up empty. You're unarmed and unprepared, trapped in a world you don't understand, facing enemies you can't hope to defeat.

But you're not helpless. You've been granted a gift, a power beyond mortal understanding. You close your eyes and reach deep inside yourself, drawing on the power of fate to fuel your abilities.

With a surge of energy, you feel your body transform. Your skin hardens into scales, and sharp claws sprout from your fingertips. You feel a new strength coursing through your body, and a fierce determination to survive.

The demons rush towards you, but you meet them head-on, claws slashing and teeth bared. You're no longer the helpless mortal who stumbled into this world. You're a warrior, a hero, a force to be reckoned with.

As you stand victorious over the defeated demons, you know that this is only the beginning of your journey. There are countless dangers and challenges waiting for you in this twisted realm, but you're ready to face them all.

With a fierce determination burning in your heart, you set out to explore this dark and dangerous world, ready to use the power of fate to forge your own destiny.

----------------- I asked ChatGpt to write another 1,000 words.

As you run through the streets, your heart racing with the adrenaline of the chase, you can feel the measuring tool in your pocket vibrating with an almost electric energy. You know that this is the tool that allows you to understand and manipulate fate, and it’s clear that you’ll need it to survive in this world.

The streets are narrow and winding, and you take turns at breakneck speed, hoping to lose your pursuers in the maze-like alleys. You can hear their footsteps pounding on the pavement behind you, but you refuse to look back. Instead, you focus on the path ahead, looking for any obstacles or opportunities that might give you an edge.

As you round a corner, you see a wooden staircase leading up to a rooftop. Without hesitation, you bound up the steps, taking them two at a time. When you reach the top, you glance around, searching for a way to escape.

To your left, you see a narrow gap between two buildings. It’s a tight squeeze, but you think you might be able to make it through. You start to run towards it, but a hand grabs your shoulder, pulling you back.

You spin around, ready to fight, but you’re surprised to see that it’s not one of your pursuers. Instead, it’s a middle-aged man with kind eyes and a warm smile.

“Are you in trouble, young one?” he asks, his voice calm and gentle.

You hesitate for a moment, unsure whether to trust him, but then you remember the measuring tool in your pocket. If anyone can help you understand and control fate, it’s this man.

“Yes,” you say, your voice shaking slightly. “I’m being chased.”

The man nods, his eyes serious now. “I can help you,” he says. “But you need to trust me.”

You nod, and the man leads you to the edge of the rooftop. “Jump,” he says. “Trust in fate.”

You take a deep breath, feeling the measuring tool vibrate in your pocket, and then you leap off the edge of the building.

For a moment, you’re falling, plummeting towards the ground far below. But then, something strange happens. The air around you seems to thicken, slowing your fall. You can feel the measuring tool in your pocket pulsing with energy, guiding you towards a safe landing.

When you hit the ground, you roll forward, tumbling into a crouch. You look up to see the man standing at the edge of the rooftop, his hand raised in a gesture of blessing.

“Go now,” he says. “But remember, fate is not something to be controlled. It is something to be understood.”

With those words ringing in your ears, you take off running once more, dodging between buildings and leaping over obstacles with a newfound grace and agility. You can feel the measuring tool in your pocket, guiding your every move, and you know that you’re finally beginning to understand this world of fate and magic.

As you run, you start to notice that the world around you is changing. The buildings are growing taller and more ornate, and the people on the streets are dressed in fine silks and velvets. It’s clear that you’ve entered a more affluent part of town, and you know that you need to be careful. The rich and powerful are not to be trifled with in this world of fate.

You round a corner and find yourself face-to-face with a group of armed guards. They’re all wearing gleaming armor and brandishing long swords, and you know that you’re in trouble.

But then, something strange happens. The measuring tool in your pocket starts to vibrate with an almost overwhelming intensity, and you feel a surge of energy coursing through

[mumblingviking-blog]

Cleric Prompt

I woke up with words on my lips.

"I serve the Burning God. I bleed upon this land for his cause." There wasn't a confusing rush of information, i knew the words as any child knows the sky is blue.

Much like any child though, I still felt the need to ask why the words were true. I knew the words and they rushed out of my lungs like fire. "Belief is kindness but no favor granted. Bleed for his cause."

When i stood up and shook my hands out, they were familiar but not mine. The feet under my body were held together by legs far too long. The hands at the ends of my wrists felt skeletal and stretched taut.

"Why do we bleed for his desires? We cannot know and cannot ask." That was a question for another day.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Short: A Superman Retires

The superman retired. There was too much collateral in this world for Zeus incarnate and his shield was only so wide. People died. So instead he became a broker, allowing the villains to run from the law for a price. Their debts were on the scale of their damages. Discreet villains disappeared in a crack of lightning, so long as they escaped on a rainy day the villains could triumph. Loud villains paid much more and had to chase down those thunderstorms to ensure safe passage. The broker kept only one schedule.

His schedule was to follow the storm clouds and let those clouds cross the jet stream before manifesting Olympus above the sky. It was a world of gold kept within the king's lightning bolt. Zeus the super hero had only one power: his world hidden in clouds. His effortless strut that was impossible to strike through, the instant movements between lightning bolts, it was only one power. The broker knew that he wasn't invulnerable and he hadn't expected anyone to find out, to his knowledge they still hadn't.

He never used it in this way before his retirement. To be a courior for Villainous Criminals, his VC as he called them, was hard. To help people like the bank robber who'd shot and murdered three babies across from his teller station. It's just a few thousand. His lightning short circuited the computer and in retaliation for something, James Horenson aimed his gun behind him and pulled. James Horenson lived for exactly two and one third seconds after that moment. The edge of Zeus' lightningbolt cut the gunman down.

The news dragged Zeus through the mud, that explosion had sent 3 bullets through his torso and twelve into the crowd. One death. Alex Jacobs was another worker in the bank who had been next to Zeus when Zeus launched himself forward. Alex died from shrapnel. His coworkers thought that two of their coworkers died that day, reporting that to the news and the police. Superhero violence. So he was better off dead, shot into an explosion of lightning by the former greatest hero. He missed Alex and visited her yet.

So Zeus retreated into his estate safety net and began making himself wealthier from there. The many profits of domestic warfare. Is there a chance of reduction of harm? No? Noah, formerly Zeus and now the Broker, didn't engage with it. He drank his coffee. There are problems in Columbia and there are horrible realities. There is no infrastructure for some of the people. Some is some. There are very few true evils, selfishness can be tolerated to a point and the Broker certainly charged his fee for each contract.

The Broker's Den displayed a small section of his power, it was just a room that had an exit and an entrance. He behaved weak. He had a round face and was allowing his mouth to adjust to life without a retainer. Some of his teeth had shifted around. The broker never got angry at the damage done, allowing the theft and wrath to pass calmly, but asked a fee from every visitor. The fee wasn't understood at first but being able to escape from the law is a smart man's game. Pattern recognition is a requirement.

So collateral damages dropped wherever he went and survival of villainous incidents was raised by 20%. A trade for Criminal wealth. The economy creates wealth that is siphoned off by the wealthy for satisfaction and ideological warfare against their friends. Further siphoning that wealth to the often entertaining members of military groups, local heroes, social dissidents? A good trade. Valuing lives over money is an incredibly bad move in traditional real estate. The broker changed that dynamic with money alone.

It wasn't his methods of transporting villains that had increased property values near his rental properties and businesses. It was his methods of keeping the people in their towns earning and spending money while living in his properties and businesses. Anyone can become a node of the economy with enough money and attention to detail. Bribe a records clerk at the hospital to read. Match that information up with their take-home pay from your business, evaluate secondary priority spending habits, reduce rent.

The power to be in charge of anything is remarkable and dangerous. So Zeus became a villain named Broker, and tended his garden. The power grids always did better after the rainstorms, although Noah was often worried about being exposed by the weather shift.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Feature: Bogleather Ghoul

The Bogleather ghoul

A skeleton wears it's own skin around flesh turned to sand. The rules of undeath allow piercing and decoration and this is simply the logical extension.

Armor does not guard the ancient bones nearly so well as gravesoil, which repairs the cracks, nor as cheaply as binding cloth around the cadaver.

In the north of the isle, there is a bog and there were innocent people who drowned in that bog. Two hundred years later, flesh bone and skin remained.

The withering of the body in the bogwater was solved by a necromancer named Jean. She would slit the victim's throat and suspend the head above the bog.

Insects and vermin would eat the flesh of man, ignoring the skin and dissolving around the bones. After half a year of inspecting the body came the sand.

Bogsoil is nice but nothing stops a mace like a bag of sand. Platemail is nice but expensive and unavailable, chainmail is useless for normal undead.

A soldier cutting through a door to find sand will always begin hacking at the wall. It's an immediate disadvantage and against the undead: death.

So these bogleather ghouls drag their armor around inside of their skin, shambling instead of running because they are the greater pursuit predator.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Short: The Reset Wanderer

There was a man who teleported with the unfortunate consequence that every time he teleported he returned to the state of mind and body from before his first teleport. The first few times the man teleported was to save his own life from unexpected danger. The further the man left from his home, the faster the teleports happened. No one could find and explain to the man because anyone with the ability to see had no reason to save. They watched him teleport and teleport and the wild distances, the great unknowns to that man were an adventure. He embraced those moments as they cheered him and leaned into it so every teleport added to the myth, he was a hero.

That's all you need to be a hero, go anywhere and be anyone. So of course Jacob took a bus to New York and settled into a life of casual enjoyment. He might have to go.

Another year passed as the not-teleporting man who had found himself older, stronger for his constant exploration of the world and embracing the future he painted on his skin, layered in beautiful patterns from himself on his canvas. His body was covered in open landscapes, dark clouds and explosions, beautiful women, and every icon he had felt in his heart as true. Some people are meant to be the hero, and he had been teleporting for months. He was like weather, strange and predictable through the lens of those powerful men who sent threat after threat before his mind could constrain his power and tame it forever. They had an interest in stopping that stormfront.

So project stormfront came to be, a wave of armed vigilantes whose doctrine was known and argued over by politically motivated people over the ethical concerns. To induce power use? You cannot be sued for frightening a little boy whose fingers happen to turn into snakes, that would put too much power in the supposedly ethic less minority of our world. The same can be said of this situation framed within a pair of adults, with guns that only wound and knives that cannot cut anything but skin? Two powers. The proof of their torture came with the great defeat of this teleporting man whose name was Jacob, and as the whole world knew he mowed grass for his neighborhood.

It wasn't hard to assemble the neighbors he would fight for, never using the teleport and cut to shreds before chasing after the hostages while bleeding all over. He ran through the streets of New York, travelling in this version of his mind and body until he lost the hostages. Their harassment turned a corner to simply leave. In his despair Jacob would teleport with the focus to land in their car, save his old neighbors with the youthful exuberance that he'd had and none of the trauma. Even in defeat, with three members of their group in jail and seven members of stormfront on trial for conspiracy, that militia had done its part and reset Jacob's mind.

It once backfired and Jacob spent weeks tracking them down before a violent confrontation and the death of two women walking home from their party. The news ate it up. Beautiful crime scene photos were instantly associated with the wonderful traveling hero who had given up being a hero to become violent and damaging to the world. The positivity feedback loop broke with the general public's disinterest of Jacob's personality and their growing interest in his actions of each life. On their world.

This repeating echo became truth for the Jacob who teleported, now reading those wonderful stories on his body and knowing that it had all been for nothing. He was new. He found newspapers and articles talking about his power, scattered everywhere he went as he was a world wide danger. Stormfront had been redeemed and he was hunted by better funded, matured men who were training their mentees to do the same. A villain was an immortal, not someone with superpowers, and with an immortal you can reset the issue in one way or another. In the effort to forever control one man, who could be anywhere in the world, Stormfront assembled something to control everyone else.

The mind control was almost never deployed, overuse devalued the tracking technology Stormfront had created to chase Jacob and had found a nice equilibrium at twice a month, every other month. For greed and control, that seemed like a good balance against losing control forever and the redemption of Jacob. Forever meant everything.

Everyone in the world has a chance to become the victim of Jacob the teleporting villain, who went anywhere and did anything he wanted in despair and understanding. He couldn't return across the bridge he crossed, so why not burn it? A younger man with anger and pain in his heart, turning to violence wasn't even a decision. He was violent again and again, fighting back against all of the people who believed it. He didn't want to become the Villain and if he had enough time he could realize that. So Stormfront had a new reason to maintain their cyclical battle. The tradition of hunting the Villain, Jacob had grown to carry the weight of tradition in his blood.

Every once in a while Jacob would turn again to embrace his dutiful, helpful nature and find beauty in the world. He would shake free from the Villan persona only to lose once again, throwing him back into the development of being a Villain. Stormfront used Jacobs records to conduct tests and refine the ability to teach children and leave smarter and better educated people to pull the levers of society. Capitalism runs off the back of engineers who like making art and lawyers who throw rocks at people for fun. Small facts about the human brain became identifiable by testing the environment over and over again. Stormfront mastered the choices of the world.

Save the hostage. Bold letters on his arm, a joke from twenty years ago when the first hostage game was created. If you woke up and was a hero trying to save the hostage, got a woman murdered and then faced your own very real history of murders and damages for thirty years of continual chases, would you teleport? Every time Jacob ended up in jail, he cracked in month 5 and teleports. It's a science at this point. Stormfront doesn't even publish the trial dates, they were routine and buried. Jacob was old news. His torture was an industry that existed because it controlled the world, not because it returned the favor. They had defeated him by retraining him into a victim.

They knew every lever that could return him to their plan, they knew every lie that he'd believe. The most consistent story was when Jacob was a victim and was able to go ten months without teleporting. He wasn't resurrecting, it was a teleport that resets his body. He was able to die, he just had to stay still long enough to die. Stormfront didn't invent anesthesia, but it used a lot of it. They confirmed that every other thing that caused a teleport does not activate under anesthesia. This was one of the first things they learned and failed to disclose to the public. Even when Jacob was a Villain, he could've just been anesthetized instead. Done.

Instead Stormfront was the only business to partner with a country as equals, and Jacob had been thoroughly used and disposed of. Humans are the scariest animals.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Short: Unguarded in Pride

His soul magic was not his first, in the beginning of his training he had been an earth mage and had appeared as such to every onlooker. He had learned how to make crystalline shapes and mimic them with stone, often quartz and other stone made from sand.

They leaned on each other, just as soulfire magic burns only the surface while the insides remain cool. A favorite of high class fire mages and royalty. Soul often empowered the other magics used but the cost was too large to supply the magically created stone.

His earth magic was built in the image of volcanic rock and his soul magic matched to the shape well enough to both reinforce and disrupt opposing magical attacks. A shield and sword for him. In flight and without equal, taken down by drowning in ice.

The ice mage could imitate what the earth mage did except for targeted strikes. Water magic does not adhere to the physical barrier that attempts to disrupt the mage's intended path, frictionless and calm.

But you can chase someone around with water magic and drown them if your heart is hard as ice. Ambition drove the water mage into becoming this ice mage, power to go and live however she pleases now that her ice can stop her victim from moving.

The earth mage had made a good showing, cracking her ice but unable to escape from the water that was ten span across. He drowned in under four minutes, veins bulging and red in the face. How embarrassing for such a pioneer to die without passing the torch!

If the water mage had been a man, she may have been a knight of the dukes, whichever was nearby. To be honest she envied them, equipped with armor to remain safe and assigned a lizardman squire. Even water mages needed to breathe and sending an amphibian to distract the attacker was easy.

There is no shield from a lizardman in water except for ice magic. They may cower under fire and run from earth magic, however soft the loam, but in water they were spectacular. Each squire was sent from their kingdom as a trial of knighthood.

To face a deadly enemy within five years and return home to wash the blood from your scales. That is a lizardman knight. You do not stop once the battle is fought, laying down armor and belongings for thieves and friends, you are running for glory.

The water mage drifted away, carried in a chair of ice, relaxed and at ease.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Prompt: Paradox Farmers

There are always talking heads who decry paradoxes as if it were a new concept. In this world there are no paradoxes because a paradox is a repetition.

The universe loses energy concentration with the passage of time Paradoxes can force that energy back unto itself but the effect is local. Every repetition of the paradoxical outcome increases that energy's strength.

With globalization a fact of life, access to information became global. So the effect of global understanding is that there is a global paradox. Every day there is someone, somewhere, who invents time travel and it repeats.

So now there is magic, paradox farmers, and the many forms of magical economy. Natural law is expressed through reality's actions, magic is a deviation.

The interesting thing is that as magic replaces science as foundational, paradoxes become less possible as the execution of the knowledge is harder. So there is a necessary cycle of technological renaissance to renew magic. All without our, the sentient species, understanding of the cyclical events.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Time and the Thin Man

A starving boy walked up the blazing hill, cut by the iron grass that whipped with the wind and scratched his feet. The hilltop used to be a ruin, a long time ago. The Thin Man walked in silence, admiring a rock.

“Can I join you sir?” The starving boy knew his manners around important people like the Thin Man. “My shoes were taken by the gatekeepers and I wore out my socks on the way here.” The Thin Man stopped.

“Why have you wasted your time out here in my Wilderness? I do not see hope in your eye, starving boy.”

“Because no one is dying anymore sir. Outside the castle walls no one can die. We have stopped trying.” He would cry for them, his own eternity was daunting and a good death was impossible to find alone.

“Is there no meaning inside of your castle? Is that death so meaningless you sold your shoes and ran off?”

“Sir I would like to sit down with you.” “That would be upsetting to your families and their memory.” “Sir I was told you are without end and without misery.” “That single thought is unpleasant. Without.” “Sir I do not want to die inside of that castle, on their spears.” “Then do not. I like being out here, alive.” “Can I join you sir?” The starving boy knew his manners and had not approached the scuffed tile floors.

“I hope we can talk about eternity sir. I do not know what is out here, on top of this hill. May I join you?”

The Thin Man smiled at the starving boy and they were happy for a moment. A small gesture brought the boy onto the rocky floor, up and away from the waving iron grass. The two immortals began walking.

“Why are you Thin?” The starving boy asked upwards at him. “I will be fat and tall when the people die instead of being weak and sore. I do not like being smaller than you sir.” A grudge that would shrink him.

“If everyone alive decided to die today I would still be the Thin Man on this hill.” His rock fell out of his hand and clacked twice against the ground. He had seen that rock’s surface in the past and disliked it. “The iron grass does not like your story or your copper skin. They are quite envious of your warm colors.” Neither could speak the other being’s language but the Thin Man continued to offer a beautiful story.

After a long time the starving boy left the hilltop to start his story and traded his copper skin for an apple he would never eat. After all, time had died long ago.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Short: Law of the Sunleaf

The captain of his ship sat in his cabin looking out towards the door. The ship had been sinking for hours and the culprits had taken the rowboats out towards land before anyone had known their doom. It was a different sort of sea sickness that stuck in the captain’s chest as he drank the other half of his bottle of wine, tipping it up and savoring the breath of the empty wine bottle.

His table was neat and all of his maps were sealed in corked bottles, more valuable than the gold and silver in his wooden box, although he wouldn’t set them free to float away. As long as they were preserved they might have use in the captain’s afterlife. The priest of his town spoke of desert religions where the kings could shape their afterlife to be eternal paradise while soldiers on the battlefield fought for all the ages that followed theirs. So too, did sailors drink.

The death of a sailor is duty to the crew, the goal, and the ship. Their duty to the crew was to bring enough of everything, the goal is the horizon that never arrives, and the ship is their stronghold to keep the world far from your treasures. If the bottles break and the maps begin to fade there is no course for a captain to plan and nothing but the sailor’s trinity forever.

Every sailor knows the sad drunk in the port’s bar. Tattoos that detail a history of duty and they always have a fearsome tale about why they left their life behind and bastardized their death. They just couldn’t continue sailing past the ghosts of enemies, the terrors of the sea, or their own loneliness upon the waves. It doesn’t matter but they drown themselves on land all day.

Coming out of his thoughts, the captain stood on shaky feet, tied the strongest knot he knew and began pouring molten pitch from a cooking pot along the entire rope and even around his wrist where he had anchored the rope. The other end led out the doorway and had already been tied down to the ship’s mast. No man should be captain for eternity and although he wasn’t tired yet, Charles knew that he was no king and no arbiter of justice that could rule his friends forever.

The crew all carried bags in their unburnt hands that held the essentials, just in case the stuff in the cargo wasn’t close enough to shape their afterlife they needed the alcohol to ease the grief.

The captain knew better than to doubt and only carried his knives and club, in case anyone decided to cut at their crewmates and spare themselves a burden on the way to our eternal goal in death, since there were always fights at a pirate’s festival. Tonight was their final celebration!

Sing sailor! Time may pass and ages fall as pirates sail along the horizon, to fight the endless depths and mourn for the chill grasp of night! Sing your shanty, sailors! Honor the duty! None come upon your rafts and no shore shelter’s your soul, so sing loud and chase our shared gaol!

A prison as sure as any made from iron and brick, the afterlife is the prison we decorate and spend eternity pacing, clawing, and weeping within. If you never mourned your former life you died upon the summit of success while facing either a proverbial cliff or more likely a real one. Famous thieves, murdered royalty, and berserkers that tower over the battlefields they own. To be happy in the afterlife is to face into the night and know that every step leads up and away.

The pirate’s dream is that not every step leads up, but that the ship carries you across and out of your nightmares. Beyond the ocean is no harbor, the horizon ends and over the edge we shall fall where no priests may call and no gods may command. The end of dreams and death calls for us and oblivion claims all who die upon the ocean, tidal time guiding them away forever.

Joseph woke from his drunken fever, no longer captain of the Sunleaf’s crew and wielder of law, and saw only thunderous skies and the waves that cut apart the mist and grey clouds. The ship was falling in the air and landed down the slopes of a blue mountain that shed ripples of water as the Sunleaf carved a path across the wave’s surface. The ship turned itself away from the wave with uncontrollable speed and endless force, shattering the next wave into a salty breeze.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Prompt: Invasion Portal Lame-o’s

Nine years after the invasion began, and three years after the defeat of the demonic leader, the magic that had been stable on Earth began to transform. Now everyone faces the same pain as the ‘Manaless’ who had been discarded in the fight for humanity’s survival. After all, the defective genes should die out.

Manaless are able to use magic for the first time, this change has empowered.

The Manaless become strong and their rejection from society allows them to act with little care for their counterparts. They aim to unite as an eternal nation.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Defining Alexander

“I told you once and I’m telling you now you insufferable, arrogant, ambitious, cockup of a man! I am not anything more than a soldier. All these mystical feats was not ‘me’ and I refuse to be treated as a single man army whenever you’ve managed to blow a third of your own army to pieces.”

The general looked at Alexander who, if all his claims of mediocrity and normalcy were true, should have been executed for repeated military infractions roughly two weeks into his service. As it happens, the man who tried to execute Alexander Rahm Silver spontaneously developed suicidal urges.

Apparently the sergeant had taken a piece of ice from his cup and torn a hole through his head in exactly the same shape as the old word for ‘No’. Alex Silver was promoted and his records sealed. Just another soldier.

“Alex, you have to understand that your existence is tolerated in the army because I asked the powers that be not to take offense at your powers that may or may not be. Now as soon as your better half decides to take her 18 hours of control, you will be of service. The Valley spoke today and they know.”

After a moment of silence the blood in Alex’s face drained away. Gone was the man who was indignant and cocksure in the face of his superior officer. His people had asked him to abuse the fragment of himself that was innocence.

“I know that they’ve seen her in action but I am not whole right now and the recruiter that made me sign my full name can go to hell. I’m not involved in the politics of this army or of the Valley for very good reasons, not least among them that she could win you the war in moments. Not even you want that.”

[mumblingviking-blog]

Time Magic and Tiny Megan

“I really hate messing with time magic. I never remember where I left all the fiddly bits and pockets but I do love making people just go ‘poof’ for a minute.”

“If you did time magic, why isn’t the guy really slow or just frozen in place? or old? Why did he just, you know...”

“Vanish? Well, technically the ‘guy’ isn’t really gone. He’s still right where I left him but no one can touch, see, or hear him. Oddly enough we can still smell where he is and his choice of aftershave. Never could figure that out. Anyway, now that we solved that little catastrophe I’d like to know your name please.”

“Megan Ray and I still don't understand. Why would you freeze a man -”

“What did I just say? He Isn’t frozen or anything, not really. I just made that part of time (and therefore space) stop happening for a minute, which will soon be over. You can’t see it because your brain fills in the gap but get over it tiny.”

“..not tiny.”

“Excuse me? I couldn’t hear you from all the way up here, maybe it’s because the atmosphere is too thin or something snippy like that. I called you tiny Megan because you’re shorter than me and pissing me off. Get. Over. It.”

Megan’s legs faintly glow red and then blue before flashing upwards and knocking the tall. strange, and increasingly rude man backwards into where the short dangerous man had just disappeared, taking with him a patch of the mosaic tile that the old castle floor was paved with.

As Megan looked down, she realized what the tall strange man meant. the pattern of the mosaic was expertly designed and only in one spot was the image of a river interrupted.  It was like the artist had misjudged how big the picture was and cut out the middle to make it fit again.

She would have chalked this anomaly up to poor craftsmanship except for the fact that on the wall there was a mirror that had stopped working.

[mumblingviking-blog]

Non Midnight Write

Rule: I have from midnight my time to one AM to finish this piece of writing.

Rule: Four paragraphs or less. Start a second one after that.

Topic: Speaking with the Owner and breaking a Transport Ring.

Note: I have been taking melatonin so Midnight isn’t the best time to write.

“If it helps, Alex was going to ask politely but you changed that by summoning the Mythics from the Valley and send us back there. I don’t want them here or anywhere really. If I had a good reason and the confidence to destroy all of them, I would. Alex is trying without the majority of our power, I’m helping.”

While in control Lexa could do as she liked no matter what and the agreement would stand firm. She overpowered the Owner’s Judgement and walked close to the wall where the engraved ring was anchored. She conjured a mirror image of the transport ring and branded their left hand. A reminder for Alex.

“You are going to suffer for this, we are hidden on islands with a delicate balance to keep us safe. Your firewood friend may be ignorant but how can you do this to us Alexander?” The Owner retracted his judgement, kneeling on the floor as the backlash of Lexa’s actions drained and broke his authority.

Chard wasn’t able to do much verbally but the thin crystals shook and burned before shattering and releasing a roaring voice. “I know the empire and I know this place. Alexander told me he felt this place soured and breaking. This would not change anything and Lexa agreeds to act.” The fires burned.