On the Theory of Fire
It was cool near the surface of the caldera. Lava churned sluggishly, piling in cooling shelves at the rim; forming smooth-edged floes that jostled against each other before inevitably sinking beneath, to melt and reform. The temperature was positively...
Field of Elbane
College was going okay for Chad so far. After move-in day he met some of the other freshmen in Wellester dorm, got acquainted with the campus, that kind of thing. Hung around, mostly -- there was nearly a full week between move-in and when classes...
The Forest of the Noonday Sun
West of Asheville the Appalachians rise wild, cutting and jagged amidst luxuriant, thickly wooded forests, and on either side of the highway out that way -- headed to Tennessee up into the dismal stretches of the Virginian panhandle toward the...
Human Experimentation
When Ildathech returned to the village with the corpse of the necromancer in his hands, the villagers looked at him as if he was some figure of legend, some mythical hero. An elderly old man even broke down sobbing, clutching at his robes, as the...
Adolescent Lycanthrope pt. 4
You dwell on the whole Jace situation for the rest of the day. Normally, you don't do the whole dwelling thing, but usually, also, you don't have sudden werewolf threesomes that end with a dramatic revelation of unrequited feelings. That's not exactly...
Legacy of Chaos II: Reckoning
Nick picked the game up a week before heading off to college. Well, "picked up" might not have been correct -- all the worrying about moving out, over to the big city, had him among other things compulsively cleaning and arranging all his stuff. He was...
Free Agent
This Blitz season was shaping up to be a real beast. Wakka's retirement wasn't a surprise: they'd all seen him getting more and more worried about Yuna's upcoming pilgrimage. They'd all known it'd leave the Aurochs in the lurch, but out of respect,...
Mining
Garr thumped the butt of his spear against the ground. "It's an old dormitory." Behind him, Ryu nodded. The two were in the depths of the Dauna mines, with Ryu in his recently reacquired human form and still slightly disoriented. They had been...
Salt
Ryu sat up in bed, and looked around the dark cabin. They were on their way to the seaside town of Lyp, and then from there south to the Empire. But for now, there were several more days of sailing ahead of them. Ryu wasn't sure he could stand it that...
Old Deal, ch 2
A half-hour later, Ryu carefully made his way down the steps. Rei followed not far behind, water still dripping off his body. Afterwards, Rei had taken an actual shower, as had Ryu. Ryu, however, was already dry, a side-effect of having a body not...
Old Deal, ch 1
Ryu was almost used to sleeping alone. He imagined he had some dim memories of sleeping with the rest of his brood, before he was trapped in chrysm. He could remember curling up next to Teepo or Rei when he lived with them. Later, when he was on the...
Control Issues
Sig didn't even know how he got here. No, that was a lie: he knew exactly how it happened. Jak was Krew's new gopher, a pretty little thing with wide eyes, lean muscles, and a swagger three sizes too big to fit his frame. The first time Sig saw him,...