Chapter 1

Victa followed the edge of a dry riverbed watching several long smooth creatures run in panic the other way. Fire fell from the airships above. She could see close to a dozen in the early morning sun. No sign of the undead yet, but if fire was falling, it was probably aimed at something. 

The dry riverbed descended into an actual river and from the overlooking crest of that bend Victa could finally see them. At this distance they looked almost like a human army. Ghostly forms floated above the mass of mostly humanoid forms. She could pick out other things among them. Mounds of flesh and bone that had come together from bodies too damaged to move on their own.

Forms that seemed to defy logic, moving in unnatural patternless lurches. Fire landed among them and they seemed not to care, burning bodies curled up and morphed into new shapes that launched themselves up at the airships in unliving fireballs. From other groups a grey mist rose into the air, swarms of what used to be small creatures, insects, rats, bats, and flying pieces of larger creatures, rising through the air towards the above ships.

None grew close to Victa yet, and they were moving toward the city, so perhaps they would just pass her by. There was something mesmerizing about watching the way they moved, the way they reacted to their surroundings while unseeing eyes had nothing to do with perception

The dark cloud rising from the mob was growing thick and forming into tendrils that reached for the above airships. One of the airships began to drop, then another. Flashes of light from above meant a light mage or two, probably visiting from Heaven's Reach. Another airship began to involuntarily descend, the balloon holding it up visibly starting to warp as air escaped it.

One airship had turned directly above her, seeking to escape the dark cloud. For a moment Victa wondered how they had spotted her, and then realized that they were probably just trying to get to the other side of the river in hopes that the undead would have trouble crossing it. Victa felt this was more desperation than tactics, but in either case, she'd been spotted.

The airship crunched against some trees before lodging itself in the dry ravine leading into the river. Several of the crew waved to Victa and she waved back, something that undead wouldn't do, hopefully.

They wore no uniforms, though some had armor and looked like experienced fighters. One older man, balding and with dark narrow eyes presented himself. He wore simple grey robes that hugged tight to his body, but also gave him lots of extra padding, exaggerating his form.

"You look lost. Grab a pack and get it loaded so we can get back to the city."

"It's not my city," said Victa. "And you'll have a better chance avoiding the undead if you move away from it. What's your name?"

"I'm captain Shaz from Heaven's Reach. Everyone with combat experience in the city was forcibly enlisted. Grab a pack and get marching. You a fighter, lady?"

"I was outside the city, and I'm more of a scavenger than a lady. I can fight, but only if you want them to be on fire more than you want to not be on fire."

Shaz laughed and picked up a pack that one of the air crew handed him. "Novice pyromancer then? What's your name?"

"Victa, and no, but might as well be. I'm on my own, but I'll stick with you until things are safe."

Shaz shrugged and made sure everyone was out of the ship. The undead were focused on reaching the city, but the sounds of screams echoed from over the river. 

"This makes no sense," said Shaz. "There are no leaders, no necromancers. The zombies shouldn't be able to do anything without them, but that mob is adapting with no sign of leadership. Nothing like what I read about in the Death War."

"The undead I run into out in the wilds always left me alone, what happened to them?" asked Victa.

"I sure don't know. It smells political to me. The rulers always send out the soldiers, and think nothing will happen to them. The undead don't care about treaties or who's in charge."

"You can see them on the other side of the river," said Victa. "Have they attacked you without you attacking first?"

Shaz immediately understood what she was getting at. "We were in the ships the whole time, so it's hard to say. Let's keep our distance for now and try to get back to the city."

It took an hour of hiking, and the terrain slowed them down. It would have been easy for Victa to get ahead but she stuck with the group for the moment. By the time they reached the walls it was already clear that the undead were already inside the city. Ramps of wood and stone had been shoved up against the wall, gouged out of the earth, and fortified with the same dark magic that animated the corpses and constructs that now flowed into the city. 

The sound from inside the city was unnaturally quiet. 

"Well that's the end of that," said Shaz. "Let's head south to Heaven's Reach. I can get us in."

"I want to see what's going on inside," said Victa. "Something strange is going on here."

"And just how do you plan on getting in?" Shaz was amused that she'd even try. 

"I have ways. And a hunch. Go ahead and go on south. If I survive, I'll catch up. Unless I decide to go somewhere else."

"Don't throw your life away, we could use you," said Shaz.

"You're ready to condemn a whole city, why does my life matter to you?"

"You're here and alive, not there. And..." His eyes said all that needed to say. 

"You like me? Then come with me. I think you can keep up." Victa started to walk toward the ramp, and left Shaz and the rest of the assorted soldiers and refugees behind. Not entirely to her surprise, he followed after her.

"Did  you tell everyone to wait for us, or to go on without us?" asked Victa.

"I told them to go on without us if we're not back by the time the sun is three hands past noon. What's  your plan?"

"Don't fight them. I want to see if they are hostile when we leave them alone," said Victa. The ramp was still flooded with undead, scuttling up it in all manner of unnatural gaits, many walking on limbs that didn't fit on their original bodies, or with the corpses of animals mixed with humanoids.

Closer and closer, there was no reaction. Shaz stayed several strides behind her, ready to run if something happened, or maybe he would try to rescue her. Lust made men do stupid things. She reached the ramp. She was close enough to touch the undead. Still no reaction. They didn't look at her, but that didn't mean that they didn't see her. She touched one. Nothing. She touched another and it stopped and touched her back. 

The sensation was disgusting, but didn't seem hostile. The smell was unique. It was not the rot of decaying flesh, but something more elemental, something unpleasant, something that made the inside of her nose itch, but it was not the smell of natural corpses.

Among them she saw fresh corpses, men from the downed ships. She touched one and the reaction was still nothing. She joined the flow and walked up the ramp. Soon Shaz was at her side.

"What is going on here? Why aren't they attacking?"

"Because we aren't attacking them, I think," said Victa. "No necromancers controlling them."

"But something is going on here," said Shaz. "Something is making them attack the city."

"Is that what they're really doing? Look..." There were people in the streets, with clusters of undead creatures following them, but not attacking. There were others that had been part of the defenders, and whose bodies were still warm when the necromancy animating the invaders spread to them as well. Some of the undead were already becoming dormant again. Most people were still securely barricaded in their homes. 

A living soldier sees them and comes running, a lanky youth wearing padded armor. "Thank the Eternals, someone living. What is going on here?"

Shaz shook his head. "Not what we thought. This makes me nervous though. I feel like they could turn on us at any moment. I'm heading to Heaven's Reach, you're welcome to come with us. Seen enough yet?"

Victa took a moment to stare at a hulking undead behemoth, melded together from countless smaller creatures. "Alright, let's go," she said. She wasn't one to spend time with the living, but this was worse. Her skin tingled, eager to lash out at the walking corpses surrounding them, but she restrained herself, suspecting it would mean death for them. But if the undead only attacked those who attacked them... why were they here? And what happened to the countless others that roamed the wilds around the world?

As they continued their journey south they met with other refugees heading the same direction. She would leave the north for now. Something big was happening, and the tingling in her skin was eager to be part of it, which worried her far more than the undead.

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The details of the battle were tricky in this one, and I had to simply fall back on my own creative writing skills, which knit all this together in the first place. Once again, this is a result of using a system that is designed to react to players actions rather than narrate a series of events. I'll add a new table for event segments.

There are several choices Victa could have made here. A more cautious player may have tried to get out of the area, which Chaotica certainly would have allowed, since generating new maps is easy. Conversation was much easier, since I have heuristics for it and context makes it easy to write. The other chapters are already planned out, except for the last one, I just need to turn them into regular text and fill in the holes. 

I also recently had a game in Start playing Games, if anyone would like to try it for themselves.

Skylands - Why Don't I Have A Title Generator?

Opening Scene - I seriously need a title generator

This was not the first door to a sealed vault that Victa had tried to enter. It wasn't the first to stump her either. But it was the first to ask for a key.

Victa squatted at the immaculate monolith, somehow untouched by the moss that had covered and consumed the surrounding ruins. She didn't read the old script that surrounded it, she was no archaeologist, nor scholar. Just an opportunist trying to make her way in the world. 

An observer could easily have missed her. Her dull gray clothing seemed to blend into everything, forests, cities, and everything in between.

The light of dawn crept over the horizon, illuminating the ruins just southeast of the Sky's Memory. Those towers to north had been rebuilt and reflected the light of a rising sun that had not yet reached Victa. She stood now in the ruins of an ancient fortress that had fallen during the Death War, or perhaps even before. What she did know was that this one was different from the other vaults she'd raided. Three holes, probably for three keys, though the mechanism on the other side didn't feel like anything she had ever cracked before. 

For vault doors, the best solution was usually to solve the key or riddle. If that didn't work, look for an alternate entrance, opened up or weakened by decay. The third option was an assault on the door itself, which often worked if the door wasn't magically shielded like this one was. 

She copied the inscriptions above the three holes. There were people who might know what it said. Then she picked up her light travel pack and moved on, back north toward the rebuilt city. The morning air was still and cold, tainted by the smell of decay. There was light drops from the overcast sky that threatened to turn into snow. Victa moved quietly, not wanting to disturb any of the denizens of the ruins, living or not. 

She passed rows of bunkers that had long since been opened and raided. She saw corpses in some of them and did not stop to check to see if they were truly just corpses. She'd encountered plenty of undead, and most simply left her alone if she left them alone. She'd heard about times when that was not so, when they moved in legions across the land, two eras ago.

Victa passed more rows of bunkers and homes. Some still untouched. She would return with help, especially if she could find someone who could read the text above that door. She knew there was something great inside, not that she would admit that it was more than just a hunch on her part.

She passed more homes and bunkers, mostly overgrown with moss, paused to examine an odd structure that she suddenly realized was a dock of some kind. She shuddered to think of what must have happened to remove a lake from this place. 

Travelling was easier beyond the edge of these ruins, but she had long since learned that it was all ruins, all of it, the whole world, as far as she could tell. It was only a matter of asking how old. There was not a place that had not been built upon by human hands, ground to dust, then build upon again, until some calamity brought it down. No stone so old that it had not seen the touch of minds with plans and ambitions. 

Up ahead the towers of Sky's Memory came closer, with dozens of airships docked and others arriving and departing. The city sprawled below with gate-less walls not designed to be crossed from the ground. There were ways in, of course, but most people left and arrive by airship. Too many other nasty things out here in the wilds. 

Then the sounds hit her. Shouting, voices amplified to announce and direct those below. As she reached the walls the words became clearer: "All with combat skills report to the towers. Everyone else lock or barricade your doors. An undead horde is approaching the city walls." 

Aside from the voice, the air was still. No movement here, outside the walls. Perhaps the absence of the sound of birds and animals should have tipped her off. But now what could she do? Join the guard? She was already outside, and her fighting abilities did not play well with others. She was good at not being seen or noticed, but didn't know if those abilities would apply to beings who didn't use their eyes to see or ears to hear.

An airship passed low overhead, close enough that she could see the odd assortment of recently conscripted soldiers aboard. It followed the walls, staying close, and she decided to follow it, quietly, while looking for a way to enter the city. 

A fire rumbled in the back of her mind, white noise that she found easy to ignore as she had heard it for years now. But she knew it was there, an anger that always burned, that never let others come close for long, an anger that had kept her alone and safe for years, burning away anything that threatened her as friend or foe. A fire that would almost certainly be unleashed before this new sun set.
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There's my first attempt, no edits. Over the weekend I rolled up a new world, story, lore, everything. I took the plot map and expanded the details into an actual plot all the way up to the ninth and final chapter. 

Normally I would just leave things be and let players make choices for their characters as the story progresses, since the Chaotica system is designed as a game more that a story telling engine. In this case I rolled up a couple dozen characters, picked a few that I found interesting, and pushed them through the plot tree. What you'll read here is the result, but the plot is already complete, not that I can't change it. 

The whole process is great for making me aware of the flaws and benefits of my system. On the bright side, I was able to create a whole new fantasy world, lore, history, nations, locations, and lots of creepy crawlies, with the push of a button. Cool beans. 

But writing the first scene was a bit tricky. I could have started there, just placing a character in a random location, and described what they did, that's how I would have started if I were telling the story out loud. But that would be less of a story, and more of a random series of events. I don't have a lot of micro events going on, and with Victa by herself, there's no one to talk to yet to try my conversation chart. 

I should probably make a title generator too, but I don't want it to be all formulaic, where it feels like Harry Potter books. I'll think about it and see what I can come up with.

Comments, plot predictions, and suggestions are welcome. And of course, please contact me in Facebook if you would like to have classes or game sessions with me. Yes, classes using this game, or others, usually for learning English, Spanish, or writing. Either personal or profesional accounts are fine.

A New Direction

 I've decided to start this thing up again and take things in a new direction, hopefully one where I am posting regularly and where I can get feedback from people as we create a story together.

Every since I created Chaotica back in 2008 I've enjoyed the experiences it's brought with creating stories together with people. I dabbled with D&D in recent years, but found that it just didn't deliver the same experience as my own creation. Discovering new worlds together with people, watching them explore, and watching the story unfold has been very satisfying for me and I'd like to bring the experience to more people.

One of the things I've always wanted to is find a group of people who have created characters for a game or story with their own extensive background- friends, rivals, families, hometowns, goals... all the seeds needed for a story. I know these people are out there, and are hungry for their characters to come to life. 

I would love to take three or four of these characters and build a world around them, bringing their stories together and sitting down with them to create a new epic with them, using my Chaotica system to bring it all to life. 

So I've decided to start telling more stories here. Not in Under Falling Skies, or for my novel, which is still on Amazon by the way, with a better title: After Death and Taxes. But here I'm going to start telling new stories built by my Chaotica engine. 

These are not AI stories, I'm writing them after all, but they will be strongly influenced by the rain of random numbers fueling my Chaotica Spreadsheet. Hopefully I'll have something soon. Feedback and requests, comments on my posts, are always welcome and will be taken into account for the story, hopefully stories, I plan to build here.