Author: Blaine Arcade

Captain Rob Sinks: Finale

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 2 hours, 6 minutes)

Balanced Aych

blogpictures

The Aych Fauce and Sea Fauce would’ve been considered deities themselves if Porce didn’t already have such stiff competition amongst its religions. For all recorded time they had poured, their flow never weakening. Third Sink would’ve long overflowed if the Snyre drain wasn’t open.

Their waters held their temperature long after leaving their home. Waters of the Aych stayed just shy of a boil, making them incredibly useful for heating ships and homes in winter times. Waters of the Sea were just shy of ice, useful for preserving food and bathing under the harshest light of the florent. Harvesting it was simple enough, as all a ship or sinkside settlement had to do was lower a bucket into the edges of the Fauce’s influence, where its intensity was only a short distance from tepid safety. Continue reading →

Minesweeper Fiction: Session 21

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Author’s Note: This was written live on stream, with the tone being determined by the numbers under minesweeper tiles.  The audience could bid tokens earned in stream to reveal random tiles.  A mine hit results in the death of all characters, unless they are temporarily saved by a lump sum of tokens.  If characters make it to the end of the stream, they survive to be seen another day.  Join us at twitch.tv/blainearcade if you wish to participate.

1-peace    2-alert    3-escalation    4-action    5-tragedy    6-world-changing

The pips have rolled again. The Minefield now connects the Trap to a new world. Three enter, seeing only a shredded sky in the distance: Ayako the tiny samurai, the Caffeinator: a coffee-fueled automaton, and Rocky Rhoda the melting ice cream woman. Continue reading →

Regular Romp #19: The Wall Thief

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Regular Romp is an interactive fiction activity over on our Twitch stream where I ask a regular a series of questions before turning their answers and a corruption of their username into a short story.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d like to participate.

starring

Lothian_Waltheof_II

Many empires had risen and fallen throughout history, leaving behind helpful case studies for the newly-crowned Goss Panavah. He had designs on being one of those emperors that never fell except for the moment his heart stopped beating. When that happened he would be in his luxurious four poster bed surrounded by wives, lovers, children all as legitimate as his reign, and his loyal subjects of a nation that used to be several. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Sinks: Part Eight

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 28 minutes)

Cloistered Cloader

blogpictures

Seven days passed from Rob’s bargain with Fixadilaran Bocculum. He continued his lessons with Ciamuse, but each time his mind drifted further from her lectures. He saw himself crossing the city, the river, and the bone powder dunes to arrive at the doorstep of Cloader of theft.

His plans had always had confidants. He could whisper to Teal. Discuss strategy with his grandfather and Oddball. Order Roary to guard the plans. Count on Alast to overhear. Execute with Dawn at his side, flattering him with exact mimicry of his bonepicking maneuvers. Now his schemes were all alone and lorded over by the soulless gel of a prosite. The plans were on the tip of the pirate’s tongue, and they scalded it with nowhere to go. He wanted nothing more than to speak with Vyra; she would appreciate it. Alas, Clix did not allow them to be alone together. The tilefolk was back to smiles and manners, but any time Rob approached her he found a hairy hand on his arm, pulling him away to a chore or conversation. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Sinks: Part Seven

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 26 minutes)

Tales of the Living Sixteen: Ciamuse
blogpictures

The first thing she had to get used to was privacy stalls. Her tragedy had taken her behind First Stone Door and atop First Toil, to the expanse beyond First Seat and under First Tank. She was in the shadow of Lunginvess and the toil’s lever. The folk in the town there valued their privacy above all else and looked to the stall around them in their architecture.

Every chamber pot and relief hole, no matter how remote, had its own privacy stall. Every bed was surrounded by one as well, whether its walls were wood, stone, topa, or cloth. When Wympona Dotsettr found lodging and employment there she was given a room to share with six other women, most of them barely more than girls. She was twelve rests herself (Blaine’s Note: thirty-three), but was just as shy and uneducated as the rest of them. Continue reading →

Regular Romp #18: Mooncloud Second Best

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Regular Romp is an interactive fiction activity over on our Twitch stream where I ask a regular a series of questions before turning their answers and a corruption of their username into a short story.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d like to participate.

starring

Mooncloud5733

It was vital that his crew see him as immovable. He had to be the only fixed point in the entire universe, especially given that they’d lost their band of home planets just one year prior. This was the final battle, the end of season eight, with every last ship in their fleet there before the nebula to take on the Mortaxa scourge. Continue reading →

Chat Lib #12: Carol Zoops them All

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Chat Libs is a ‘Mad Libs’ based activity over on our Twitch live stream.  The audience suggests a scenario, I write a story template with missing words, and they fill in the holes.  Hilarity ensues.  If you wish to participate you can join us at twitch.tv/blainearcade

Scenario: A hula hooping contest with irregular-sized hoops

“You think you’re so bouncy? Watch this!” the man challenged his coworker. He lifted his college ring, topped with an expertly-cut piece of chewing gum, and spun it on the end of his finger. “I can do this for three millennia.” To prove his point he stood up from his cubicle, completely ignoring the ringing for his conference call with the head trophy wife, and started walking away. The ring never wobbled. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Sinks: Part Six

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 9 minutes)

The Swap

blogpictures

Red raw hands, some with spots of black frostbite, rose toward the sky in exultation. The starved men and women of the Greedy Old Mop flooded out of the smelly yellow caverns of the Winchar Straits and into the melt crater Ice Master Shuckr had predicted.

They spread out under the florent and frolicked like rabards in heat, jumping about and slipping onto their tailbones. The crater was massive, nearly a valley unto itself, and had a very round shape. Metallic trees and shrubs dotted the sides, a few even bearing rainfairies. Walls of ice, only occasionally stained with rings of the yellow flammable compounds, curved and rose on all sides. At its center there was a blue lake: a pocket of isolated sea that likely connected to the rest of the Snyre by a few narrow tunnels. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Sinks: Part Five

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 18 minutes)

Graves of the First

 blogpictures

Dinner in Infinicilia occurred at the same time each night, just before Fwa Nippr cloaked herself in a thick black robe to dim the light. The other eight members of the living sixteen arrived right on time to help prepare the meal. Rob was introduced to them all, but they didn’t add much to his evaluations. Argnaught was extraordinary. Vyra was aggressive and unpredictable. Clix fancied himself in charge. Fwa was the florent. Ciamuse was a beloved nutter. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Sinks: Part Four

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 30 minutes)

The Living Sixteen
blogpictures

The marsh of gore beneath the Fith did not go on forever. The Fith only showed in patches in the Pipes, the rest of the ceiling composed of bedrock or rounded rusted metal. After two drops of walking Vyra leapt up onto a stone plateau with bonepicking. Rob followed.

“Private privies!” he exclaimed at the sight of it: a city constructed like no other he had ever seen. The buildings moved, the layered circles of their construction shifting back and forth like seaweed in a gentle current. Many had walls of perfect crystal clear as glass that sang along with the motion. The towers were taller than he could see and occasionally coupled with each other. Yet despite the constant activity of the stone, the place was abandoned. Continue reading →