Chat-your-own-Adventure #32: The Citronella Moth

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.

Sheet Buffalo                          Eleven Million Dollars                   Citronella Moth

It was her first night back on planet Perfosia since the complete and total subjugation of its nature. She was staying in a resort that had only been open for three weeks. The infrastructure had been there much longer, put in place by robots and remote-controlled construction machines. The finer points, lighting, decoration, atmosphere, could only be achieved by human workers, but they couldn’t move in until the monsters had been forced out. Continue reading

Twitch Stream Story: Mysteries in the Wastebin

Prompt: A detective finds a hidden underground technological race pulling all the strings

It was proving to be a very rough year for detective work, something especially discouraging because of the three rough years that preceded it. Mauritius Cook dealt with the lack of business by picking up a few hobbies. There was no money to facilitate the picking up process, so he chose free things like bird watching and sketching the ocean from the beach. Continue reading

Chat-your-own-Adventure #31: The Worming Llewynn Line

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.

Death Hammer                                   Justice Spear                            Majesty Mace

There were more than five hundred graves to sort through, and any one of them might have been the resting place of the death hammer of the hideous commander Baross Varnivore. He might not have always been an evil man, there were tales that his violent behavior and strange last name didn’t come along until he picked up the habit of eating varnish in his adolescence. The facts were that, when he died, he left a collapsing empire that had dominated two continents. Continue reading

Twitch Stream Story: The Lizargrim

Prompt: There’s a huge lizard-like creature in front of me with scales shining like black diamonds, its glimmering eyes staring fixedly. It seems to say something solemnly, but unfortunately I can’t hear anything.

I’ve always valued pets more than people. We’re living in an age where I don’t even have to explain that anymore. Everybody just knows how awful everybody else is. A violent person is a maniac, a rapist, a murderer, a thief, a gangster, a politician even… A violent animal is just a scared or hungry one. Continue reading

Minesweeper Fiction Second Story: Danderlid

Author’s Note: This story is the culmination of our interactive activities over on our Twitch livestream.  Characters and their fates were partly decided based on audience participation.  Check out the earlier sessions if you wish to learn where these characters came from.

Though the fog was absolutely shredded by forces beyond their understanding, it was still largely impassable. There was however a dark slit that formed recently, right where the fog met the ground of the Trap. The refugees chose the widest part of that slit, and its nearby stable ground, as the location for their laboratory. Continue reading

Regular Romp #14: Wolf, Prophet of Bunny

Regular Romp is an interactive fiction activity over on our Twitch stream where I ask a regular a series of questions before turning their answers and a corruption of their username into a short story.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d like to participate.

starring

tuvanawolfy

All of his dreams had to be stored in the mysterious forest beyond the farmstead. The young man had to keep them there, safe with buried nuts of the innumerable squirrels, because there was absolutely no room in his regular life. The elders and his employers filled it with labor, chores, and social obligations. Why, that day alone he was supposed to work the fields for five hours, help lay some stone on the exterior walls, and then show up for a bonfire dance where his partner was already selected for him. She was cute, but that was beside the point. Continue reading

Twitch Stream Story: Colors under the House

Prompt: An old deaf Italian man spends all his time painting; they are his interpretations of sound.

There was no getting my father to leave. Visitors thought his paintings were his life. He refused to sell any of them or give them as gifts. He just let the house eat them, the same way it ate him alive. I mean the first part quite literally. The house had a terrible pest problem, and not just one species. It was like a diplomatic summit of everything you didn’t want to be diplomatic with. Continue reading

Twitch Stream Story: The Cryptid Fog

Prompt: A man stumbles into swampland; mist surrounds him.

It was four days into what most people would call a camping trip. Bryce only called it that when he was embarrassed, when the stranger at the checkout counter asked him why he was buying both ammunition and sidewalk chalk. He could just answer with ‘camping trip’ and a smile. They would assume he had children looking to draw on boulders. Continue reading

Chat-your-own-Adventure #29: Parts Littering the Sea

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.

Paper                                                          Iron                                                        Wood

The storm made quick work of the cliff side, speeding what should have been more than a hundred years of weathering. The rock fell away, revealing the iron plate beneath. It had no visible hatches or doorways. There were no words or pictograms. It was almost like it was natural, simply a collection of all the most like-minded iron atoms in the world. Continue reading

Regular Romp #13: The Goldin Element

Regular Romp is an interactive fiction activity over on our Twitch stream where I ask a regular a series of questions before turning their answers and a corruption of their username into a short story.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d like to participate.

starring

Goldenfellow

The door was stuck; it seemed even the rust around town didn’t want him loitering. It was best not to let the village or its people see him downtrodden, so Goldin just pushed against the door until it finally gave way and sprayed rust flakes all over the ground. He stepped out with a deep breath and a smile. Goldin Fella was one of those men of indeterminate age who always seemed better defined by his mood than his position in society or daily luck. Continue reading