blaine arcade

Captain Rob Deals (Part Three)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

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(reading time: 1 hour, 5 minutes)

He’s Very Depressed Regarding his Death

“It’s no use; he won’t come out,” Bonswario told Teal. He was told to guard the door, but slumped in his duty thanks to Rob only perceiving his family and friends as threats. They were aboard the Chokechain, and while the new recruits kept the ship sailing most of his old crew were bunched up in the rooms and corridors outside the Captain’s quarters. Teal had walked the path from her ship immediately upon hearing the news that he had lost his flesh in battle and been reborn as gravefolk.

He refused to see her or even speak to her, which was fine by her for the first few drops. Attending to him first was mostly an act of loyalty rather than an affectionate one. There was plenty else on his ship to occupy her time until he got over himself, like the briefing with Pearlen that mostly cleared up the surrounding circumstances. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Deals (Part Two)

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(reading time: 1 hour 16 minutes)

Turning History’s Page

The Tributaroads were the greatest paths in Porce, but there was one feature that forced them to divert; it sent the road Flatsprung snapping toward the stalls, where it then split into Yellow Trail and widened into the Stain Plain. Such a turn ended the road’s ambition of stretching all the way from Black Gap to the Threewall Wild, perhaps even ending folk efforts to cut trails into that indomitable wood altogether.

Turned away it was by thirty-two plots of land arranged in two rows of sixteen. Each piece was stubborn on its own, but together not even an Oath could’ve moved them without a conflict that could’ve punched a massive hole in the World Floor itself. These thirty-two akers, topographical siblings in an accord spanning back to the shattering, were called the Line in the Sand. They took no travelers, no matter the offering, and never strayed from each other. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Robs (Finale)

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(reading time: 1 hour, 27 minutes)

Alast’s Attachment

Always a ravenous learner, Alast didn’t care much for the university town surrounding the Far-Eyed Academy. His knowledge came mostly from experience, and from books scavenged and purchased cheaply alongside other supplies. It was something he had to earn, which in itself taught him to share it with others.

Naturally he assumed a university would function along the same lines. The struggle was over; the knowledge safely stored within. Dissemination of it should have been their greatest joy, yet he’d never seen a series of buildings so tightly locked up. Iron gates stood everywhere, and students couldn’t enter or exit without a faculty escort. They all wore glasses with smoke-colored lenses, and they refused to even speak to him. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Robs (Part Seven)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

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(reading time: 1 hour, 25 minutes)

A Drop from Kilrorke’s Eye

Though the great oceanic basins of the sinks looked perfect from a distance, there were occasionally cracks in their foundation that ran all the way through, producing waterfalls down to the World Floor; it was a fall so long that, in cold weather, the water could freeze into an avalanche before melting once more and splashing against the warmer ground.

The cracks in the tilestone would eventually be sealed by tiny animal colonies with mineralized shells, so the falls were understood to be a temporary bounty to the cities and villages in the shadow of each sink. One such fall had first made land directly through the roof of the mayor’s home in the sizable settlement of Corkinit. It destroyed the wood and glass of his skylight and killed him instantly. The stone foundation of the large house withstood, its basement windows and lower doorways working to channel the water into ten new streams. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Robs (Part Six)

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(reading time: 1 hour)

You can be Courageous and Sweaty

All those bags of tiles should’ve made an awful racket: a sound like an avalanche of polished metal. Sleep would’ve been impossible if they were anywhere other than the sound-absorbing air of the rundown house. Dianarhea had all her remaining staff, as well as every pirate, set to the task of shaking those bags over tins. Captain Rob really was out of touch with the desperation associated with rampant criminality, for he had no idea what they were all doing when he finally awoke from his long rest.

He was in his assigned bedroom, tightly tucked in so he wouldn’t scratch at his wound. His first attempt to move made it throb, the pain bringing back the fullness of his failure. He couldn’t recall if the wild imagination bead had been claimed, but he knew that he failed to claim it. Nearly a rest with nothing at stake, and the spike chose that moment to puncture him. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Robs (Part Five)

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(reading time: 1 hour, 36 minutes)

A drop from Kilrogue’s Mouth

There was a time, when the ages didn’t yet have their names, where the akers were feared far less. The gods hadn’t finished dying yet. There was still enough divine blood in the offspring of the Custodians that they sometimes demonstrated extraordinary powers and earned their own legends. Some of them settled for extraordinary infame, happy to be relegated to the role of trickster in the tales to come.

A few figures across the floor of Porce could tame akers well enough to ride them and to build their homestead upon the back of their steed. One of these akers, without rider and in declining health, lived just on the sink side of Fawsingsing. Before its rider perished the beast was instructed to guard over the treasures gathered during their adventures. It was a hundred rests of adventure, so digging in the soil beneath the aker would produce a treasure with every fourth handful. Continue reading →

Captain Rob Robs (Part Four)

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(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)

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(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)

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(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 →