Watery and Grave (finale)

(part one)

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 38 minutes)

December 17th

A Very Unlucky Day

Two minions cleared the elk enough for their master to walk through and stand on the ice near the carriage. Their face and body were also obscured by cloak and hood, free of creeping growth but just as tattered as those of their servants. Tavros could see that the person was small, only about half the height of their creations.

“Tavros Celliday?” A woman by her pitch. December pressed her ear against the wooden wall, barely able to hear what was said while her siblings hovered over the giant snowflake they’d found. Their absolute silence was far more important than asking them why it distracted them so. Continue reading

Watery and Grave (part one)

Enchanted to life as little more than festival entertainment, a quartet of ice sculptures find themselves abandoned, quickly becoming acquainted with danger as they flee from steaming food carts, fire-spewing domestic dragons, and the looming threat of a rising sun and a short winter.

As luck would have it, or rather as he forced luck to have it, Tavros Celliday, notary sorcerer and luck tracker, arrives to help them journey to the perpetually frozen north.  When he looks away from their luck, just for a moment, evil swoops in and snatches them away.

Oh and just wait until you find out who the narrator is!  (Yes, it’s me… but who am I!?)

(Estimated reading time: 1 hour, 22 minutes)

(estimated reading time for whole novella: 3 hours)

Watery and Grave

by

Blaine arcade

November 17th

An Overall Unlucky Day

The prevailing sentiment might be that luck doesn’t apply to infants, and that if it does the luck doesn’t take effect until the child is old enough to understand their lot in life. So even if either idea is true, it doesn’t apply here, as the four born that day were born at their full intellectual capacity.

I don’t know about unlucky, but the place they were born was certainly unusual: the fair grounds in the midst of that continent’s biggest annual celebration. It was called the Tiring Week, and it coincided with most large animals settling into their caves and dens for hibernation. On the human side of things they wore themselves out with revelry and craftsmanship, but the best naps they could muster afterward only lasted a day or two.

On day three of the Tiring Week there were many scheduled events including a sledding competition, a magical firework show, and the activity that resulted in the spawning of the four youths that we would call unfortunate if that luck debate was actually settled. Continue reading

Brawny Blue Blerkafeld

The beast Blerkafeld is one of the mightiest dragons, and even more conceited.  After pilfering magics of time and space he has built his own little pocket world, pulling people from all over the Middle Ages to be his loyal worshipers.  The only problem is, one of these groups is secretly a Renaissance fair…

(reading time: 1 hour, 36 minutes)

Brawny Blue Blerkafeld

by

Blaine Arcade

The beast of Kidnapt Valley

Four waterfalls marked the center of the cavern’s many tunnels and chambers. The place was most curious, as the passageways looked naturally formed, the walls porous and uneven, but its layout was certainly the work of intelligence. Each fall was a curtain separating four identical tunnels from each other.

By unknown force, one fall’s flow ceased just as a cluster of four people reached it, letting them view the rising column of the central shaft. They dared not step over the wet line in the dirt; their invitation had warned them not to do so.

Led they were by Peter Iconius, lord of the red heath, equally red of hair and beard. He was a bear of a man, he insisted upon it in fact, wearing a bear tooth necklace whenever his bear tooth crown seemed too formal for the occasion. He’d brought with him the greatest warriors of the village he ruled, masters of sword, bow, and hammer. Continue reading

Snakewaist: The Demon of Gougecoin (Part Two)

(reading time: 1 hour, 32 minutes)

The Knight and the Thief

After leaving Twarly behind their journey took several days. Snakewaist could not travel along interstates because of the danger of being seen, so they opted instead for the most forested route and a few old fairy tunnels that were magical enough to move out of the way of any cables and pipes bumblers tried to install.

There were several family trees on the way, but neither of them particularly felt like making diplomatic stops yet. If they succeeded in stopping the electric demon they would have something to show for their travels, and would be much less embarrassed to ask for lodging. Continue reading

Snakewaist: The Demon of Gougecoin (Part One)

Join the modern fairies Chaxium and Ladyspiller as they use their transforming magic mecha-snake to intervene in the madness of the human world, this time doing battle with digital dragons and a thief stealing electricity to power his crypto-hoard.

This is the second in a series of novellas, so if you’re interested I’d recommend starting with the first.

(reading time: 1 hour, 9 minutes) (reading time for entire novella: 2 hours, 41 minutes)

Snakewaist:

The Demon of Gougecoin

by

Blaine Arcade

Onthinice

Kunk kunk. Nobody answered the door, so to the back of the line with Pollywig. The next fairy up guessed that she just hadn’t been forceful enough. KUNK KUNK! He succeeded in bruising his knuckles, but not in opening it, so Taxido had to cede his place. If the other nine failed again he could have another turn at it. Next was Bellirub, and she had bragged after every attempt that she had a way with stubborn magical things. Her knock was practically melodious: katunk kunk katunkituktuk.

“I think I heard something move behind it,” she insisted, but that was met with good-natured booing and hissing. It was time for the owners to give it another shot; they stepped up together.

“Do it as a couple!” somebody shouted from the back. “It’ll be twice as powerful.” The rest of the party agreed and cheered them on until their hands locked together and the blades of their transparent wings overlapped. They looked at each other encouragingly, both a little surprised and elated to see the happiness sparkling in the other’s eyes. They’d come a long way in a few short months. Continue reading

Twitch Stream Story: Fly into the Future

Prompt: Nobody dared go near the tower, as a fearsome dragon lay at the top. One day a knight rode up. “Do you need help to get down?” “Please.”

His horse could only go so far before the magic took effect. The animal had no idea what was happening, just that its legs were giving out. It collapsed onto its side with a panicked whinny, tossing its rider into the dirt. They should’ve been safely in the shade, but nothing was right in the area around the tower. Continue reading

Chat-your-own-Adventure #34: Sweeping the Dragon’s Lair

Author’s Note: This story was written live on stream with the audience voting to determine the path of the story.  The underlined phrases in the choice of three were the winning pathways.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d ever like to participate in our interactive fiction.

Little House                                 Dust Dragon                                       Dental Coma

The storms had ravaged every crop in that town and the next four and the previous four… Sorry. Hard to even think out here. Don’t know if anybody’ll find this story, but I’m pretty sure at this point that the storm can hold it. That means it’ll get spat out whenever this thing finally winds down. When it does there’ll just be a big pile of dead livestock, pulled-up fences, and a few children just as unlucky as the animals. Continue reading

Twitch Stream Story: Fire Fixed the Sky

Prompt: a story with dragons and a ‘broken sky’.

All the warriors among all the birds had made their attempts already, and all had failed. Evidence of their failure was everywhere. Taravien lumbered forward, her legs splayed out to the side rather than directly under her, pushing aside the feathers like Autumn leaves. As a dragon she had two ways of walking and two ways of flying. Continue reading

Twitch Stream Story: Measure of a Monster

An Incremented Dragon’s Tale Inspired by the Art of SamJFraser

There was no need to count the number of paces. Their path was already trodden, ten thousand times over. Every footprint was visible, as they went deep into the dirt. Mother and daughter moved through easily enough, even in the seventh day of their journey, because their booted feet fit perfectly into the prints of old. Continue reading

Twitch Stream Story: Brutal Sacrifice

Prompt: An old but beautiful woman meets the last dragon in a canyon. The dragon moves in to kill her; what stops him?

The canyon was not difficult to find, given the plethora of dragon bones around its edges. None of them were intact; every last skull and wing had been crushed to chips or powder. The mass grave was left, undisturbed, for decades. Even though every part of a dragon was rich in magic, nobody wanted the bone chips, for they feared their use in enchantments posed a risk of bringing the beasts back. Continue reading