adventure

Captain Rob Deals (Part One)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 10 Comments

Author’s Note: this is the fourth and final volume in a comedic high fantasy series set in the lowest of all settings: a gigantic public restroom.  If you’re interested I recommend starting with those that come first: Captain Rob Fights, Captain Rob Sinks, and Captain Rob Robs.

(reading time: 1 hour, 38 minutes) (reading time for entire novel: 9 hours, 38 minutes)

Captain Rob Deals

By

Blaine Arcade (in a sense)

The Fourth and Final Bathroom Break

And it was the one that broke me. Hello again. My name is Blaine Arcade; it’s a pen name of course, to protect me from people who might be disgusted and disturbed by the things I’ve done in bathrooms around the world. Three prior times I have reported my experiences and the stories that came with, so some of this information will be old to you.

There is a thing called a bathroom break in reality, where all the rules of up and down and wet and dry and alive and inanimate don’t have to apply if someone pushes hard enough. The ones I’ve encountered grew more intense each time, the type of bathroom shifting for what I believe to be my protection. Each time I found tales chronicling a far off world, so far off it didn’t exist yet, and the exploits of a pirate captain named Kilrobin Ordr. Continue reading →

The Challenging Handful (Part One)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 11 Comments

(blurb)

A new kind of warfare dawns in the early years of the twentieth century, planned and perpetrated by a mysterious individual known only as the Challenger.  Rumor has it this challenger could fit in the palm of your hand.

This won’t do for the residents of Minimil, a city in a barn that has a reputation to keep up.  Filled with shoulder angels and devils, fairies, enchanted toys, Lilliputians, and every other kind of small magical creature, they can’t simply stand by and watch as the name of the tiny is smeared.

So they send out an elite team including a gingerbread soldier haunted by battlefield visions of the nutcracker and mouse king, a tiny automaton built by Leonardo da Vinci, and a ghost of a not-really-notable Christmas past to investigate in this novella inspired by Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

(reading time: 52 minutes) (reading time for entire novella: 3 hours, 6 minutes)

handfultitle

The midnight oil had burned, so light poured into his windows and prevented sleep. His peanut brittle curtains were not up to the task of keeping it out, only managing to dye it amber. Still he guessed it was morning, as he heard the bonsai dryads begin to go about their work, pruning and watering the thousand miniature trees that turned Minimil into a land. Continue reading →

Snakewaist: Wild Rideshare (Part Two)

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back to part one

(reading time: 1 hour, 1 minute)

Crash into a Tree

“Yeah can I get two of the…” The woman’s voice stalled as she scanned the menu even though she’d already been in line for ten minutes. Chef Ricky was grinding his teeth and sweating a puddle into his sneakers. He couldn’t, on his life, recall why he thought applying to run the Groadster for a week was a good idea. Every item sold was at a loss, and all the cameras that were supposed to follow him were gone after the first two days. “…churros.”

“Would you like them with vanilla sauce, chocolate, or my special dark cherry syrup?”

“Plain.” He whipped around to take them out of the warmer before she could spot his seething rage. For five years he’d been a god of syrup, formulating ones with less sugar and more flavor. He could turn Amerenas into ambrosia, mangosteens into manna from heaven, and papaya into a god-damned panacea, but she wanted it plain. The same way she kept her graying hair plain. Her expression vacant. Her shriveling toes in sandals. A street eater. Not the kind of customer he ever wanted, but the only ones the world wanted to give him… and he only got them at a loss. Continue reading →

Fortune Underfoot: Part Five

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 24 minutes)

E-denta

It took three separate sessions across two days, but E-denta finally succeeded in painting all of Maggie’s toe nails. The idea came to her when Jones asked for everyone to search the surrounding area for plants. The Riches around them were getting so thick that Maggie couldn’t find enough to eat without their help. Oddly enough, Braxton had the most talent for rooting around the money and bringing up the flattened bodies of mostly dead bushes. The elephant didn’t care for them, so Jones had to chuck the limp plants into her mouth and order the beast to chew. Occasionally she would chew three or four times and spray the pulpy mess back out, staining his shirt a rotten green. Continue reading →

Fortune Underfoot: Part Four

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 4 minutes)

Gronix the Spouse Eater

An angry crowd, that was all talk, gathered outside Bee Tower, keeping their distance from the elephant with its head stuck through the door. They grumbled and whined and milled about, too afraid to organize an actual physical strike against Jones for creating a long burrow of destruction through the city with his robot chum. Continue reading →

Fortune Underfoot: Part Three

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 16 minutes)

Jones and Heart

In an almost frightening way, Jones had lightened up. They had traveled for close to two weeks now with a vague destination in mind, stopping here and there when they crossed lush money-free pastures of tall grass and scrub for Maggie to gorge on. After the initial moment of horror and the attempt at forced separation, things had cooled down between the man and robot. The benefits of the connection almost always washed away Jones’s bouts of feeling manipulated. Continue reading →