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
Prompt – A young hero, determined to live a plain simple life, has avoided his destiny so far. Fate is getting annoyed and resorting to ever more subtle ways to trick him into heroism.
It was a part of the world that hadn’t seen rain in over four years; there was no spot better suited to clearing his mind. He lived under a shelf of rock that kept the desert heat at bay. This was his first entire week of life without interruption, which allowed him to plant a seed of hope in that massive shadow. Perhaps he could stay there forever. Continue reading
Prompt: A man wants to save his mother from evil, but must become evil to do so.
It was too dark for a proper celebration, but there was nothing proper about the Black Gala. Nearly every guest had a gloomy look on their face, even as they danced in circles across the marble floor in the grandest room the entire region had to offer. Continue reading
Author’s Note: This story was written live on stream with the audience bidding tokens (earned while watching) to determine the path of the story. The underlined phrases in the choice of three were the winning pathways. (This story used a different format of eliminated choices.) Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d ever like to participate in our interactive fiction.
Alfheim – Elves Svartalfheim – Dwarves Jotunheim – Giants
Vanaheim – Gods Niflheim – Ice Muspelheim – Lava
The deep purple of the rent sky went on forever. In that forever, six realms could be seen, each hanging as fruit from the world tree Yggdrasil. There had been nine before, nine for incalculable time, but they were burnt to ash now, and the others soon to follow. It was Ragnarok, the death of the tree, and the movement of all the beings in all the remaining worlds was just the death rattle of life itself. Continue reading
Prompt: A poet pixie has to use her writing to save the world, but she only speaks in haiku.
It was the darkest place she’d ever been, and it wasn’t until that point that she truly understood what darkness was. Before, up in the forests, it was just like the weather, coming and going and never taking up all the air. There was always something to break it up: fireflies, the moon, the stars, the distant glow of human villages… Continue reading
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
Prompt: A young adventurer discovers a cave they’ve never seen before, but it’s not empty; there’s a bed and a working kitchen. Who lives there and why?
Every single inch of her great-aunt’s backyard had been explored by the time July wound down, all except the one gully protected by the belligerent thorn bush that had somehow sewn its thorns, like caltrops, for a hundred feet around it. Continue reading
Author’s Note: This was written live on stream, with the tone being determined by the numbers under minesweeper tiles. The audience could bid tokens earned in stream to reveal random tiles. A mine hit results in the death of all characters, unless they are temporarily saved by a lump sum of tokens. If characters make it to the end of the stream, they survive to be seen another day. Join us at twitch.tv/blainearcade if you wish to participate.
1-peace 2-alert 3-escalation 4-action 5-tragedy 6-world-changing
A world lies in ruin, its debris drifting on a bottomless sea. Its remaining people, from all places and periods, have one chance of survival. One world will take them, but they must make the journey on their own. Between the two lies the minefield: a vast varied expanse of debris both magical and scientific. Salvation is on the other side.
Three figures emerge from the fog of their sputtering world: Rowlen the interspecies Olympian, Duid, squid and rival of Rowlen, and the Dying Light. They see the minefield before them, knowing little, and walk forward. Continue reading
Prompt: In a world where every mind inhabits two bodies, one during the day and other during the night, we follow a young girl as she tries to deal with the death of her other self.
She couldn’t see; it was too dark. That was never supposed to happen. Things only ever got dim, only ever got orange or purple as the sun set. The sun always went down but she never saw the moment it vanished. That was the moment of transition. That was the time when she put away her day eyes and broke out her night ones, like peoples of old switching spectacles. Continue reading
Author’s Note: This story was written live on stream with the audience bidding tokens (earned while watching) 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.
Yule Hallow’s Eve Equinox
The pumpkin patch, according to the grapevine, was the best place to find one of those odd animals that only come out during a few weeks of the year, when the wind first grows fangs. Orbitia stood in the midst of it, silently, waiting for any sign that one of them was around. Continue reading
Blaine Arcade 