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(reading time: 1 hour, 21 minutes)

Without Love Waxxon

The Captain deliberately chose to not look back much after leaving Platone with the curator screaming upon his back. He wanted to watch his first concert of dancing ekapads with Vyra, so he kept his sockets aimed forward all the way back to Tonefoot and the Chokechain. He could not shut out the ringing tone itself however.

Never a student of music, the pirate still heard several classical pieces in the simplified melody, realizing for the first time how the borrowed backbone fit into each composition. All of the flourish, all the different instruments, were certainly necessary, for the ringing tone was horrifically grating to him. Worse still, he was no longer capable of effectively covering his ears now that there were no fleshy lobes to squish against the side of his head and no cupping palms to create calmer pockets. Continue reading →

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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 →

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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 →