The CHALLENGE chugs on!

[Glass Mouse]

I know that it's a link, but it just leads me to the login page, without an account I can't see your page. So I just didn't know what your story is called. I'm not intimidated by your vowels, I have enough umlauts (and the glorious ß) myself.

ßhowoff

That is a very creepy title.

Why, thank you. I'm hoping I can make the actual story equally creepy, instead of veering back into comedic fantasy. So far, so good.

As for this week, ugh. Insomnia and migraine conspired against me, and I probably have to give up on the official NaNoWriMo goal. That sucks, but it's my own fault for being an idiot around social life planning.

I did get some 7210 words down, though, so it's still in the top three weeks for writing this year.

[Xiander]

I finally fell behind the nano scedule. Drat.

But I did manage 9850 words.

[jseah]

1526 words for Hero's War

Spoiler

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The idea started as a simple suggestion. An offhand comment from Bashal. Pouring glass didn't work because the surface of the pan was never smooth enough. If only they could float molten glass on another liquid. If only.
Landar, of course, had promptly went off and tried to obtain a ten meter wide basin to pour mercury in. Mercury was one of those metal side products that the Ironworkers were building a stockpile of that no one knew what to do with. After a few cases of fatal poisoning, the Lesser Circle had immediately proposed the Federation's first pollution law, forbidding the dumping of toxic materials. Hence an isolated warehouse on concrete foundations was built to contain various heavy metals, caustic chemicals or just drums of poisonous waste.
Everyone else had objected, once she explained what she was going to do. The problem was that the only other known liquids of sufficient density were molten metals. Fuel production wasn't quite up to the level that they could afford to waste it on keeping a molten bath heated just for glass production. It was just glass, meant for small fragile containers, luxury items and laboratory equipment.
No one quite believed Cato when he said that glass could substitute for a lot of things they were using steel and wood for. Or perhaps it was just the way that steel and its various alloys were being regarded as the miracle metal that everyone just defaulted to now.
After much experimentation, at exorbitant cost to their stockpiled magic, it was concluded that the process was far too costly to be feasible. The one prototype sheet of perfectly flat high quality glass would fetch a nice price for the University to recoup losses, ending up as windows in wealthy houses.
Cato had then proposed using gravity again, by dangling a sheet of semi-molten glass from a fixture, the process Bashal had finally reworked into drawing the glass from a bath in a pair of rollers. That worked, if not as well as the float process. So glass production was a go.
The Ironworkers tried to sponsor another related company to use the new rolled glass process, which led to the final insurmountable hurdle.
"And we have no one to spare to lead another company. Especially one that would place yet more demand for fuel, which would require another round of expansion..." the recordkeeper looked up at Cato over her glasses, the irony not lost of any of them, "Cato, are you trying to work the people of this territory into the ground? Why would you invent another process that requires as many hands as the Ironworkers? Do you hate us?!"


Spell cannons weren't actually that large and with some practice drills, a crew could pack one up and leave on rekis within a minute. So they were quite feasible as very long range skirmishers.
"Combined with the fire shells launched from the spell cannons, I hope to trigger a firestorm," Erin said, "based on the fires in Minmay, I believe that with a third of our fireshells, a firestorm can be induced. This is the reason for the deployment of the mines as well as the disruption trigger modification. "
She was met only with silence. The idea of an artificially triggered firestorm was something that most people had heard of from rumours. The idea had been floated a few times in theoretical discussions but no one had really considered using it.
"This is a Special Effects plan, isn't it? I can recognize Denno's daring in this," Immi said, shaking his head.
The Fort commander smiled, "yes, the idea came from him and we refined it over a planning session. The skirmishing forces will attack and provoke the zombies, hopefully causing them to chase into the minefield here. Where the spellcannons set up behind will add their fire to the attack. Given they will have nearly half of our fireshell stockpile, there should be sufficient margin of error to trigger a firestorm without fail.
Your part in this, as knights of Ektal, will be to serve as a backup and reserve. In the case that the zombies look likely to break through, your job will be to escort the spell cannons back to the fort here. "
She waved a hand, "if you have actual objections, then give me reasons. Otherwise, the attack will begin in three days time. "

Vory leapt across the open grass into the next ditch. When the dreaded light beams failed to materialize, he waved his tail over the top.
A second later, he was joined by the other three from his squad. The last of the four crouched behind a nearby outcropping, her body nearly flat to the ground.
"We're just a hundred meters away from the zombies, around the point where they normally charge to attack," he said, meeting each of their eyes, "if they come at us, run for it and don't look back. When the signal goes up, we will shoot and scram. Remember your ems. "
"How many times have we drilled with this? We know to reinforce ourselves. "
"Won't hurt to say it again, Yalea," he flicked his tail at her. Her ear twitches betrayed her nervousness despite the joking tone, barely visible from her slightly forwards position at the rock jutting out of the ground. "Ready shields and guns. "
They hefted the tiny circles of metal on their arms. The shields were not the traditional plate of metal, instead being a light open frame. Six bars of steel set in a diamond shape with crossbars in the middle, the shield was a heavily enchanted object meant to create a plane of magical mist in front of it. While it wouldn't last for more than five minutes without recharge, em-boosted fukas could run a very long way in that time.
The gun of course was the same two-function spell forming wand and projectile shooter that most fukas were assigned. While many knight parties did not accept fukas, Minmay's Guards actively recruited them for their greater mana capacity and generation, then equipped them with the best close range weapons and magic. Em training that fukas were adept with often increased their magical power quickly, ideal for spell forming wands with a little training in normal magical techniques.
He peeked over the edge of the ditch again, the black mass of zombies in the distance was as quiet as the dead. Only a few flaps of cloth scraps caught in the wind could be heard. Even the zombie nightcryers were grounded.
The dreaded black mist, though, was active and hanging over the land like a sickness. Contrary to what he saw in the last probing attacks, the mist was not a diffuse cloud. Thick ropes threaded between the clumps of zombies, pulsing with imagined malice. Clouds of magic moved around along their own paths, not tied down to any particular zombie or group.
Lory took a steadying breath and leveled his spell forming wand at the nearest glitter of crystal, taking the time to aim his gun at it. Glancing around, he saw his three squadmates doing the same, all aiming at different targets. Not that there was any lack of them.
Seconds passed, a minute, then a flare of magic from behind shot into the sky. The signal flare pulsed three times and Lory discharged a jolt of power down into the gun, sending a bullet straight into the crystalline monster with a supersonic crack. The thing shattered satisfyingly.
A blink later, Yalea ducked down behind her rock, yelping as a wave of light smashed into the other side. Hot air, fused dirt and debris washed over the squad.
"Shields! Let's get out! Mind the safe zones in the minefield!" Lory shouted as he flicked the shield on and leapt out of the ditch.
Three lances of light scattered on the blurry air in front of his arm. He held it facing the zombies even as he followed the three running squadmates back towards the mine line.
Behind them, the horde of the dead stirred. Like a lumbering beast waking up, the ground began to rumble as thousands and thousands of feet raised and fell. Black wings flapped strenuously, climbing into the sky. They barely cleared the top of the zombie aura when they came under attack.
Three flights of white wings slashed down to meet them in a massed attack formation. Fire and disruption streamed down to meet light rays and blasts of compressed air heading up. Then the elkas banked and jerked their flight upwards, clusters of fire shells loosed behind them. Flowers of fire blossomed in the sky behind them, adding to the warm heat that Lory could feel on the back of his neck.
Only twenty six fliers came back up, one of the elkas having been focused on by the shooters. Leaving the flaming figure behind, the elkas trailed magical mist to cover their escape. The attack was a major success though, a large number of the nightcryers were crashing back down in flames.

[Lycunadari]

Six nature pics. I also made a drawing with coloured pencils but I'm too tired to scan it.

[Lycunadari]

Status for November 6 to November 12!


Glass Mouse passes with 7210 words of Døde ting på havets bund.

Lycunadari passes with six nature photos and one coloured pencil drawing.

jseah passes with 1526 words of A Hero's War.

Xiander passes with 9850 words of Storm Seeker.


Thus nobody FAILS this round!

Glass Mouse, Lycunadari, jseah and Xiander PASS this round!


Current standing:

Spoiler

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Glass Mouse
Current run: 12
Longest run: 290 weeks
Themes: -

Lycunadari
Current run: 253 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -

jseah
Current Run: 92 weeks
Longest Run: 33 weeks
Themes: -

Xiander
Current run: 71 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -




LeSwordfish
Longest run: 44 weeks

Icewalker
Longest run: 31 weeks

Lovely Vulcan
Longest run: 3

[Xiander]

Bah, only 5791 words for storm seeker this week. I am way behind.

[jseah]

Oops, mustn't forget to post.

1528 words for Hero's War

Spoiler

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The remainder that survived to reach the sky quickly became embroiled in a dogfight against the elkas. One that the experienced elkas were handily winning.
It wasn't as effective as Lory hoped, the flames of the descending bodies flickered out, snuffed by dense clouds of dark magic. Even as the band of four fukas bounced from crater to ditch to rock, the roused zombie army rolled forwards with a bone deep rumble. Even the fire shells launched from the spell cannon line behind the minefield did not achieve much; their mid-air flowers of fire short lived and ineffective. Even as they darted through the safe zones between the mines, scattering beams of light with their shields, the first mines throwing up huge gouts of flame behind them only to be quashed almost immediately.
The insanely flammable contents of the fire shells were simply not catching fire inside the zone of cloying magic.
Lory cursed between his gasps for air. He knew the general plan of the humans, launch enough fire at the zombies and cause a firestorm, hopefully it would destroy the army for them. It clearly wasn't going to work if there was no fire at all.

"It's not working. "
"I can see that," Erin snapped, not bothering to look away from her binoculars. The little device from Minmay was wondrous in its scouting potential but it was still a little expensive to make. Perched on a three storey mobile command tower a ways behind the lines, she could see across the entire valley from where she stood with impressive clarity.
"They've already gone past the first line of mines to no real effect, spell cannons have fired almost ten shells each. I don't think you're going to get a firestorm," Denno said, still infuriatingly calm despite the magnitude of the disaster they were finding themselves in.
Erin huffed and didn't reply. Another flicker of black dots flew up from the spell cannon line just after the mine field, another splash of fire against the shield of magic. There had to be... nearly a hundred thousand moving bodies in that army? She hadn't expected that concentration of zombie magic to so quickly snuff out living fire. It was their most effective weapon after all.
If living fire didn't work, then what would?
She glared down the lenses. Was this all for nothing? Perhaps she should call for a retreat to the back lines and...
No. Wait. There was one other thing to try. One last gamble.
"Bring me the manual trigger. " Having used her command voice, the messenger didn't question Erin and immediately ran down the tower.
Back when designing incendiary mines, the prospect of mines being left in the ground untriggered after a losing battle was raised. Despite the way that the enchanted container could be sensed by nearly anyone, it was deemed too much of a risk. Hence, the mines were all built to detect a weak magical signature of a specific long pattern that would instantly detonate it. A system to develop the remote detonation into something useful for command detonating individual sectors by dialing codes was also proposed at the same time, which was probably the real reason, now that Erin thought about it.
Nevertheless, the trigger could literally detonate the entire minefield in one go. With the spell cannons still firing, she could still create the firestorm.
"Are you crazy?" Denno turned towards her, his face carefully blank. "Your screening forces still haven't exited the minefield. "
"If we wait for them to leave, the zombies will cross nearly half the minefield. At that rate, there won't be enough mines to make a firestorm anymore. " She gripped the railing.
"What of the spell cannons then? If you create a firestorm so close to them, they might not be able to escape. "
She might be able to give the order to withdraw and have it reach them in time to escape the firestorm. But that time for a runner to get to the ends of the lines would mean that many more mines being swallowed by the zombies. With the mines only barely being enough to theoretically create a firestorm, there was practically no room for waiting.
There was a clatter on the wooden steps as the messenger ran back holding a palm sized box.
With only her silence for an answer, without any hesitation, Erin immediately flipped it open and depressed the button with her finger.

Lory and his squad were halfway through the minefield, having left the zombies far behind. Only three hundred meters left to go.
It was right then that a large flare of magic appeared like the rising sun in the distance, like a spell cannon on continuous fire. It pulsed erratically for a few heartbeats then winked out.
Just as he was wondering what that was, his entire world seemed to fill with fire. Explosions erupted on all sides in one massive bang, so loud that the sound felt like he was getting punched all over his body at once. Flaming hot dirt- no even the dirt was on fire!
His eyes squeezed shut reflexively, his ears seemed not to be working and he couldn't even feel his skin. There was no time to contemplate how the mines had detonated, all he could think of was how lucky he was to be standing in the middle of a safe corridor.
Stumbling forwards blindly, Lory veered away from the heat, trying to grope his way out of the inferno he found himself in.

"What under Selna-!"
Taff looked up from loading the spell cannon at Layla's aborted shout. He blinked. Where was she? He blinked again, only to see her rapidly retreating form running towards the back line where the knights waited on their rekis.
Manning the spell cannons was like a dream come true, he was directly contributing to the war now! He could even see some of the fireshells his team had launched using the spell cannon land on the front line. Too bad their effect was muted but at least a few zombies got burnt.
He was barely aware of the abnormal magical flare out of the spell cannon line, right in front of him in fact. Spell cannons to his left and right were still charging up for the next shot and in the midst of their massive magical signatures, it was hard to sense anything. Even the comparatively stronger magical signal was hard to recognize.
Still, something had to have spooked Layla, right?
He was still wondering about it when his back seemed to catch on fire. A split second later, a shockwave swept him off his feet in a roar of sound that cut out in a strange ringing noise. It took a few bewildering seconds of watching the guards and knights panicking around him before Taff realized that he was deaf.
He glanced backwards. As he had thought, the entire minefield had exploded.
Taff stumbled away from his spell cannon, eyes watering at the heat. He was almost blind, couldn't hear and the heat was only increasing. There could be orders or even a retreat but he wouldn't even see it.
He brushed past the stockpile of ammunition and paused. His magic sense was still working.
Making a quick modification, he scrambled backwards to join the mass of fleeing people.

A huge fireball expanded upwards, a tower of flame taller than entire buildings. As the living fire near the middle quickly ran out of air, the flames began to choke. Still, the rapidly rising hot air carried the dust upwards, droplets of living fire catching alight as the uppermost surface rose into fresh air. Magical liquid fire didn't need oxygen, of course, and continued to burn away merrily.
Near the ground level, at the spell cannon line, the wind was beginning to pick up, blowing inwards to fill the rising air. Even as the knights and spell cannon crews backed away instinctively, the order to abandon the spell cannons and retreat only caused further chaos as deafened soldiers sometimes still tried to save their equipment.
Perhaps it was just a misguided sense of loyalty, or perhaps it was an accident in the confusion, but at one point along the concentrated spell cannon line, a stock of fireshells exploded. The wave of fire was still large even if fully half of the shells had been fired and the fire consumed the stock of the spell cannon beside it. Sympathetic detonations continued to ring out as the heat ate through the containers until the next crate was also consumed and exploded as well. Crews that still hadn't retreated were simply consumed as a third of the line vanished one after another before the explosions hit a break caused by one particularly sharp crew who scattered their fireshells and ran.
Their efforts went to waste however, as less than a minute later, a cloud of fire began to form above them. Almost all involved could feel the gathering magic.
A firestorm was truly on its way.

[Lycunadari]

A portrait, some succulents and some people. Status post will follow a bit later.

[Lycunadari]

Status for November 13 to November 19!


Glass Mouse didn't upload/send me anything passes with 1774 words of roleplaying campaign.

Lycunadari passes with a portrait, some succulents and some people drawings.

jseah passes with 1528 words of A Hero's War.

Xiander passes with 5791 words of Storm Seeker.


Thus nobody FAILS this round!

Glass Mouse, Lycunadari, jseah and Xiander PASS this round!


Current standing:

Spoiler

Show

Glass Mouse
Current run: 13
Longest run: 290 weeks
Themes: -

Lycunadari
Current run: 254 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -

jseah
Current Run: 93 weeks
Longest Run: 33 weeks
Themes: -

Xiander
Current run: 72 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -




LeSwordfish
Longest run: 44 weeks

Icewalker
Longest run: 31 weeks

Lovely Vulcan
Longest run: 3

[Glass Mouse]

Ack, I'm too late with the upload! I actually did manage to put down 1774 words last week, for the roleplaying campaign!

[Glass Mouse]

1691 words for the same roleplaying summary.

[Xiander]

I pulled myself together, and added 11719 words to Stormseeker this week. It is still going to be tough to catch up, but I am giving it my best swing.

[Lycunadari]

This week, I have a bunch of squirrel and general nature photos and two portraits.

[Glass Mouse]

Man, that's a good catch! Squirrels are slippery little jerks!

[jseah]

1119 words for a new SF story idea. Whose muse promptly died.

Spoiler

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Time for payback. That bucket of water absolutely had to be deliberate.
"Just you wait," I muttered, writing the finishing touches on the little program. The package folded up on my desk and whisked away to the desk of the terminally technologically challenged. Who even tried to bully others using physical force nowadays? That was so outdated.
The boys sauntered in late, Brian leading the way with his casual sneer and school shirt missing the top button. Once again, I noted how the class reacted to their presence. A good half avoided his gaze or tried to look busy. The other half were obviously thinking he was the coolest person for coming in not obeying the archaic dress code.
I mean sure, no one actually tucks in their shirt nowadays, that would be totally dweeb, but us students were too oppressed by the adults who didn't even understand how the world had made silly little things like school obsolete. And to tell the truth, I did envy him for being daring enough to actually break rules, when I still showed up with the mandatory tie and jacket.
He sat down at his desk and I sneaked a peek at him. He saw the package in his email virtually instantly and pointed it out to his friends in the surrounding desks. They leaned over and shared half-furtive, half-guilty glances.
"Hey, chicken, what are you looking over here for?" said Brian. Oops, he must have seen me looking at him. "You're too young for this," he sneered and the other three snorted at the implied euphemism. Well, it was true, even if rules about the age limit for porn were... less than strictly enforced.
I shook my head and returned my gaze to my desk. Looked good, they took my bait filled with links to adult sites screened through a proxy that bypassed the school firewall. Now to see if the little trojan worked as well as the code writer claimed it could.
And... yes! I was inside his glasses. Reams of diagnostic data opened up and I could see his real location and even track his head from the attitude sensors. Oh, this was going to be so fun. No, I wasn't going to crash his glasses. That would blow my cover and would reveal me far too quickly.
I had far bigger plans than that.
A sense of a job well done and a justified revenge cooking away, I returned to my trawling of the wikis on stem cell research for organ replacement. There was an independent study to do, the one assignment where we actually learnt things. If we wanted to anyway.

The door slid open and Mr Ali came in only slightly late. Rare. And behind him was a girl I hadn't seen before. In fact, I very much doubt my classmates or even schoolmates had seen anyone quite like her.
Long sleeved shirt, long skirt, long face. Almost everything about her was long. No one wears skirts like that anymore, not since the old stuffy days where boys and girls weren't even allowed to kiss at school. I surreptitiously glance at the other girls in class and yes, the average length was perhaps half hers. Some of the Brian-club, as I call them, wore skirts that would flash you if the breeze was too strong. Adults don't like it, but when nude rights marches happen yearly, the hypocrisy gets too much even for school administrators.
And that hair! It was down past her waist, tied with a plain dark ribbon behind her. So traditional, even if she did look good with it.
Most of us decided that she was going to be boring and uninteresting immediately. She was wearing clothing that would be stuffy in our parents' generation for goodness sake! I didn't think much of her skill with cyberspace either. Old-fashioned people never understood cyber stuff.
Alibaba, as Brian nicknamed our teacher, introduced her which no one paid attention to and she took a seat right at the front middle row. That cemented her as someone to ignore. Too far forward to prank and get away with it, and also too far forward to get away with instant messaging in class.
And that was the most exciting thing that happened for the rest of the day. Lessons were just as boring and irrelevant as they ever were, and I simply cross-compared different wikis as Ali droned on about economic theory and the market mechanism. Why did we have to sit through someone talking at us from pieces of dead tree when all that information was online already? But our parents went through this, so we have to as well. Bah.
I noticed that the new girl was actually taking notes instead of being somewhere in her own private universe of facts unlike the rest of us. She actually paid attention to the teacher and wrote down every point diligently. I shook my head sadly, truly a newbie to glasses, if she preferred plain paper to even the weakest scribe program.

Ralph gave the v-sign as he saw me enter our clubroom. Illegal wasn't quite what you would say. Everyone had something illegal on their glasses, from pirated movies or music to cracked programs. Occasionally, I would sometimes see frowned upon... materials floating around the net. It's too big to police after all and humans are flawed.
But our little base was more illegal than most. A little hacking into local digital server and insertion of our own code into the space allowed us to do far more than others. What was the point of our little club if not for this?
"What do you bring me today?" he intoned in a mockery of oriental monks.
I smirk. Was I that obvious? "A little bird on the shoulder of a giant. "
"Ah, I see, that trojan was you? Real world baits are cheating," Quel spoke up without even looking at me. Her fingers flew across the virtual keyboard.
Quel's not her real name of course. It's an ancient name in her ancestral tongue that not even she can pronounce. Everyone just shortens it to Quel or Quet.
Ralph didn't want her in our clubroom of course, but after the first few days, he had to admit that there was no point in keeping her out when her vir-avatar was strutting around listening to everything anyway. That little cyber war had very nearly gotten all three of us caught by the school administrators but Quel had managed to erase our tracks well enough that the investigation went nowhere.

While set just a few steps into the future, I couldn't quite capture the tone of just-a-little-futuristic that Charles Stross managed to so well.

439 words for Hero's War

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"I didn't invent this," Cato clarified, "this was more Bashal's work. While I may have contributed some ideas and small experiments, the process was mostly optimized by him. Consistency might not matter much when it's cheap paper but glass is really sensitive and getting all those machines designed was something he wanted to learn on his own. "
"Spare me the story, Cato, we all know that without you and your experiments, none of this would have happened. I'm dreading the day when that branch in Corbin finally gets their heatless iron ore processing right. Goodness knows they will want even more steel instead. " She squinted at him, not realizing that she was parroting the very same turns of phrases that others had picked up from Cato. "There simply isn't enough people to do all of that. "

<...>

It didn't help him when the air seemed to turn red and start raining fire.

The rains of fire told in the stories from Minmay began almost immediately. Flakes drifted down gently, scattered far and wide by the rising air. Radiant heat bloomed in the cloud. What was still flammable on the ground began to catch alight almost immediately once the solid shards of magical fire snowed down all around them.
The knight cavalry escaped easily. Behind them, nothing but slowly melting wreckage of spell cannons, the occasional flares of escaping magic from storage or released from magical crystals. The zombie army on the other side of the developing catastrophe wasn't visible through the sea of fire, at least the expected light beams had stopped firing. Or perhaps the fire was simply blocking it, they couldn't tell.
The spell cannon operators and Minmay soldiers helping them were closer and not so lucky. Stationed less than a ditch's distance from the minefield, this was considered a safe risk as the edges were clearly flagged. The initial wave of heat and accompanying blast had burnt many, but the little distance they had and the ditch was enough to keep them from the direct effects of the liquid fire. A bare few, the ones who had reacted to the retreat signal in time and who started running immediately were safe. The rest had a variety of injuries ranging from crippling and later fatal burns to just looking like they had spent a day out in the sun.
But without the speed of the rekis and even on foot, most of them didn't escape the firestorm as it swept backwards into the valley. The dense drifts of magical fire stormed down and rolled over them without mercy.

Does it count if it's really more of a snippet than actually adding much?

[Lycunadari]

Status for November 20 to November 26!


Glass Mouse passes with 1691 words of roleplaying campaign.

Lycunadari passes with some squirrel photos, five nature photos and two portraits .

jseah passes with 439 words of A Hero's War and 1119 words of SF story.

Xiander passes with 11719 words of Storm Seeker.


Thus nobody FAILS this round!

Glass Mouse, Lycunadari, jseah and Xiander PASS this round!


Current standing:

Spoiler

Show

Glass Mouse
Current run: 14
Longest run: 290 weeks
Themes: -

Lycunadari
Current run: 255 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -

jseah
Current Run: 94 weeks
Longest Run: 33 weeks
Themes: -

Xiander
Current run: 73 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -




LeSwordfish
Longest run: 44 weeks

Icewalker
Longest run: 31 weeks

Lovely Vulcan
Longest run: 3

------

Man, that's a good catch! Squirrels are slippery little jerks!

Yeah, I was lucky with this one, it was sitting under a bird feeding station and just didn't care about me at all. I saw another one shortly afterwards, but I only have blurry pictures of that one.

[3WhiteFox3]

I'd like to join. My creative writing class ends soon, but I'd like to keep working on my writing.

I can start uploading starting on Sunday right?

[Glass Mouse]

I'd like to join. My creative writing class ends soon, but I'd like to keep working on my writing.

I can start uploading starting on Sunday right?

Yes, exactly. And welcome to the Challenge! What do you write? Most of us here are varying degrees of fantasy nerds, not all that surprisingly

[3WhiteFox3]

Yes, exactly. And welcome to the Challenge! What do you write? Most of us here are varying degrees of fantasy nerds, not all that surprisingly

I'm still trying to find my voice. Right now, I'm working on poetry. I've written a couple of short stories with minor science-fiction/fantasy elements. I'm also thinking about writing a script for a short play. So, I guess I write just about everything right now, I'm still in an experimental phase with my writing.

[Lycunadari]

I'd like to join. My creative writing class ends soon, but I'd like to keep working on my writing.

I can start uploading starting on Sunday right?

Welcome! Just post your stuff here or send me a PM with it and you're in.

[Glass Mouse]

I'm still trying to find my voice. Right now, I'm working on poetry. I've written a couple of short stories with minor science-fiction/fantasy elements. I'm also thinking about writing a script for a short play. So, I guess I write just about everything right now, I'm still in an experimental phase with my writing.

Oh man, those explorative bursts are the best!


As for me this week, I GM'ed a roleplaying session, which I'm gonna count as one. In preparation, I made five letters and one poem for every player, and scribbled all over a bunch of drawings I found online. It doesn't add up in terms of word count, but considering the burning of edges and the intricate coffee smudges and the sealing wax, I'm gonna count each letter as one piece. So... Seven or eight in total? (the raven notes background is photoshopped in this one - I'll photograph the actual coffee'ed one later)

[jseah]

997 words. Weird wish granting book? (vaguely inspired by genies and death note... it's strange what my muse comes up with sometimes)

Spoiler

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I walk down the road from school back to the dormitory, like so many other times before. Despite the clear sky, there's the weight of boredom in my chest. I mean, everyone gets times like that right? When your day to day life just doesn't seem enough.
"Um, can you slow down?" the voice behind my back squeaks timidly. I sigh to myself, she really needs to get over that shyness of hers. Sinna is so cute that the looks she draws just walking down the street almost make me feel jealous. I mean I'm too busy with my studies to worry about boys, we're only high school students and thinking about our future is more important. Yes, not enough to bother me. Of course, the boys are wasting their effort, since she can't even be somewhere without someone she knows.
The tugging on my skirt reminds me, I had forgotten about her request. "Ok, I will," I reply and cut my pace.
The girl with a long untied hair and slightly childish features follows closely behind me. Truth be told, we are probably the two weirdest girls in school. Sinna has been painfully shy from young, always choosing to stay indoors and read. And me... well, our parents knew each other since we were three and she practically taught me to read. I don't share her shyness but still, I supposed being influenced by her, I would prefer to read and study than do most activities. Well, except tennis. Tennis is an exception. I half-wish that I could experience some of those heart-throbbing romances... No, what am I thinking about! In broad daylight too!
I adjust my glasses and flip to the next page of the novel. Besides, who would go out with bookworms like me or her? Well, Sinna probably could get away with it simply by being cute, some people could even find her shyness attractive. I have no redeeming features, being some girl in the Tennis club who isn't even in the competitive team. And with that I've arrived at the entrance to our dormitory. To walk up and down the road every day must be a pretty stressful experience for Sinna, who even had special permission to choose her roommate, me.

Our room is a simple rectangle, just big enough to fit two beds and two work areas in, with an adjoining toilet. The stacks of boxes in one corner reaching from floor to ceiling and blocking the light from the window contain our books. There's no space to put a proper bookshelf and besides, we probably don't need organization since we've memorized exactly where each book is.
"Ha..." Sinna sinks down onto the bed with a long sigh of relief. I have long since given up trying to get her to be more normal in social situations. Encouraging her has no effect and she nearly got a panic attack at the self-help group I tried to introduce her to last year. Rather than trying to change her, I will likely have to stay by her until she marries the first boy who manages to get past her. After that... well, I'll think about it later.
"Alice," she mutters, drawing my attention.
"What is it?"
"Do you think it is ok for me to be like this? I mean, my shyness. "
I look up from the novel. That was rare, for her to bring up something like this. "You don't have to feel down about it. It's just the way you are, I'll always be here if you need me. It's not like I'm about to get a boyfriend or anything. "
"Do you want it? Love, I mean. "
I stare at her. She is being very weird today. "Er... why are you asking this all of a sudden?"
She reaches into her bag and pulls out a book. Leather bound and coloured pitch black, about the size of a sheet of paper. There is no title. The cover alone must have been pretty expensive.
With all the confidence of a duped person, she declares, "This can grant wishes. "

"Stop laughing already!" she pouts and glares at me.
I bite back another chuckle. Her indignant look just makes me want to laugh some more. I breathe out slowly and put on a serious mask, "If it can grant wishes, then I wish for the sun to go backwards. Show me that and I'll believe you. "
She frowns, "But... that would be troublesome for people. What would happen if the world decided to spin the wrong way? "
Huh?! She's actually considering the trouble it would cause? But I wasn't serious. I think for a moment and ask, "Is there some kind of limit to the wishes? Like three wishes from a genie?" Perhaps she is asking a hypothetical question.
Sinna shakes her head and opens the book. There's a few lines written there in her handwriting.
Let's see. Getting a bar of chocolate, getting a copy of the CRC chemistry handbook... I frown and look at the third box from the top. There was that time when she came back with this huge book like a chemistry database. Was that it? Wasn't that sent to her by her uncle? She said as much when it came and I complained about it taking up too much space.
"I didn't believe it at first, but I think the book grants wishes by luck. Any number of them as well. "
How did she find this... no, wait, I can't get drawn in. There was no way a book could grant wishes like that. A simple test that won't trouble anybody and I can show her it doesn't work. I go over to my desk and pull out a pen, "I just have to write it in right?"

On a side note, I find out that I can't write first person very well.

719 words for Hero's War

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"We could try selling the techniques to another region," Willio spoke up, "the capital territory or even Inath might be receptive. Nowhere else would there be sufficient demand for this mass production of glass. "
"I don't think Minmay would be impressed if you tried selling anything to Ektal," Cato added dryly.
"Politics. Always getting in the way of good business," Willio sighed.
"You'll find that's always the case. Sometimes, there are even good reasons. Why don't we get some advice from Minmay? Perhaps this would help him introduce himself to the Greater Council, a shiny bone to throw to them. "

"Landar, I think it is time to stop," Cato sighed as he put down the latest test device.
She just frowned. Not that the magical crystals did anything more than glitter in light and glow in magic.
"Landar. "
The alchemist scowled.
"Landar. "
"Fine. I admit. There is no easy answer. " She ground out between her teeth, "so I'll just to have try everything under the sun. And in combinations too. "
"No Landar, we tried almost everything remotely plausible. Nothing appears to affect magical signatures beyond just blocking them. We have been searching on and off ever since Kupo made her request. " Cato touched her shoulder hesitantly. "We will just have to leave it up to serendipity. Someone, somewhere, will go 'that's funny' and solve the whole magic lens thing for us. "
He paused, then continued when she still looked stubborn. "We have nothing to go on. Nothing at all. Magical signatures don't even seem to work like light. "
"It's just frustrating!" she finally broke down and spat at the failures dotting her bench. "All we have to show for that time is just 'dense concentrations of magic block magical signature'. Which we knew already!"
"For all we know, the magical lens could be a completely physical object. Maybe there's a magically altered physical process. Who knows? If it's not a large class of materials with the effect we want, we'll never find it. "
"Yeah, I've heard you say all that many times now! But this is the first time we have never made even the slightest progress! "
Cato patted her in a hopefully comforting way. She was looking a little unstable, perhaps it was time to force a break to rest. It wouldn't do to get the Mad Alchemist in a mood when she was feeling like this. Who knew what she would blow up this time.
"And besides, I have a worry about this too," he admitted, trying to change the subject. Landar took the bait, realizing what he was doing but she probably didn't want to think about magical lenses anymore.
"Oh?"
He rubbed his chin. "Remember the runes for the summoning circle? I've examined it right and left and upside down and everyone I've talked to has no idea how they work at all. I've tried drawing them, even carving them in stone slabs, never a complete circle of course, but nothing happens. There's no feedback or even an explosion. "
That Cato didn't dare make a complete summoning circle was obvious. Even in discussions, he had kept three runes out of the diagram, ones that only appeared one other time or were unique.
"There's no magical signature, there's no reaction to magic when I tried to get the alchemists to charge them, enchant them or even blast them. According to the queen's notes on the First, the summoning circle merely needs to be completed and it will operate. There are some ritual steps beforehand but how much is just tradition and how much is a real requirement is unclear. For all I know, the last ritual step of placing the final rune by hand is an actual requirement!
This feels less like some unknown mechanism and more like a completely different kind of magic. And that worries me. "
Landar raised an eyebrow. "How does it worry you? I'd think it'll excite you. "
Cato just smiled back grimly, "if this is really a different magic system that operates on completely different rules, then there are two questions. The obvious one is, are there more? The more worrying one is, which one came first?"

[Xiander]

I did 14052 words of Storm Seeker O_o

NanoWrimo makes me do crazy stuff!

[Lycunadari]

I was a bit disappointed that I missed the sun when taking this week's pictures, but I found that the gloomy weather actually fits quite well with the somewhat eerie atmosphere around the docks in winter. Link!

[Lycunadari]

Status for November 27 to December 3!


Glass Mouse passes with eight roleplaying letters.

Lycunadari passes with ten snowy nature photos .

jseah passes with 719 words of A Hero's War and 997 words of wish granting story.

Xiander passes with 14052 words of Storm Seeker.


Thus nobody FAILS this round!

Glass Mouse, Lycunadari, jseah and Xiander PASS this round!


Current standing:

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Glass Mouse
Current run: 15
Longest run: 290 weeks
Themes: -

Lycunadari
Current run: 256 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -

jseah
Current Run: 95 weeks
Longest Run: 33 weeks
Themes: -

Xiander
Current run: 74 weeks
Longest run: -
Themes: -




LeSwordfish
Longest run: 44 weeks

Icewalker
Longest run: 31 weeks

Lovely Vulcan
Longest run: 3

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@Xiander: Congrats on finishing NaNoWriMo! That's really impressive!

@3WhiteFox3: I'll add you to the status post once you start uploading stuff.

[Glass Mouse]

I did 14052 words of Storm Seeker O_o

NanoWrimo makes me do crazy stuff!

Holy four-sided dice, that's a lot of words. I am downright impressed!

Did you finish the actual story, then? Or did the 50k come at a halfway point?

I was a bit disappointed that I missed the sun when taking this week's pictures, but I found that the gloomy weather actually fits quite well with the somewhat eerie atmosphere around the docks in winter. Link!

Oooh, those are quite atmospheric. Actually, uh, my players are going to some creepy, abandoned docks later in the campaign - would you mind if I use those images for atmosphere? (no publishing or anything of the sort, just giving some printouts to friends)

[Xiander]

@Xiander: Congrats on finishing NaNoWriMo! That's really impressive!

Holy four-sided dice, that's a lot of words. I am downright impressed!

Did you finish the actual story, then? Or did the 50k come at a halfway point?

Thank you, I am pretty impressed myself, this year was a tough one, what with work, technical issues, and an unexpected funeral all getting in the way. I am so happy I pulled trhough though.

@Glass Mouse: I did not finish the story. I would say I am around half way through the plot, and I neded on a terrible cliffhanger (Someone got shot, but the audience doesn't yet know if it was the hero or the badguy). I hope I'll be able to finish it later, but for now, I need a bit of a writing break. I''ll probably slow down to the challenge minimum for a few weeks.

[Lycunadari]

Oooh, those are quite atmospheric. Actually, uh, my players are going to some creepy, abandoned docks later in the campaign - would you mind if I use those images for atmosphere? (no publishing or anything of the sort, just giving some printouts to friends)

I'm glad you like them, feel free to use them!

[Xiander]

When is the deadline happening this week? I have written enough, but I would like to try and finish the story I am doing, do I have time to do that?

[jseah]

Oops, mustn't forget.

912 for Hero's War

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They trudged through the charred wasteland, long after the magical event had burnt itself out. The pair of them and a light guard of bowgun infantry gazed out at the blackened melted landscape. It looked worse than the aftermath of a large zombie attack, an impressive if horrifying feat.
"Well, it could be worse, you only lost a hundred of the Minmay Guard alchemists and all but one of the portable spell cannons. "
Erin glared at Denno. "That's three quarters of the spell cannons in total. Two thirds of the alchemists are dead and almost all the scouts and trackers too, whoever's left is too injured to fight. Our army consists of infantry and knight cavalry and that's it. Oh and we're stripped down to only one line of mines. If we're attacked again, we'll either take huge losses or lose the fort entirely!"
Denno had the temerity to shrug. "Still, if you look at the raw numbers, you achieved a pretty ridiculous kill ratio. Four hundred dead holding off... what? A hundred thousand zombies?"
"Apart from the alchemists, those three hundred were the best trained scouts. You can't just give a person a gun and tell them to go off and take a look. "
"The elkas can be scouts for you. They only lost one person. "
Erin sighed, "the elkas don't have the population to lose fighters. There are only thirty capable fighters in their village, losing even one hurts. Minmay's ambassador to the clan, Ka I think? He's tried but if they continue to take losses, the elka clan will just pack up and fly away. Doesn't help that Minmay is becoming friendlier to demihumans. They'll be a help but if I'll need to ask them to send full flights to be safe and doing that "

Spang!
The sound echoed across the factory floor and caused the overseer to hit the big red emergency stop button. With a series of clangs, surprised yells and curses, the rollers and prototype stampers ground to a halt.
"Okay, what broke now?"
Bashal shouted across the workfloor, sending his team scrambling over the machines to check their assigned parts.
"Sir, the ball stamp is broken, it looks like the edge was chipped off. I told you it was too thin already. "
Bashal clicked his tongue in annoyance. The metalsmith was an old style blacksmith from before the new standardized production was introduced. While the old man had his attitude problems, he kept it down and had an eye for finding flaws in metal.
"It's not going to last, sir," the blacksmith complained, "not even tool steel is strong enough to stamp out such a tiny ball. Please give up on steel points, trying to shape steel with steel is not going to work. Aren't the iron ballpoints good enough?"
"The ball deforms in the nib too quickly. You can barely write a few thousand words without the ink dribbling out," Bashal grumbled.
It was really frustrating to see. They had come a long way since the old days of blacksmiths hammering out steel impurities with a hammer. A long way in a very short time. Steam hammers were still in use at the forges of course but here in the manufactories was where progress was being made.
But for all their technology and ingenuity, all of the ironworkers put together still could not create a ballpoint pen like the example Cato had brought from Earth. Never mind the plastic shell, that could be replaced with a nice brass cylinder. It was the nib and the ball that was giving them the trouble. How their factories managed to make something that tiny and that perfect a sphere was a marvel.
Forget grandiose feats of engineering like that Muller was chasing with his suspension bridge. That little pen sitting in a glass case in the university was the true marvel of human engineering. Even the spring, the grip, the little overhanging fastener, everything about the pen spoke of experience in designing pens. The kind of experience gained by building and using countless pens and making a better pen.




What if Morey was dropped into a different setting?

Non-Standard Chants

"So... why is it that we have to recite a chant to cast magic anyway?" Morey asked.
Etani shrugged, "that's the way its always been. Of course, there have been people who tried to cast with shorter chants, but shorter chants require more power. So it's really all skill. "
"No, I mean, this whole thing doesn't make sense. Why would saying these words with magical power create an effect? Why words? Why not... music? A song?" Morey looked around the practice range where the knights were doing their daily magical drills.
He blinked as two women fired their balls of fire at the target. "And those two are using different words! Their whole chant is different!"
"Ah, that. Magical chants are basically personalized. You'll have to remember your own lines for each of your spells. You can change your words if you want but that's like learning the spell all over again. "
Morey blinked. So the words didn't even matter?
With slight hesitation, he gathered magic into his words as he stepped up onto the firing line. "One two three four five!"
A weak fireball shot out. Not really any worse than his first attempt.

722 words for... it was supposed to be a Madoka fanfic but eh... this could be a start to just about anything really.

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"Come on, just one time?" Anko tugged on her sleeve.
"You know that Mama will get angry," Riko replied calmly.
Anko whined and wheedled but it was no use, she couldn't get Riko to buy her a sweet potato. It never was. Riko had never given in to her younger sister's manipulations that worked so well on their parents but she kept trying anyway.
Walking Anko back from her elementary school was just another task in another day. When they got home, her mother would greet her and begin to cook dinner. Just like every other day in her memory. She supposed that considering the chore on the same level as sweeping the floor or mowing the lawn was in some way unusual, but that was just how it was.

Another school day, more homework to be handed in, more learning to be done. At some level, Riko was learning all that she was supposed to, she had never failed a test, but periodically, she had always felt that this was an inefficient way to do things. She could learn just as well at home than in the glass walls of the school but the law was the law.
Perhaps the law ought to be based on what all children had to know by a certain age instead of going to school? Riko pondered the problem through lunch, sitting alone at her desk.
Today was different though. Her quiet musings were interrupted by a bright-eyed girl who approached her before Riko had even managed to touch her rice.
"Namie, w-will you join us for lunch?" the girl stammered a little, glancing back at her friends for support.
Riko considered it for a while. "Why do you ask?" she questioned the girl finally, no one had ever asked her.
"Uh..." she looked a little confused and agitated, "I was just thinking if you would like that. "
Well, she could think of no downside. 'Why not?' was just as good a question as 'Why?'. Where one ate lunch meant nothing.
Riko nodded in agreement and re-packed her lunch to move over.
The three other girls chattered around her after they exchanged greetings. Riko contributed whenever anyone asked a question and asked a few when one of them said something she did not understand. It did not escape her attention that the girl who asked her to eat lunch together kept glancing at her.
It was not until after school that Riko realized that she still did not know any of their names. Oh well, she did learn a bit about pop idol culture from their talk.

"We're home!" Anko shouted and ran into the house.
Riko echoed the ritual greeting and bent down to arrange her sister's shoes. Her mother always did that for her sister, it might make finding shoes a bit easier so Riko thought it might be worth the time.
The sweet smell of sweet potatoes made Anko squeal in joy and attracted Riko into the kitchen. As her mother handed out the hot potatoes, Riko tore out two paper towels to hold them with, handing one to Anko as her sister juggled the potato in her eagerness to tear into the treat.
At least it was sweet, Riko would give it that much, she knew her sister liked sweet things. Alot.
Her mother gestured to her as her sister ran out into the hall to eat, already nibbling cautiously at the steaming potato. Riko merely stopped and looked at her mother questioningly, taking a measured bite.
"How do you find it?" her mother asked, nodding at the potato.
Riko shrugged, "it's sweet. "
Her mother sighed and pulled up a chair next to the small table in the kitchen with a worried look. Riko took the opposite one, this looked like it would take some time.
"I'm worried," her mother began and Riko nodded, she could see that, "about you, I mean. "
Her mother looked at her, straight in the eyes, "You were never like your sister. Very quiet and you only cried rarely when you were younger," her mother seemed to loosen up a little as she talked, "you have seen her room, I'm sure. Even at her age, Anko is already interested in everything. Idols, makeup, even some math. "