Book Series

Captain Rob Robs (Part Four)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

back to part one

(reading time: 1 hour, 30 minutes)

That Feeling on Deck

The next couple of days were a flurry of activity the likes of which the rundown house had almost never seen. Folk don’t realize how important all the small sounds of a crowd can be to their sanity. If they are surrounded on all sides they naturally expect to hear tiny coughs, whispered jokes, obnoxious laughs, and shuffling. That was why crowds, even important ones, had never assembled inside the rundown house. It sucked all those small sounds away and made every gathering feel like a mass grave.

The thieves currently occupying it had little time to dwell on this unsettling phenomenon, as they were in and out in large numbers at all times of the day. There were many on Teal’s crew left over from the Greedy Old Mop, and they were delighted to, once the gateway mirror had been moved from the spread to the filling, get their hands dirty once again. It was especially because they could do their filthy part in the plan and be back on the Snyre to wash their hands of it within drips. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Robs (Part Three)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

back to part one

(reading time: 1 hour, 34 minutes)

Low-Fat Cream Filling

The party that hoped to crack the sugar on top with a most daring robbery did not have an easy time in the first step of their plan. It was best for them to move between levels as quietly as possible, but that became difficult when the massive chamber that acted as the main port of travel between the military wafer and the cream filling was in such chaos.

The phenomenon Dianarhea described was worsening; lifelong diplomats, celebrities, and magnates lost wealth from their pockets with every passing drop and were forced to give up their homes and travel down to the artisanal spread. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Robs (Part Two)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

back to part one

(reading time: 1 hour, 8 minutes)

Mitts on the Glass

There were two metal blocks on Second Wall, even though only one was named such. The true Metal Block had a much darker color and was home to the ever-growing sheet of bropato Alast had crawled across in his adolescence. The other was across the three sinks, close to the Bottomless Rot and First Door.

Named the Tunnel of Sweat, it too produced something from within that was found nowhere else in the world. They were like two sides of the same tile, for while Metal Block produced the lush life of Porce’s most ancient plant, the Tunnel of Sweat issued only fire and death. None knew the source of its infinite flame, but a wide downturned spout on its face, called Plowr’s Pyre, irregularly roared to life and spewed burning gusts of wind. The cities atop the Tunnel of Sweat, most notably Corner and its eternal rival Truecorner, were spared the effects of this weather. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Robs (Part One)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 12 Comments

(Author’s Note: This is the third in a four volume high fantasy series set in the lowest of places: a gigantic public restroom.  I highly recommend checking them out in order if you’re interested.  Here is the first, and here the second.)

(reading time: 1 hour, 28 minutes) (reading time for entire novel: 11 hours, 8 minutes)

By

Blaine Arcade (in a manner of speaking)

The Third of Four Bathroom Breaks

The bathroom of a hotel room is a funny thing. It’s much more comfortable than a public one, with attention to decoration and cleanliness. It mimics what I would call a ‘real’ bathroom, which is to say one that is truly private and owned by those most familiar with it. Hotel beds are often rife with suspicions. Did they change the sheets? How many times has this room had a case of bedbugs? Not the bathroom. Even though it is rented it feels much safer. The germs that we are so afraid carry the personality traits as well as the sexual and financial histories of the last occupant don’t have any fibers to hide in thanks to the purity of tile and treated water.

For a brief time I even worked hotel housekeeping at a star-counting resort. I can confirm that the bathroom sees the most attention, for even single loose hairs stand out against its surfaces. In my time I found some strange things and messes in guest bathrooms. Health devices I couldn’t identify. Peanut butter smeared on mirrors. It was long after I was working, while I was merely a guest in a different hotel, that I found the one that stood out the most. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Sinks: Finale

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 2 hours, 6 minutes)

Balanced Aych

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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 →

Captain Rob Sinks: Part Eight

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 28 minutes)

Cloistered Cloader

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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
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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 →

Captain Rob Sinks: Part Six

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 9 minutes)

The Swap

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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

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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
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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 →