magic

Minesweeper Fiction: Session 6

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

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: Rudas the useless satyr, Mr. 32 the moralistic fridge, and Blurry the sketched fat cat. They see the minefield before them, knowing little, and walk forward. Continue reading →

Minesweeper Fiction: Session 5

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

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: Techtet the ballerina, Macawl the parrot-woman, and Vince the alligator wrestler. They see the minefield before them, knowing little, and walk forward. Continue reading →

Minesweeper Fiction: Session 4

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

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: Park Ranger Maddy, Susan the devilist, and big-beard Byron. They see the minefield before them, knowing little, and walk forward. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: Only One Bandage Fits

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Prompt: A Girl and her familiar run a medicine shop in a WWII-like era. She returns after an air raid to find her family and familiar gone. She joins the military seeking vengeance.

Amelia stood in line, a miserable limp thing of defeated bodies and wills, and trudged forward only when someone bumped her back. She’d lost everything. No. She was still on her feet, so there had to be a little hope left. Everything was simply misplaced. She hadn’t even been the one to misplace them. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: An Armadillo on the Stairs

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Prompt: Three allies on a cliché journey to save the world from an evil god and all three can turn into animals.

Gwen, Rupert, and Odric were dispensed from the tiny township they’d always called home in order to be heroes. They weren’t the only ones of course. Opportunities for heroism didn’t come up very often, and when they did every village with a population housing more than one family offered up at least one candidate for the quest. Continue reading →

Chat-your-own-Adventure #5: The Closing of a Magical Mind

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

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.

Trial Begun                          Judgment Rendered                           Found Innocent

Shiran had to wear the special circlet to the academy. It was only the first day of his mark, but if his parents’ tone had been any indication, there would be months more of it in his future. It wasn’t hideous, with its white gold coloration and central yellow diamond, but it was clear to everyone, student and teacher alike, what it meant. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: Understuffed

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Being on call nearly seven days a week was not working out for Miser Hank. Sewhole Hospital was extremely prestigious, and he had hoped for less of a workload upon transferring. His old hospital, Webtoe General, never made it into the medical scrolls. They had him sewing up splitting spell wounds and prescribing vitamins for lizard familiars.

Sewhole dealt only in human patients, magical humans of course, but even without patients literally crawling over his shoes he was still drowning in work. That was why, once he arrived home, a lovely little condensed apartment magically stuffed inside a fur coat pocket in a fashion museum display, all he could do was collapse against the door and groan. Continue reading →

Manifest of the West (Finale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 4 Comments

(reading time: 41 minutes)

The Legend of Broadside Barnaby

Old Thresher the card shark.  Remember him?  I bested his challenge more than a hundred times over and it were way past due for him to give up the location of Broadside Barnaby.  He were the last name left.  With him collected the Manifest would be complete, everyone accounted for in myth, and I could have my pa back.  My family could have the eventual peace that I worked so hard to disrupt. Continue reading →

Manifest of the West (Part Three)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 1 hour, 2 minutes)

That were the story I told my pocket twister.  It weren’t the most heartening, but I think confiding in him gave him some strength.  He shook off most of that water and started looking more like his old self and less like a cloud constipated with rain.

Now you know whose soul I were collecting all them names for.  I knew Pa weren’t at peace.  He were still kept from Heaven and Hell in the ropes of Knot-eye, and the only way to get him back or get him to my mother were to obey the will of the Laudgod and eventually be rewarded.  I had to be the man he told me to be, to conquer and dominate the West so thoroughly that nothing could stop me.  Continue reading →