Tourney at the Hanging Gardens (finale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Practice

The palm reader couldn’t find his friends. He knew he was their friend because he had read that information right off his own third hand, of the four that he had. How he got four was a mystery. One day the second pair was just there, one scratching his back while the rest stretched into the air with a morning yawn.

There was no one to mentor him in the skill of palm reading; it was just something he learned by immersion, like someone dumped into a foreign land adjusting to the language. Almost everyone had palms, so it seemed strange nobody else responded to that pressure the way he naturally did, by struggling to understand them. Continue reading →

Tourney at the Hanging Gardens (part three)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Multitasking

Babylon’s sky was the only sight humanity would ever see that could truly convince them they had left their world of origin. Even the celestial ocean swimming with stars was still their world, despite being inhospitable. The hanging gardens themselves could be felt and thus understood, but they were just grit forced deep into a wound and healed over. The realm itself was foreign, and they were all immortal because they didn’t belong there.

As such the endless fields of orange and gold clouds, while breathtaking and sometimes even breathkeeping, eventually wore on the soul like the unblinking eyes of a disapproving parent. The only refuge was heading for the core of the gardens where there were walls on all sides and mindless chatter about nothing could bring them back to a sense of normalcy. Except the weather. They couldn’t make soothing small talk about that, as Babylon didn’t have any. Continue reading →

Tourney at the Hanging Gardens (part two)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Respawn Chat Log

There was a place inside the hanging gardens of Babylon where ghosts gathered. It was sealed off from its endless colorful sky, lit only by the pale white energy of a crystal formation at its center, standing more than fifty feet tall. It had tree-like branches, more than thick enough to support the weight of living creatures, but only the ethereal dead were present.

The ghost of Flippers sat on one such branch, kicking his feet, just waiting. Nothing in the game stayed dead forever. The crystal tomb was much more like a waiting room or a penalty box. Really it was an admirable extra step from the game’s developers. A lot of other multiplayer games just cut to another active player’s camera when the countdown to respawn started. Continue reading →

Tourney at the Hanging Gardens (part one)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Atlantis wasn’t the only advanced civilization to suffer a sudden and precipitous fall; there was also Ys, Norumbega, Arcadia, and others… at least according to the lore of the hit video game Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Jenny Handerly (who goes by Handzy online) is also seeking her own path to paradise, through the game.  If her ragtag team of friends can win the next Hanging Gardens tournament she’ll be set toward the future of her dreams, but there are plenty of obstacles in the way, in the gardens and well beyond them in the ruthless, youth-obsessed, and often bigoted world of E-sports.

Tourney at the Hanging Gardens

by

Blaine Arcade

Tutorial

The party had journeyed deep into the caverns of the hanging gardens of Babylon. It was not a place that knew true darkness, so no matter how far down they went they would always be able to see their way. Still, it was as dim and cool as it ever got in their paradise, and it had them all on edge.

They hadn’t constructed the gardens, and they didn’t know any of those who had, so all of the small questions about its functioning were allowed to fester and grow into giant frightening shadows in the back of their minds. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Possum King’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

M-A-C (5): ‘Possum King’

Category: varmint

Collection Date: (REDACTED), 1993

Collection location: (REDACTED), Virginia

Collection Report: A teenage prank instigated the incident, in which the MAC was stolen from a large barn deep in the woods out past (REDACTED).

The item is a desiccated ‘opossum king’ like the myths of the ‘rat king’, where many animals in a tight space wind up starving to death with knotted tails glued together by excrement. In this case nine opossums are joined, but arranged somewhat artfully as a stiff wreath. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Seat D6’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (4): ‘Seat D6’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: (REDACTED), 1978

Collection location: (REDACTED), California

Collection Report: The initial incident occurred during a midnight showing of (REDACTED), when a young woman saw a different film than the one she purchased a ticket for.

This film starred one Harthrup Templeton, a person who does not exist in any publicly available records. Her confusion did not interrupt the showing, as the false movie she witnessed had an identical runtime to the one seen by those around her. It also had matching emotional beats, causing her to laugh at the same time as the other patrons; the same goes for gasping in awe. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Rebirth Dunker’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

M-A-C (3): ‘Rebirth Dunker’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: March 13th, 1982

Collection location: (REDACTED), Iowa

Collection Report: Luckily the MAC was discovered just before what would have been a disastrous installation at a county fair. It is a combination item: wooden dunk tank, collapsing seat, target on metal lever, and a weighted ball. All sections must be present and used in conjunction for the anomalous effect.

During a ‘test dunk’, the nephew of (REDACTED) threw the ball and submerged his uncle completely in normal water taken from their well. When the 56 year old man emerged he displayed several unusual symptoms:

total amnesia including loss of language (thought full capacity returned by the next day), infantile crying, bloating, softening of the skin, general and extreme weakness, and recession of the teeth into the gums. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Fishy Boot’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

M-A-C (2): ‘fishy boot’

Category: doohickey

Collection Date: November 27th, 2000

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Mississippi

Collection Report: Initial instances of the MAC are likely not recorded. MAC is a left gray snakeskin laced boot with bluish trim that has a habit of being fished out of bodies of water by anglers.

When thrown back the boot seems capable of transporting to completely separate and disconnected bodies of water, but remains in the state of Mississippi. One angler reported catching the boot three times in a row even after moving significantly upstream. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Brainy Baseball’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

M-A-C (1): ‘brainy baseball’

Category: doohickey

Collection Date: August 3rd, 1975

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Arizona

Collection Report: A children’s baseball game was interrupted by the strange behavior of the ball used. Whenever thrown it veered unnaturally out of the way of the bat and into the catcher’s mitt.

The crowd gathered around it, which quickly devolved into destructive behavior. A volunteered handyman’s saw was used to cut the ball in half, resulting in a small puddle of amber leather-scented fluid.

The baseball’s interior was brain matter molded, or grown, into a spherical shape. After the splitting no other signs of life or intelligence were observed. One of our collectors was in attendance and, having worked as a high school science teacher, offered to take it in ‘for testing’. The game resumed with a spare ball. Continue reading →

Blaine’s Novella Series Blurbs

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Here are my series of novellas and novelettes, worlds I like so much that I can’t stop returning to them.  I never quite know when a new entry will pop up, or where, or how long it will be, but if it’s canon with something else and shorter than a book it goes here!

The Justice Backers Series

Justice Backers, Justice Backers: Secret Shuffle, Justice Backers: The Lichen Calls, and Justice Backers: Sellout Fortress

It’s the mid 2010’s, justice systems grow ever more rigid as crime takes to the internet.  With a little help from a crowdfunding website, a newly forged team of superheroes is looking to fill in the gaps, and provide their backers with some cool merch along the way!

Get all the updates straight from each hero as they take on vicious trolls, a trading card blackmail ring, and an ancient fungal entity with its own world wide web in this series of novellas/novelettes. Continue reading →