Fantasy
Beginner's Luck: Growth 8
Fluke pulled out one of the Fuscia resonant shards and held it in his hand. This shard immediately vibrated and behaved almost unstable despite having not been mistreated in any way. Putting a small amount of resonance into the shard this one behaved much like the Cobalt shard. The only notable difference was that this shard let out a barely audible musical note, similar to water rubbed on the rim of a wine glass. And again, after a minute, the shard returned itself to the pouch, which prompted Fluke to check his information.
By Everett Scaife11 days ago in Fiction
Beginner's Luck: Growth 6
Mining stone was not fun. Even with his divine blessings and the use of resonance, the stone before him seemed to resist all of his efforts. It didn't help that Mason didn't seem to want to help at all in the process, and only continued to stare at him. Taking a moment to breath and assess his progress Fluke had an epiphany. If wood required a chopping action and wide blade, perhaps stone needed a different type of resonant focus in order to get results. Using insight and his focus, he looked at how the energy seemed to surround the pickaxe head. The energy was rounded and smooth, and when he swung the tool, the energy almost resisted his efforts when it made contact with the stone. He examined the outcropping before him:
By Everett Scaife11 days ago in Fiction
Beginner's Luck: Growth 5
The Librarian walked away without another word to Fluke or Q or the Derboul. The tension driving a wedge between the apprentice and master. Fluke didn't call after him, instead he too walked in the opposite direction. He quickly grabbed his bag of supplies and then gave Q a command to watch over their prisoner. Fuming as he marched away, his mind raced with thoughts, questions, and frustrations.
By Everett Scaife12 days ago in Fiction
Beginner's Luck: Growth 4
Fluke watched the wounded Derboul with rapt curiousity. The beast was terrifying to behold, yet at the same time, it seemed to be a vegetarian. Even when they provided fish it seemed to eat it sparingly. The hulking mass of alien warrior screamed carnivore or predator, and yet here it was hungrily devouring anything plant based. Fluke looked up at his mentor, who was just staring at the outsider with arms crossed. His facial expression was hidden behind his mask, but no facial expression was needed: the intensity and rigid body language may as well have been the Librarian shouting at the top of his lungs.
By Everett Scaife12 days ago in Fiction
Beginner's Luck: Growth 2
On their way to the beach, they stopped and interacted with the non-sentients in the village. After a brief exchange between the Librarian, the four of them happily gathered some tools, a collapsible work bench, and some provisions before hurrying off to the clearing. Fluke looked up into the sky and noticed that despite him already having eaten lunch it wasn't quite mid-day. Even with more than half a day's worth of daylight he had no idea how they would be able to process the wood and finish a house. Perhaps it was another part of the magic of living in a rift world.
By Everett Scaife12 days ago in Fiction
Beginner's Luck: Growth
Both the Librarian and Fluke spent the rest of their lunch break manipulating their resonance. By barrowing Fluke's emblem Insight, the Librarian made steady progress and managed to gain an even envelope around himself. Fluke found that after resting and digesting, there was an interesting change to the attributes listed in his mask. Before exhausting himself his read out had said:
By Everett Scaife12 days ago in Fiction
AI Interrupted
Kristin loves AI. Ever since AI became a thing, she has been on the phone or using it on her laptop, uploading photos and stories to her social media. It’s like it was made for her. It’s brilliant and perfect in her eyes. She can escape the daily grind of high school and other trivial matters thanks to AI. She spends her days creating things like an image of a goat eating at a diner with a monkey as a waiter. She proudly shows it to all her friends. Her friends seem to love the wild ideas she comes up with. They even insert their own ideas at times. Anytime there’s a new assignment due, she is thrilled because it’s an excuse to improve her AI technique.
By Meredith McLarty12 days ago in Fiction
The Warrior Who Forgot Victory. AI-Generated.
The soldier did not know his name. He knew this was not always the case. Somewhere in the architecture of his mind there existed a room where his name had once lived — a room he could locate by feel, the way you know where furniture stands in a dark house — but the room was empty now, swept clean, and had been for longer than he could calculate, because calculating required memory and memory was precisely what he was running out of.
By Cordelia Vance13 days ago in Fiction
