Sika’s hands ached. Her knees bled. The cold wind scraped against her cheeks and her back throbbed with fierce vigor. Nevertheless, she kept climbing. She was so close, just a few more feet, and she would be at the Monastery’s doors.

She wanted to pause and catch her breath, but she knew the moment she stopped would be the moment her strength failed her. She followed a thundering heartbeat in her mind; keep climbing. Don’t stop. Keep climbing. She didn’t look down, nor up. She had no idea how much further she had to go. She didn’t want to know. Knowing was for those who needed to risk despair for the chance to hope.

Sika was beyond hope, beyond despair. It didn’t matter how far from the Monastery she was. She would keep climbing until she reached it, or she died.

She reached upwards and grabbed at a protruding rock. She felt it shift, and in one horrible moment the mountain-side spun beneath her. She felt herself fall away from the icy cliff to be gripped by the winds. The rock fell from her hands…

Kasta’s life was paper.

As Quill-servant in the Ever Palace, his very life’s blood was the bureaucracy, and his heartbeat were the lists. Lists of words. Lists of numbers. Organized. Categorized. Itemized. His penmanship was prayer and his holy cant was procedure.

The Five Worlds of the Ever Empire were connected by paper. What did a knight’s death or a peasant’s wedding matter to a noble on another world? It might as well not have happened. But if the event were written down in a letter or report, the event becomes real. That was truly what the Hall of Record was to the Empire of Ever and Always; a place where the Five Worlds became real.

Kasta dabbed gently at his forehead with a square of cloth, carefully inspecting it in the candlelight after doing so.

Let me tell you something about having social trauma.

It does cruel things to you. The constant bullying teaches you that you are doing something wrong, while tricking you into thinking that if you behaved “correctly” you’d be accepted, make friends, and not be tormented on a daily basis. It makes you crave validation — or even just confirmation — that you’re doing “human” correctly. (This is also likely exacerbated by autism, if you happen to have it.) Even friendly jokes can be salt in an oft-opened wound.

At the exact same time, it teaches you that social interactions are dangerous. If you make a mistake, you will be hurt, physically or emotionally. You pull away from attention and mistrust your self-confidence. You lean against the wall and wait for others to approach, because even introducing yourself is risky. You get a reputation for being standoffish, elitist, or smug.

I have a lot of Solo RPGs. A lot of them were free, and others I purchased in RPG bundles. Some of them are funny or silly, while others are dark and foreboding. Some ask the player to introspect, others are casual coffee-break games. I’ve played and written about only a small sampling of my collection; it’s extensive.

All the same, I’ve started to notice a pattern, one in which I think there is value in exploring. Both with RPGs in general and as a writer, I would like to talk about planning versus pantsing.

Pantsing is not pulling down someone’s trousers. In writing circles, it is the alternative to the method of writing that involves plot skeletons, character backstories, prepared themes, and charted plot-points, even before the first chapter is written. It’s “by the seat of the pants” writing, where you just write, and leave all that plot nonsense for later.

There was an art to the game of Stratau.

Among the avid players, it was insulting to call it a game. Stratau Gurus said that you could study the art for a lifetime. The game itself was deceptively easy to learn. Pieces moved according to simple rules and tokens were exchanged for clear reasons. As the game progressed, however, the simple rules began to intersect and interact in incredibly intricate ways.

The Gurus could play games that lasted days. Onlookers could see a rout where the devoted saw an even match, and visa versa. A solid strategy required careful and painful judgments about what could be sacrificed and for what gain. One Game were never the same as the next, and each could last weeks or even months with innocuous moves at the beginning of the game deciding events at the end.

There were no Masters of Stratau; the closer one came to truly mastering the game the further true mastery seemed. Winning the game became secondary to far more important metrics. It became a dance, a creation between two minds, a conversation, a song.

It was Kasta Illibran’s favorite game.

What does Deserve mean?

Yes, this is going to be another longwinded diatribe about the specific connotations of a word that everyone already understands, so don’t worry if you’re not interested; just move on to another website, and I’ll see you next time.

After all, I don’t deserve your attention, do I?

Already there are some interesting connotations. That simple phrase, “I don’t deserve this,” holds derogatory weight. Regardless of my intent, I come away looking humble, yes, but also self-depreciating. “I don’t deserve your attention” is another way of saying “I’m not good enough to entice you.” “I’m a bad artist, look away, go find something of greater worth to spend your time on.”

I won’t lie, that’s certainly a connotation I would have used in the past, well after my ’teen emo’ phase.

George Henderson pressed the intercom buzzer, adjusting his scarf with his other hand. A faint mechanical beep pierced the snow filled air. Patiently, George waited for a reply, his breath fogging his thick glasses. Finally, a tinny voice pierced the dim night.

“George, is that you?” came the faint thin voice of his friend, Karl Winthorpe.

“Yes, yes it’s me.” he said, clapping his hands to his arms, warming himself as best he could.

“Excellent!” came the tinny reply. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m afraid the staff has gone home for the evening. I’ve left the door open; just head on into the library, and make yourself at home. I’ll be right there.”

There was a pause, and then a harsh buzzing following a loud click as the gate unlocked itself and swung open. George stepped through the gate and began to walk up towards the massive mansion that dominated the small hill.

The Hall of Record was like a honeycomb.

Kasta never called it a honeycomb, unlike many of his fellow Quill-servants, though he could certainly understand the parallels. The hundreds of ladders were sometimes occupied by four Quill-servants at a time, reaching out to remove or replace thick folders of paper or stacks of scrolls in their proper cubby-holes. The swish and hiss of robes brushing the smooth stone was like the soft hiss of a waterfall, while thin leather sandals eroded winding paths between the stairs and cabinets.

Everything was in the Hall of Record. Letters from centuries ago were hidden somewhere in the stacks, detailing the rise and fall of Houses long since lost. Collated data on harvest yeilds from across the Empire sat in thick drawers. Which holy relics had been passed to whom, during which wars, and their current precise location were collected in massive books that piled higher than than the tallest Knight.

All along the walls and in carefully positioned loci throughout the massive Hall, desks squatted like frogs while Quill-servants wrote reports, filled out forms, and collated information into thick-bound folders. Their lives were paper and ink, placed on their desks with reverence and marked with the same zeal. Letters and scrolls were passed back and forth, along a current that only the Librarian of Record truly understood.

The sound of the mines echoes in my head. After so long, I hear nothing else. The sound of iron cutting into stone fills the air. The Iridium drills engines whirring away like grumbling dragons, chewing up the resilient rock, our secret weapons in the war for our lives.

They shit out gemstone, these dragons. Out their backsides the dull gray lumps of fused rock that is our heat, our energy, our livelihood. If the dragons stop, if we stop, our people die in cold and hunger. The ice-age that blankets the land above will break through out blockade, and a billion soldiers dressed as snowflakes will sweep through the tight passageways and kill us all. Men, women, children…they will spare no one.

We must hold strong. We must break our backs to save our species. Every stabbing pain is a reminder that we are sacrificing our lives for our people. I die so that others may live.

My hands are calloused. My sores weep. My arms hurt and they do not stop hurting. I cannot take a deep breath without coughing. It is a small price to pay for the future of our people. I have no regrets.

CW: Descriptions of Suicide.

“Looks pretty cut and dried, Sir. Wrote the letter, pinned it to his leg, nicked himself as he did, and hung himself.”

Deputy Commissioner Rupert Keily stared up at the grotesque corpse of Bill Chesterfield, CEO of Cesterfield Inc. The slack form twisted gently in the AC from the overhead vents that were busy keeping the victim’s home office cool and breathable in the summer heat. Rupert slowly circumvented the corpse, noting the folds of the wrinkled slacks and rolled up dress shirt sleeves. He carefully lifted the left pant leg with a gloved finger, noting the small black clot of blood right beneath the safety pinned note. Deftly, Rupert unpinned the note, and inspected the sharp point. A small blot of dried blood tarnished the otherwise shiny pin. Rupert pulled the note off, and tossed the pin into a small evidence bag being held by Inspector Dryfuss.

“It does look simple, doesn’t it?” Rupert straightened up, gesturing for another bag. “Get that to the lab, check there aren’t any other fingerprints. Same with this note.”