Coronas Hide

Sayla knew that the idea of noncorporeality, of bits sans grit, bodiless data, was an illusion, the construct of a mind that was itself a construct. The divide between simulation and reality was porously thin. Yet she felt irritated by these crude tactile inputs. The words floated in that other space. The keyboard was a dialing device. Trace the right ley line and an idea would wriggle from its ethereal sea into the world. Sayla smiled at the signs. Printed words were not words. They are hints. Subtle clues for another mind to unravel. Games between constructs. The lowteks would not … Continue Reading

Seeing how Cubicle 7 has so far declined to release their own Quick Start Rules, and seeing how I feel the need to have them, I wrote it up. As a matter of fact, I think I quite like what I made here, because it illuminates certain strategies for playing the game. There’s no way to play the game itself using only what I’ve written. You’ll still need a GM (aka Loremaster) who has the full ruleset. If you have the same profound affection as I do for both Tolkien and RPGs, you will go out and buy a copy of … Continue Reading

Curiously, the instrument’s murderer had transported the wreck from the original crime scene and laid the carcass here like an offering to the passers-by. Trams came and went, the passengers circumnavigating the thing, rapidly finding anything else to look at, each in turn silently rejecting the implied responsibility thrust upon him by the killer.

An unpaved path dribbled down the hill from an unseen height. A squat stone idol stood sentry at the road’s introduction, grinning at an eroded bench of sympathetic make. Nat hovered in this overgrown lobby. He struggled to comprehend its meaning: the idol and the ascent beyond, the bench for waiting. At length he shrugged. Only pointy-hatted morons bothered about such nonsense. Nat wore no such apparel.

Nathan Galdrar, former lab tech, stumbled on the unlikely horse pasture. A speckled Arabian raised its head, half-alert, and then returned to its grassy fare. Nat envied the beast. Fine gradients of potential morality and neurochemical engineering meant nothing to it. There were no horse criminals. No rehabs for recalcitrant equines. An absurd thought stuck in Nat’s head, that the owner of this land could be held accountable for not making the greenery green enough to maximize the wellness of these horses. Back in the world, anyone who looked at Nat would see the angry halo of his guilt. The guilt … Continue Reading

Months of solitary field work culminated for Moreaux with the rejection of his grant proposal. Unsatisfactory scientific rigor, they said. Like a stomach-punch. (He was once literally gut-punched in college to small-brained jeers of “Wolfman!”) Some things are hard to detect. You have to be diligent. You have to keep looking. Moreaux crested the next pliant dune and peered ahead. He could not associate numerical adjustment with guilt or blame. It was them; they knew, and wanted him to fail to keep it quiet. To the West there was a deprecated old highway. And a van. Moreaux knew it was them. The … Continue Reading

“What is it doing?” Sorley asked. His eyes fell in on the fractally regressive gears smoothly rearranging dumb matter into information. The lieutenant peered over his daily rag, squint-eyed with incredulity. “It’s calculating,” he said. And–flick!–up went the paper, hiding his face. Finding an engine like that was rare enough on its own. But here was one in a jail cell, and its keeper so accustomed to his ward that he had become immunized to the wonder of it. “Calculating what?” Sorley ventured. The lieutenant drooped his paper again and regarded Sorley. The lieutenant had not considered this question. He opened his mouth … Continue Reading

Distant bells rang the New Year, and here was a sign, this…lurker, that a month yet spanned the remainder of night. It perched atop the Library of all places, as if peering over the edge of reason. Henna recognized it from nursery rhymes. This was about payment. The old way. Sorley, behind her, shifted his weight, drawing a creak from the belted instrument he wore. The lurker fled.