A thin lump protruded from beneath a glued sheet over the book’s inside cover. Feeling his nails around the edges, Cyprus peeled the paper away from the leather.
Tag: story
Day 13: Black Bloom
A solitary auburn-haired figure pored over amber shards split open on a table stacked with maps. With a heavy needle, they chipped at the crinkled legs of spiders and wasps trapped inside. The two seagull feathers sat next to an aged sextant on the maps.
Day 10: Porfirio Record
The Porfirio family record was massive and unevenly bound together, several different papers and diaries all fit into one tome. It gave the impression a hard shake might send everything flying out onto the floor. The cover was decorated with the Porfirio name and golden scrawl, much newer than most of the pages.
Day 9: Running Fire
The runners bolted at the signal. Their feet pounded the rock, all Serafina’s teenagers galloping through the crevasses. Jeanie with the leg she’d broken summers ago lagged, but her torch was the first to find kindling. The long fronds of a fescue patch ignited.
Day 8: Eva’s Temple
Cyprus touched the remnants of the decal. He could make out very faint impressions of white trees, their leafless branches enclosing blue-green globes. Silver-dabbed snakes cradled them, eyes set from trimmed malachite.
Day 6: Rum and Resin
The jeweler’s house, at the bottom of the incline, boiled like a cauldron. Lonan plaited tough thread and rum-mixed resin through Shay’s sweaty hair, patterning crushed cockle shells in braids away from Shay’s hairline. His fingerwork was tight and precise.
Day 5: Schoolhouse
Before Cyprus was born, there had been a proper schoolteacher in Serafina. A woman straight from the capital, or somewhere close enough to count.
The Variable Danger of Wish-Fulfillment Characters
Reading has been long equated with escapism, imagination, and wish-fulfillment. What if this adventure happened to me? What if I was the hero? Roleplaying games function much the same way, and can create some amazing things. But, as writers, we have a certain responsibility to the characters we create.
Vignettes from the Metal Concert
Earlier this week, I dropped everything for a nine-hour bus drive to see Sabaton perform live with Hammerfall, showcasing their new album "The Great War" in commemoration of World War I. Seeing how it's an open secret my Phantasmagorium moonlights as a power metal fan site, I thought I'd share a few stories from the incredibly epic concert.
Quincy
Valley wind strings birthday graves along the roadside, impossible to tell from the litter and waste.