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.

-----
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.
-----

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.

Superial Chess

In celebration of my first real novel going live on Amazon (link) I decided it was time for another blog post, since I've pretty much forgotten about this site since the rest of my life happened (I got married, against all odds).

In my novel "The End of Death and Taxes?" there is a brief mention of a board game the aliens play. This is a real game and I plan on marketing it soon as well. Any suggestions are welcome. Here are the rules:

Superial Chess

The classic version of Superial Chess is played on a 6 x 6 checkers board with identical cubes as pieces. Each cube has a black +, X, and O on three of the sides with a white +, X, and O on the opposite sides. The objective is to capture all cubes on the board or immobilize all opposing cubes. Each team starts with six cubes in the pusher aspect (dot) on their team’s color (black or white). Captured pieces are not removed from the board, but instead change to their equivalent aspect of the other team.

Aspects

The cubes have three aspects (pushers [o], hoppers [+] and slashers [X]) and two colors (black or white). The color determines the team and the aspect determines how the piece moves and captures. To change aspect, a piece must be off its home color (white on black squares or black on white squares). A piece that ends its move on its opposite color can also change aspect as part of ending its move. A piece that starts its turn on the opposite color can change its aspect instead of moving, but if it changes its aspect without moving it must wait for another turn to move. A piece that is captured cannot change aspect as part of the move where it is captured.

Pushers

Pushers (dots) move only one square per turn horizontally or vertically. Pushers can push any other piece on the board, including those of their own team. Pushers can move any number of other pieces in a row or column as long as there is an empty space at the far end. They capture by pushing a piece onto their color (black or white). For example, a white pusher will capture a black piece by pushing it onto a white square, and vice versa. Pushing other pieces on your team will not change them to the other team. If an opposing piece is pushed onto its home color (i.e., white pushed onto white or black onto black) it is only moved and not captured.

Hoppers

Hoppers (+) hop. A hopper moves by hopping onto adjacent pieces and forming a chain of jumps. It can only move horizontally or vertically. When it jumps on a piece, it can complete the jump in any horizontal or vertical direction adjacent to the piece that it jumped, except for the side that it came from, assuming that the adjacent square is unoccupied. From that square the hopper can make additional jumps, but cannot double back on its path while on the same turn. Hoppers can move over any piece, their team or of an opponent. A hopper may move two spaces, horizontally or vertically, without hopping over another piece, but if it does so then that is the end of its turn and it cannot do so after starting a move by hopping over a piece. If a jump is made over a piece, successive jumps over other pieces are allowed, but the hopper cannot jump over the same piece twice in one turn and cannot jump over an empty square after jumping over one or more pieces. Hoppers capture pieces they jump over only if that piece is on the hopper’s color. Thus, a hopper on its home color can not capture other pieces, since they will always be on the opposite color.

Slashers

Slashers (X) move much like a king in normal checkers. Like the hopper aspect, they can make multiple jumps over any piece but unlike hoppers, slashers can jump the same piece twice in a single turn. They always captures the opposing pieces they jump over, regardless of color. Unlike the hopper, they cannot change direction as part of their jump. Most notably, slashers can move around the edges of the board, always moving to the square equivalent to the one that they would have landed on had there been a square there. If you could wrap the board around into a cylinder shape (either top to bottom or side to side, depending on which side the slasher is crossing) then slashers would continue to move normally across all borders of the board. Only slashers can do this.

Background

The other colors on the pieces are not important to classic game play, but do serve purposes in other games. In general they represent the six factions as well as numbers when the cubes are used as dice. Yellow = 1, green = 2, blue = 3, purple = 4, red = 5, orange = 6. The colors represent the six Superial factions, and the game in general is meant to symbolize point-combat with the Power, much as chess symbolizes medieval warfare. In the Suprecium there are countless variations of this game, though the rules as presented here represent its core.

Random Moves

One common variant of the game allows each player to have one or more random moves, usually used to get out of draws or difficult situations. In a random move, a player throws three cubes as dice (or one cube three times). The first throw represents the X axis of the board, the second throw represents the Y axis, and the third throw represents the piece that will appear or be changed on the board. If there is no piece on the board at the coordinates indicated by the first two throws, then a new piece is added. If there is a piece there, then it is changed to the aspect indicated by the third throw.

Multiple Players and Larger Boards

Games with more than two players can be played by using colored paper squares to indicated which player owns which pieces. Games with more than two players are played on larger boards of variety of sizes and arrangements. Cubes of the same core color but on different teams may capture each other with slashers and hoppers, as pushers cannot capture pieces of the same core color (black or white).

Chess Variant

Shortly after the Superial arrival on Earth, Ninzeem (Superial Chess) was combined with traditional Earth chess. The chess pieces begin in their standard arrangement, and the cubes are arranged opposite them, filling all eight black or white squares of their starting side.

When the chess pieces capture a cube it is removed from the table. When the cubes capture a chess piece, it is exchanged for one of the opposite color. However, the first chess piece captured by the cubes becomes the king piece for the cubes.

This first king will be placed on the cube that captured it, and combines the abilities of that piece, and the cube. The cube can still change aspect and move normally, with the new piece on top of it. The new cube king can appear either on the square of the captured chess piece, or on the square where the capturing cube ended its turn. Were it not so, the cubes would never be able to capture a first piece, as it would immediately be in check if it is at all defended. Even with this rule, it can be very difficult for the cubes to capture their first piece.

The game is won when the king of either side is check-mated, or if all of the cubes are eliminated without capturing a first piece to become their king.

*       *       *

I've tested the game extensively and would love to hear about your attempts to play it. I hope to soon have a link to where you can buy the pieces.

New Books for the New Year

Having recently posted a few more short stories I felt another post in my blog was in order. I should clarify that two of the 'new' short stories (Fear and Simplicity) were previously included in Greener Pastures. After this post I will include one of my simpler short stories, one that I probably won't publish, or if I do I'll include it with another story.

So now with a total of six stories on Amazon I'm still a little uncertain of what I want to do. I like the method I've been following up till now where I write a chapter in a novel for every short story that I complete. So you can expect many more short stories to be posted before I have a full novel ready. Unless of course I change my plans again or my muse decides to force-march me again.

As far as life in general is going, I'm loving Cuenca and the people here. I've made quite a few friends. Eight-hour classes can be a bit stressful for natural introverts like myself, but I adapt as always. Overall my masters program for human resources seems quite doable.

I'll include the links for new stories below: (highlight them if you can't see them)

Fear

Simplicity

The Powers That Be

Mystic Spring

All stories so far

So with that I'll post a story too short for me to feel right publishing it, but it's still fun and serves as a teaser of sorts to the Under Falling Skies setting. I like it more for fun than for building the bigger picture, so enjoy!

Catfish

"How hard can it really be, Jed? Lot of people fly to the moon these days, much farther too."

Jed was shaking his head as he stepped over impressions of tires and pipes in an unmowed lawn. Those impressions couldn't have been more than a couple of days fresh, he thought. The last time he'd been to the Catfish's house it had been buried in junk. Most of that was gone now.

Catfish was what everyone called him, or what he called himself, no one was sure or really cared where the name came from. There was no doubt why it had stuck. The man was a mongrel, who through some freak of breeding looked like his namesake. No one dared question his ancestry, for the few who had the stomach to contemplate it were usually too far into their bottles to tell the difference between the man and the fish. For years he had ran a highly questionable auto business out of his house, turning his immediate surroundings into a junkyard and oddity store.

Jed was a neighbor and a friend of Catfish, even before he became a valued member of society. They both got a good laugh whenever they thought of it. Sure, Catfish had managed to eke a living off of a few odd jobs, but he didn't ask for much and seemed content with being a bottom feeder of society. Now of course, being a competent mechanic, everyone for miles around was asking him for odd jobs in exchange for dental work (hopeless), novelties (hideous), or housework (horrifying). Or anything else they could convince him to trade for, often enough just for his own amusement.

One such payment greeted Jed as he rounded the corner to Catfish's back yard. A pit bull puppy, taller than Jed's waist and with a face remarkably like its master, bounded alongside a another dog of much more dubious ancestry, which Jed later identified as a particularly hairy pig. As Jed was warding off the disgusting duo his attention caught on the reason for his visit. Almost as big as the house it rested behind was hunk of metal that looked like a grumpy submarine. In the same sense that a car could be said to have an expression, this thing gave Jed a surly glare that seemed frozen between boredom and resentment. Still, it's sleek metal hull had the sheen of a new car, or maybe the sweat of an angry one. There was no doubt that Catfish was the creator - everything he worked on for long took on a magic aura of sorts. At least the polite folks called it magic.

"Now that's something beautiful. I never thought I'd make myself a spaceship," said Catfish in reverent tones.

"Does it work?" asked Jed.

"She flies and swims," said Catfish. "I figured I'd take her to the moon before I sold her."

"Swims?" asked Jed. "You didn't take that thing into the Ferguson's lake, did you?"

Catfish grinned. "In the dead of night. No one saw me but a stoned couple, making out in a canoe. Though everyone here near by knows I'm working on it. It took me a few weeks to make it. You'd have known sooner if you hadn't gone off with that gal to Vegas." When he saw that Jed was not going to defend himself against any implied accusations Catfish continued. "But it's like I was saying, a spaceship is easy nowadays. I got all the instructions online, how to assemble all the parts, and how to get all the parts out of a board."

Jed looked back toward the house to see four construction boards lying on the ground, surrounded by what he assumed were spare parts. There was probably at least one more board inside. Jed only had two boards, but everyone had at least one.

"So you said you wanted to sell it?" asked Jed.

"Or maybe keep it," said Catfish. "I just wanted to see if I could make a working one. So far, it seems alright. No fast drives though, Mr. Newton is my friend. You could take this girl here to anywhere in the world, or probably anywhere in the solar system if you don't mind living in her for a month or so."

"Come on, Catfish," Jed joked, "people these days are in a hurry to go places, see the stars. Little ships like this don't go to Alpha Centauri. Much less Celiat."

"Heh, well no one wants to go the the Suprecium now. No one who wants to live, at least, but there's a whole galaxy out there to explore. I'll let those crazy physics folks from the other side of the sky try making those crazy fast ships. Little gals like this one are safer. They won't send your eyeballs to India every time the computer hiccups."

Jed sighed. It was true, the fast ships were supposedly a lot harder to make, or at least make safely, but none of that was his business. They were all safe enough and it seemed that everybody these days had their own space ship. First the boards, then this, what next?

"So what do you plan to do now?" asked Jed.

"Take it to the moon, of course," said Catfish. "And you're coming with me"

"I'm not that tired of this world," said Jed. "Too easy to fly out and not come back. And besides, what could we do on the moon? Have you contacted the colonies there? Always a good idea these days to let people know you're coming."

Catfish shrugged. "She has more than one kind of communicator. We can let them know once we get close by, pick any one of them, it happens all the time."
"As fun as that sounds I'd rather let someone know before I show up on their doorstep. Actually, I'd rather just keep my feet on the ground. And besides, what would you sell it for? Craigslist might find you something, but what do you want, anyway?"
Catfish laughed. "Dunno until I find it. There's a lot out there... hey, I know. If you don't come with me to the moon then can you stay here and take care of my place? I probably won't be gone more than a couple of days. Whatcha say, Jed?'

Jed sighed again. "Sure, why not. I'd just keep your 'dogs' fed after all."

"And it's not too far from your place. Just a couple of miles south of here, right?

"Yeah," said Jed, "but I'll just stay here anyway. I'll have Google put a death-watch on for you."

"Be careful trusting those things, I hear they say there are people walking around out there that ain't dead or alive," Catfish laughed. "See ya in a day or two." With that he ran over to his ship and stepped into the entrance at the rear end. Several minutes passed and Jed amused himself by watching the 'dogs' chase frogs in the grass. A sudden gust of wind told him the ship was taking off. It was utterly silent, except for the sound of the breeze in his ears. The wind burst stronger as it lifted higher off the ground, then softer as its distance grew. Slowly it vanished upward, disappearing like a balloon from a parade.
Jed let himself inside Catfish's hut. This, at least, had not changed. The place was less of a landfill, a natural result of living off the boards, and more of a moldering dungeon with oddities strewn about. Jed identified a reclining chair he wouldn't mind sleeping in, certainly not considering the bed. He was considering covering it with a tarp, to hide both its sight and smell.
The computer recognized him, this was not the first time he'd been here. It was a hybrid of superial and old-Earth tech. Like so many things here, the Catfish had made it himself, or at least put together the main parts. Jed didn't think to hard about how it worked, but was simply satisfied that it did. He entered Catfish's information on the death-watch and put on the local news while looking to see what kind of food the fish used on his board.
As the sounds of the Blast-Fast festival came across the news feed, Jed was dismayed to find that the board had no sections in English. Hadn't the Fish added anything himself? Or maybe he didn't bother giving it an English font... in any case Jed was forced to search the food sections in Superial, hoping to find something that didn't involve alien bugs. After a few failed attempts Jed found something that smelled good and didn't look like the feature of a foreign horror film. Some of the previous attempts did, however, give him inspiration for what he could do for the rest of the night.

There were hundreds of thousands of movies on the boards, though none of them in English. Supposedly there were translations available, but Jed didn't know how to find them. He didn't care. They all had the charm of old films with the flare of the new CGI stuff Hollywood had been putting out before the Splitting, along with the strangeness of foreign films. They couldn't be more foreign. Jed started with something that felt like a documentary, though not understanding the words he couldn't be sure. He got up and wandered from time to time, throwing bits of trash into the board to make the occasional snack. He longed for a cheeseburger, but since Catfish was content to eat alien slime or at least give his cheeseburgers captions that even Google couldn't translate, Jed was left to board surf.
That wasn't so bad. If he ever got really lost he could always try to translate whatever he was looking at, which usually only made things worse. Board surfing was a popular hobby these days, especially among people who wanted to find unique and horrific ways to die, second only to the wormers. Each board held the equivalent of a warehouse of alien technology, a warehouse the size of Manhattan. And not all of it was technology; food, movies, artwork, and things that didn't even have names in English populated the depths of what the boards could conjure, and there was room for more to be recorded. On Catfish's board Jed tried to keep himself content with the movies and sludge that he could find. Of course, there were also delicately arranged Superial meals, often as delicious as they were terrifying. Not all were meant for human consumption.

Occasionally he would amuse himself by throwing things into the board as raw material, where the board would just eat whatever was placed there, and then giving the undo command and watching whatever it was take form again. There was something magical in watching the little towers rise and fall, and the objects between them take shape or vanish. This was how Catfish got most of his parts for things like the ship or any of the cars he worked on. Jed didn't doubt he has the equivalent of a fully stocked auto-supply warehouse. It was all far more than Jed ever wanted to learn. Living off the boards was as easy as using a microwave, but each had a complexity even most Superials didn't even understand.

When Jed woke up the next morning he checked several news channels and the death-watch. According to the latter Catfish was still alive and had made it to the moon. Jed was almost envious, but didn't regret his decision. On the news there was more speculation on how various communities across the world were handling Superial refugees. The latest fad in music was multi-species bands. There were protests by religious nuts on the construction of some new crazy thing called a soul tower. Most of it Jed simply couldn't care less about. The only problems anyone had these days were ones they made for themselves, either getting into other people's business, signing up for bloodsport, or stepping on the few remaining eggshells. Occasionally someone became enough of a nuisance to bring down the wrath of they mighty. Still, the powers that be kept some degree of order. No more wars or poverty, just idiots throwing rocks at lounging dragons. Not literally though, at least, not yet.

Why, it hadn't been more than a week ago that some scumball had abducted a couple of children from a nearby community. The Angel Corp got wind of it and stormed his place, burnt his arms to stubs when he threatened them. Yeah, threatening women who could kill you with a thought... people hadn't gotten any smarter, just a lot of the dumbest ones were dead now.

Jed wandered into town in search of real food, and to check on his place. Or at least what passed for his place. Life here was like a dorm room, with random people living wherever they choose and having things balance into an equilibrium of sorts. Folks who liked it stayed and those who didn't left. It was another lazy day with a variety of music echoing across a variety of dwellings. There had to be a cookout or something going on somewhere, there always was. Usually they had a catch though, trying to recruit for religious groups, colony groups, experiments, or stranger things. Still, good food and conversation had a value of its own. Some folks went camping and just never bothered to come back.

Jed socialized where he could, dropped into his place to get something to eat, and then headed back to Catfish's place by late afternoon to see if he'd returned yet. The watch Jed had placed on him said that he was already back on Earth, a few miles away from here. He'd be back soon, since he doubtless had some story or oddity to show him. Jed took a walk to the nearby lake, not thinking of anything in particular. It felt nice to clear his mind. This was bliss - a better retirement than he could have hoped for, living on blue collar wages. His friends dabbled in enough strangeness to keep him entertained and life was live and let live for everyone. After all these year of working odd jobs and scraping his living off of meeting frayed ends... heaven had descended to Earth.

A sudden movement caught his eye. It came around the bend in the road and his brain wanted to think it was a car. His eyes told him it was a snake. His gut told him it was trouble. His ears told him Catfish was laughing somewhere. What he could only describe as a forty foot snake, as big around as an industrial propane tank and about as shiny, pulled up next to him where a panel slid away to show Catfish's grinning face. One eye wandered off at a crazy angle as it often did while the other was shut tight with laughter.

"You should see your face! Come on in, this thing seats five, ten if you like it cozy. I'll drive you back to your place." Segments of scales shifted and popped out, leaving a clear door for Jed to enter. He sighed and stooped inside, immediately regretting it. He could see from the light of some strange bulbous boils scattered the interior. The smell was a cross that of a new car and freshly mowed grass. Not a bad smell, but certainly a strange one. The inside felt nice, like natural leather, but didn't mesh with its appearance.

"You're back already?" Jed asked.

"Yep," said Catfish, "I traded my ship for this snake and some other things. The folks on the moon dropped me off in one of their fancy-fast-go-anywhere ships."

"Does this thing have a seatbelt, or even a seat?" asked Jed as he tried to figure out if he should sit or lie prone.

"Nope, but it'll cushion you from bumps and things," Catfish's voice came from up ahead the snake's shaft. "Watch this!" The snake lurched forward and Jed felt himself caught by waves in the interior walls. It moved forward sideways motions that made Jed slightly ill. Inner scales illuminated with a view of the outside, though Jed wasn't sure how. His first thought, beyond the swaying nausea, was that this was the ultimate low-rider.

Then Jed encountered the next major surprise of the afternoon. There was something else in there with him. He could feel little hands picking at his back pockets and shirt. He swatted at it and it scurried back into the darkness of the rear snake. Two dark unblinking eyes gleamed back at him. Jed found it remarkably easy to maneuver, despite the movements of the snake and his own restricted position.

"Fish!" he called "There's something back here with me."

"Ah that's Kipper. Say hi to Jed, Kipper." The thing waved at him, revealing a four fingered scaled hand.

"What is it?"

"He's a darc, just a kid though. They like to give away their kids, they have so many. This one followed me so they told me to keep him."

What madness had possessed the Catfish to trade his ship for this monstrosity and an alien child? Only his mind would know, and Jed knew from experience that asking the Catfish to explain his actions would just leave him more confused than before.

There was no accounting for taste, thought Jed as he stepped toward his home. He turned for a moment and watched the monster snake double back on itself and return up the road. Then again, there was little accounting for value either. These days you started with what you wanted and worked from there. Jed didn't want a thing, certainly not a giant snake, so he passed the time amusing himself with whatever new thing life threw at him.

With neighbors like Catfish, he never had to wait long.

Splitting Directions

Well, I'm trying a new angle on how I write. For the last few weeks I've been alternating between writing a short story and then a chapter from a novel. Born of the Fire is on chapter ten of its re-write and I've started a new novel, Steel Freedom, in which I may soon finish the second chapter.

The short stories are nearly ready for a new set. Cover art may be the bottle neck this time around, but I always find ways to distract myself so things always end up taking longer than I plan. Still, in that regard I have a lot of nearly finished short stories and cover art to draw on, so that speeds things up somewhat.

I worry that I may be splitting myself too many ways, but I always manage to get something done despite myself, so it works out somehow. Life is going to give me plenty of work in the future so I'm trying to take advantage of the relatively large amounts of free time that I have now.

My current plan is to keep making short stories while working on my novels. At any rate, I keep having new ideas far faster than I could write them even if I filled up all my time writing, and that isn't possible. I'm also planning on dividing the short stories between smaller and larger ones, $0.99 on Amazon for the small ones and $2.99 for the longer ones. I'll probably have quite a few once my first novel becomes ready.

And on that note, I should mention that I plan to have Steel Freedom as my first novel rather than Born of the Fire. Though the latter was technically my first, it works better as a prequel and will likely be more interesting to people already familiar with the universe. It will take longer, naturally, but I'm not too worried about that at the moment because I doubt many people will read this until after all the books I currently have in progress will have been published one way or another.

On a side note, life in Cuenca is awesome, especially living with my parents. School will probably be starting soon and I may even get a girlfriend at some point. For this, and my writing, only time will tell.

First Published Stories

I like to think this is a major landmark for me. I've published two four short stories on Amazon, one by itself and the other as three stories in one volume. This certainly isn't the way I imagined it would be when I finished the first draft of Born of the Fire years back. It'll probably still be years down the road before I try to publish that or Out of the Storm. Odds are good that as far as novels go I'll probably try to publish Steel Freedom first, even though I've barely started it.

In truth, I expect that I'll always have more plans for writing than actually published writing. That's just the way my mind works. I have plans for roughly seven novels, two of which are mostly complete drafts, and at least two series of short stories - Under Falling Skies, and Ashes of Empire, the latter of which will have actually consistent characters and overall form.

My plans for Under Falling Skies are too keep it without consistent characters (unless for some reason a lot of people just fall in love with one of my characters) or over-arching form. It's just a bunch of stories pulled out of the setting left behind by the novels I've written (and re-written). There is no particular chronological order to the stories I plan to write in the series. In short, the series is going to be a collage open to whatever ideas I feel like putting there. Or suggestions that other people give me. So if there's something that you would love to see in Under Falling Skies, let me know! I'm also looking for reviews on my stories.

And of course, here are the links to them on Amazon: (highlight them to see them)

Greener Pastures

Spider Song

I've also learned that creating cover art is relatively easy and painless.

Preface

Welcome to my blog for Under Falling Skies. I no longer have any stories posted here, but take heart, soon my stories will available on Amazon as ebooks. Once they're available you can bet there will be a link here.

Under Falling Skies is a series of short stories I am writing that take place after a my two novels (not yet published). They are set on Earth, after the arrival of alien humans, or voor, and the mysterious disaster that ended their efforts at peaceful contact, known as The Splitting. This series is working toward a specific end, though not all stories I have posted will build toward that end. However, even after the 'last' story in this series is posted I plan to insert new stories or follow suggestions for new ones. If you have a suggestion for a story you would like me to write in this setting, (or in the setting of any of my novels) let me know about it. If you like a particular story and would like to see more of those characters, let me know about that too.

I do not plan to publish or write the stories in any particular order, and each one is part of a larger picture. So think of them as pieces of a larger picture, a puzzle for you to put together. Expect future updates as more of my writing becomes available.

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Under Falling Skies

What voices carry on the wind,
What silent doom does starlight tell?
Time shapes to twisted ends,
The friends you once knew well.

Long calls the lonely sky,
Longer calls the placid hall.
Such boredom drives great men to die,
To see the stars, but ignore their call.

Powers echo in the night,
Dying and forgotten gods.
Songs of sorrow and vanished light
Inspire some to fight the odds.

So are our lives under falling skies,
Empty paradise and petty wars.
What stranger truth above us lies,
Than is found beneath our floors?

Who will pay the debt of wrath,
Or who will stand against the tide?
At last behold the stormy path,
To face such fate and still abide?

So seize the hour, fear not the skies,
Cast out upon that starry sea.
For whether we may live or die,
Our world shall be forever free!