“Divining Guidance”

An excerpt from chapter 5 of The Alchemist's Folly, the final installment in a Pure Steam trilogy of novellas due out in the not-too-distant (one would hope) future! Read book 1 here.

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The descent into the salt mine consumed nearly an hour aboard a groaning, iron-caged hoist that shuddered violently against the timbered walls of the vertical shaft. As the drop cable unspooled into the dark, the stifling heat of the Rauschite surface surrendered to a dead, dry chill that tasted of ancient mineral oceans. Two thousand feet beneath the sunlit valleys, the air grew so dense with pulverized salt that every breath left a crusted rind upon the tongue and set the eyes to watering.

When the hoist finally slammed onto its wooden bumpers, the lanterns held by Dresden’s accompanying guards carved pale yellow cones through a realm of stark, crystalline white.

They stood in a gargantuan subterranean hall, unearthing a massive salt dome that stretched for miles beneath the valley floor. Vast pillars of halite—translucent, white, and veins of deep arterial pink—supported a vaulted ceiling so high that the darkness swallowed it whole. Towering halite crystal formations, sharp as glass and as wide as ancient redwoods, erupted from the floor at jagged angles, catching the lantern light and fracturing it into a dazzling web of geometric spears.

“Cattledung,” Lyn whispered, her voice deadened instantly by the acoustic absorbency of the salt walls. She pulled her wool coat tighter and sneezed into her elbow. “It’s like being inside a frozen gut.”

“Watch your step,” Marlby warned, his dog legs clanking with a hollow, metallic ring against the slick salt floor. The iron joints groaned under the salt dust, but he pressed on, using a brass-tipped cane for balance. “One slip on these crystal spurs and you’ll leave half your hide behind.”

Bigby paid the warning no mind. He was already several paces ahead, moving like a man pulled by an invisible leash. In his hand, the alchemist’s key wasn't merely warm—it was humming at a pitch so high it made his teeth ache. A pale, copper glow pulsed beneath the metal’s burnished skin, lighting the gnome’s face in rhythmic flashes.

“It’s here,” Bigby said, his voice taut with anticipation. “The node is right under us.”

Poppy walked beside him, her steps silent and unhurried. Her eyes, wide and unnaturally dark in the cavern’s glare, reflected the rod’s copper light. “The salt remembers,” she murmured softly, her fingers tracing the edge of a massive, hexagonal crystal pillar as they passed. “It held the water before the mountains rose. It holds the weight now.”

“Poppy?” Bigby paused, casting a concerned glance at her.

“I’m clear, Bigby,” she said, though her tone remained eerie in its perfection. “The pressure here... it calms the noise. Proceed, Alchemist.”

The party rounded a colossal, leaning spire of translucent pink halite and emerged into a natural circular amphitheater at the heart of the dome. In the center of the grotto, two gargantuan salt crystals—one hanging down from the unreachable roof like an inverted mountain, the other rising from the bedrock—nearly met in the middle. The gap between their sharp, pyramidal tips was no wider than the span of a man’s hand.

“There,” Bigby breathed.

He stepped onto the raised salt dais at the center of the room. The air around the central formation vibrated with a static charge that made the hair on their arms stand up on end.

“Biggs, you sure about this?” Marlby called out, staying near the edge of the chamber with Lyn, his hand resting cautiously on his hatchet. “We’re two thousand feet under the Rauschite faith. If this place caves, they won't even need to dig our graves.”

“It won't cave,” Bigby said, though sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cold. He held up the bronzed rod. The key was almost too hot to hold now, radiant with an intense, golden-orange light that cast long, dancing shadows across the crystal walls. “The charge is full. It needs to discharge to balance with the node.”

Bigby climbed the stepped salt ledge, reached up, and carefully inserted the bronzed rod horizontally into the narrow gap between the twin crystal spires.

The instant the metal touched both points of salt, the key’s light flared into a blinding, white-hot flash.

A sound like a shattering bell echoed through the subterranean expanse, followed immediately by a deep, low frequency THUM.

The energy stored within the rod poured out in a visible, rippling wave of violet-and-copper force. The light raced through the crystalline lattice of the twin spires, branching out into the floor, the walls, and the ceiling like living, luminous roots.

Then, the earth ground its teeth.

“Hold fast!” Lyn shouted, grabbing Marlby’s arm as the floor lurked beneath them.

With a series of deafening, crystalline cracks—like thousands of glass sheets snapping at once—the entire cavern began to rearrange itself. The massive salt formations didn't fracture or collapse; instead, they began to slide and rotate along smooth, perfectly geometric planes.

Huge hexagonal pillars turned in place like massive stone dials. The floor beneath their feet shifted in concentric rings, the inner circle rotating clockwise while the outer ring spun counter-clockwise. High above, the ceiling’s faceted vault slid along hidden, interlocking seams, altering the room's geometry in a smooth, mechanical choreography.

The sound was immense—a roar of grinding mineral and compressed air—yet entirely controlled. It was the movement of a titanically complex lock, buried deep in the mantle of the world, responding to its key.

As quickly as it had begun, the movement ground to a halt with a heavy, satisfying CLACK that reverberated through the soles of their boots.

Silence returned to the salt cavern, heavy and absolute.

The bronzed rod, now completely drained of its light and cool to the touch, clattered against the salt floor as the gap between the spires widened by several inches.

Bigby stood frozen on the dais, panting, his eyes wide as he looked around. The cavern was transformed. The jagged, chaotic array of crystal spires had aligned into neat, radial avenues pointing outward from the central chamber, revealing a dark, perfectly square passageway cut into the far wall that had previously been hidden behind thousands of tons of solid salt.

He knelt and picked up the key. It felt light, empty, and dormant once more.

“Brand me a Brelonite…” Bigby whispered.

Lyn let out a long breath, her hands still trembling as she uncurled them from Marlby’s coat. “Well, Biggs … you certainly know how to turn a room around.”

Poppy stepped forward onto the newly aligned floor, looking down the dark, revealed passageway. She didn't look frightened or disoriented. A quiet, knowing smile touched her lips as she turned back to Bigby.

“One step closer,” Poppy said softly. “The Machine turns.”

The Fears of Writing What's Next

I have been remiss. How long has it been since I let only my words dwell here (or there!) unaided by some other impetus? Horribly, remarkably remiss.

I need to get back to writing for myself, if for nobody else. There are many doors still open before me, but I've yet to do more than peek through a few for fear of walking through a single one. I've yet to decide how satisfied I will be once I do. It feels almost like trying to predict the rain. When will the drought end?

I've been happy with the endeavors and creative ends I've started, and met, and (sometimes) finished. Many of them (work, game design, story writing/editing) have involved serious stints of content creation and word-smithing. But, I guess I'm just anxious about what's next? Do I have the time and energy to devote to it? What if I get into it and get bored with it and then want to start something else? Is that time wasted or spent if you don't finish something? Growth, maybe, but at what cost? Growth at any cost is tantamount to neglect of something else that I won't want to be remiss on at this stage in my life. When we choose a path, we are simultaneously saying yes to the one and no to all the others in that moment. It's not a science, it's an art, but an art that has a scientific (measurable) effect on us and the world around us.

You know that feeling when all the time in the world seems to be running out very quickly? The days stack up. An empty cup needs refilling. I'd like to think I would never wish for a time when I could have a DeLorean equipped with a flux-capacitor, but there's the thought!

I think this is more about the fear of not knowing. I might as well rename this piece, "The Fears of Being Human." That would be far less honest, however, and evoke a somewhat more cringey response upon a critical read of the content. So, let's leave it at that.

Tiny Samurai … Coming Soon!

 

“Dresden’s Crossing: Goeth(ite) Yonder, And Free Thy Fortune O Ye Finders o’ the Hidden!”

An excerpt from chapter 3 of The Alchemist's Folly, the final installment in a Pure Steam trilogy of novellas due out in the not-too-distant (one would hope) future! Read book 1 here.

* * * * *

“Shoot, Olson!” the broad-shouldered, mustachioed man in the grey calvary coat bellowed. “Brand me a shave tail if’n I haven’t tasted a finer vintage this side o’ the Heartwater!”

The thin-nosed, bristle chin-bearded dwarf in workman’s leathers and a hard jack smirked at his honored drinking companion. “‘Tain’t a problem, my flouncy tallman friend,” he said. “What with the company you keep.” He lifted his fluted glass to the others assembled in the courtyard of the stately hachenda crowning a hill at the center of town. The white clay-and-straw brick fortified home played guest to over three dozen gathered under the strung ambience of gas-lamps and the din of suppertime revelry. Dusk clawed at the sky leaving streaks of orange and pink as a ‘V’ of geese honked overhead, winging their way back north after the long winter.

“Anything less than legendary hospitality and I’d have reason to shoot ya dead where ya stand, friend dwarf!” Landing ribbed with a wink and a nod.

The dwarf unleashed a nasally laugh at the jest as Landing swept a hand toward them and four guests stepped up to join them on the low dais before the assembly. Other guests continued to hobnob and graze on the silver-plate wielded fare: all finger foods of the breaded crawdad and candied yam variety. A long table on the dais behind them sat strewn with steaming soup vats, whole legs, and flanks, and heads of animals on platters, plates topped with many-layered gelatinous desserts, and a small crystal fountain that spewed forth continuous waterfalls of peach-colored liquor.

“Mister Dresden,” Landing began with a flourish. “Let me introduce you to some special guests this evenin’. Not all the way—like I came—but clear across from Crowning Junction by way of Savig airship! May I present Misters Edgar Marlby and Bigby Dolan, ‘longside Madams Penelope Marshall and Annalyn Farlee. Sons and daughters of the good ole FSU!”

Lyn reached back to scratch her butt and make a face as much at Landing’s comment as to relieve herself of the bunching her new sapphire dress caused.

Marlby and Bigby, too, were dudded up in finer clothes and new boots. Poppy wore her usual tasteful attire.

“Welcome to my home,” the dwarf said. “Olson Dresden. This be the community of our making.”

“Why it’s just a real pleasure, Mr. Dresden,” Marlby said, taking the dwarf’s hand. “Meeting you both, that is!” Marlby turned and took Landing by the other hand, turning the three of them into a pretzel of affectation.

“Alright, boy, alright!” Landing said, patting Marlby on the shoulder. In truth, Landing wasn’t much older than Marlby, and was even a few years Bigby’s junior—owing to Bigby’s gnomish blood—but everyone looked and sounded younger who stood in that man’s sights.

“A pleasure to meet you both,” Poppy said, tilting her head to their hosts in turn. “Art, and Olson.”

“First name basis, eh?” Dresden perked. “Like her already.”

Poppy smiled prettily.

“This is about as fine a stay as we’ve enjoyed outside of back home,” Bigby said.

“And whereabouts would you call home, Mr. Dolan?” Landing said.

Somehow, Landing’s words made Bigby have to shake off a momentary echo of dread before he responded. “Never much had the roots to put down for a home, Mr. Landing. I tend to wander.”

“You’ve wandered far afield from friendly confines, Folk friend,” Dresden stated. “The Disputed don’t play kind to those unfamiliar.” Dresden looked down at Marlby’s legs tellingly.

“And don’t pay him no mind,” Landing chuckled. “He’d be happier still if the kingdom’s borders were a few miles west as east of him.” Landing made reference to the fact that Dresden’s Crossing sat closer to the unsettled middle country of the continent than many other locales in Rausch, the kingdom they now inhabited.

“Not closer than Holy Faith,” Dresden corrected. “Or did all that travel addle your sense of time and space?” the dwarf joked.

“Curious thing that you would bring up matters of time and space and mention of that Rauschite bordertown,” Bigby said. “The very one which by your labors you intend to bridge the Disputed with a railroad, if I’m not mistaken, Mr. Landing? Mr. Dresden?”

“Far as Gom Shao, if the fates align,” Landing confirmed.

“That’s what we came to learn, as well,” Bigby said, nodding to Marlby. “But you won’t be getting there without us.”

Dresden shot Landing a look.

“I see they caught your attention like they caught mine,” Landing confessed.

Dresden smirked. “Not the most public place to be making threats, but I’ll remind you—”

“Not a threat,” Bigby said. “A promise. And this.” He slid the bronzed rod out from the rigid roll of fabric on the dickey that sat bunched under his chin. The alchemist’s key seemed to buzz with a bronze halo of light that limned all who surrounded it with a soft glow separate and apart from the party ambience.

“What’s that?” Dresden asked, nonplussed.

“A key to locked locales that make a bridge across time and space to where you need to go,” Bigby alluded. “Alchemy is my trade. I know now what this rod can do. It’s taken me halfway across Ullera to figure it out, at the expense of nearly all our resources and this good man’s legs.” Marlby shifted at Bigby’s side. “But we can’t continue to do this on our own. We need your sponsorship and the protection your expedition will provide. In return, we’ll provide you a legitimate cover story, and equal shares in anything we discover through this. We just ask that you permit us the freedom to do all the discovering we can along the way.”

The two rich “entrepioneers” looked mildly amused.

“What’s your story, alchemist?” Dresden said.

Lyn patted Bigby’s chin and waltzed over to the table where the food sat and began picking at the assembled fare.

Bigby gestured to Poppy.

“We are seekers on a pilgrimage to the holy lands,” she said, glowing and confident at every word. “The Godhead has summoned us here to help strengthen the homeland. By laying new rail and discovering the sacred places here that call to us, we ensure that others too will come to know the truth and commune more closely with the Godhead.”

“Godhead. You speak of the hunk o’ statuary the Brelonites bow down and pray to?” Landing ventured.

Dresden nodded for them. “The very same that elves and dwarves long ago wrought for their own purposes. Pfah!” he spat and shrugged at the notion.

“And, if the legends are to be believed, the very same that dragons enchanted before they left these lands,” Bigby added.

“We are not religious men,” Landing said. “We are men of action. And science.”

“As am I!” Bigby agreed. “But this story will appeal to the throne’s sensibilities, if ever it gets back to them! You won’t curry favor in Rausch proudly denouncing all they hold dear. This way you can hide your rail in plain sight and Rausch will tend to see it the way we sell it: a vehicle to take the good news into heathen lands!”

“People don’t tend to do much of anything ya like,” Dresden reminded, shaking his head at Landing.

Landing stared at what Bigby held in his hands. “And this here rod? How’s it factor into all this?” he said, extending his open hand to the gnome.

Bigby paused, then laid the alchemist’s key in Landing’s palm. “If you’re willing, tomorrow morning, we’ll accompany you to a place not far—maybe 20 miles or less—where I can show you.”

Bigby let go of the rod and it immediately dimmed to nothing in Landing’s hands.

Everyone staring at the rod flinched, giving Bigby a screwy glance.

“I didn’t know that either, until recently,” Bigby said, eyeing the rod. “This is the first time it’s been out of my reach since,” he looked up at Poppy, “…since I was given this key. It’s no thing of magic. But it is still a thing of mystery. A mystery, too, I would share you with, dear hosts, if you would have us?”

Landing and Dresden took deep, steadying breaths simultaneously.

Landing chewed his tongue and quirked his brow at his dwarven business partner.

“It’s been awhile since something truly unanticipated and intriguing has crossed my table,” Dresden said. “Be ready an hour after dawn. I’ll arrange the away party to join us. Until then,” he added at length, sweeping an arm out in front of him, “please, enjoy!”

Star Wars is NOT science-fiction!! (Or, Star Wars IS fantasy!!)

Full stop.

This may seem antithetical to some, but it's really never been a paradigm shift for me (or many others for that matter; just Google it and see). Call me discerning. Or a snob—if it makes you feel any better. Honestly, though, the issue is made clear in writing from the start.

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away.…"

That's how they all begin. It's a riff on, "Once upon a time…" which is the traditional opening of a fable or fairytale. Such stories are firmly in the purview of fantasy, not science-fiction.

The simplest distinction that can be drawn between fantasy stories and science-fiction ones is when they happen. Generally speaking, fantasy stories take place in the past; science-fiction stories are often set in the future. Of course, exceptions to this exist, but there are exceptions to every rule. And the rule here is simple. "A long time ago," after all.

Getting warmed up? (I know I am.) Alright then! Now, for the meat and potatoes. Star Wars features ample tropes and archetypes the likes of which are far more often seen in fantasy than they are in science-fiction. Legion are the fantasy stories that concern young squires led by knights into saving princesses held by dark lords in their impregnable fortresses. The first Star Wars, later re-sub-titled Episode IV: A New Hope, is mainly about a young farm boy who goes off with a Jedi Knight to save a certain Alderaanian princess from the clutches of a Dark Lord of the Sith in the bowels of the Death Star. Pretty striking similarity, no? And it goes well beyond simple naming conventions. (Speaking of which, Skywalker is a surname you'd expect to find in fantasy, right alongside Greybeard, or Hawkwinter, or Brightblade, etc.). The fact that the Jedi wield lightsabers like broadswords (fantasy!) and use the Force like they're casting spells (fantasy!) and fight Sith lords clad in heavy armor or crowned in demon horns (fantasy!) is a central hallmark throughout ALL the films (not to mention books, comics, games, and TV shows)! Take any of these key components away and, by extension striping out the fantasy too, Star Wars becomes something else entirely!

Here's something else entirely: Star Trek! If you didn't know any better, both "Wars" and "Trek" would seem to travel in the same circles. And while the dueling fandoms often bicker over which is better, there are some definite differences that should be noted. Chiefly, Wars is (more) fantasy/Trek is (more) sci-fi. How much more? 70/30 split for Wars, 30/70 for Trek (at least), I'd say. Wars is more swashbuckling, pulpy adventures in space (fantasy!), whereas Trek is more humanistic, social adventures in space. Wars is couched more in mythology; Trek in philosophy. That doesn't make one inherently better than the other, but it does make them distinct: Trek as science-fiction with fantasy sprinkled in, and Wars a fantasy with touches of science-fiction.

"Wait!" you say. "Did you just concede that Star Wars has science-fiction in it?! Isn't that the opposite of what you're trying to prove!?"

No. Star Wars IS a fantasy. A fantasy with science-fiction elements. And dramatic elements. And comedic elements. Lots of fiction includes different elements. Virtually no where does a book, film, or TV show stick to one storytelling element to the exclusion of all others. Dramas can be funny, action can be thought-provoking, and romance can be scary. That's called creativity!

So, what are the science-fiction elements in Star Wars? Well, starships, lasers, droids, space stations, and midi-chlorians, to be precise. (Lightsabers are just "frozen-laser" tech, by the way! Shocker!) None of these things are essential to Star Wars storytelling. Star Wars is essentially a meditation on family, destiny, and rebelling against one or both. For something to be science-fiction, the story most often explores the relationship between its characters and the technological marvels they employ. Science-fiction is more at-home meditating on how we can or can't coexist with the technology in our lives. You could just as easily replace the technological marvels in Star Wars with horses, magic wands, familiars (or golems), sky fortresses, and mana (or "magical essence") and tell the exact same stories (minus the science-fiction elements).

(To say nothing of the fact that the technological marvels in Star Wars all make an awful lot of noise in space. Nothing science-fiction-y about that at all.)

How about the Death Star? That's a pretty big technological marvel with variations that are featured in many of the movies. The Death Star is to Star Wars, as the One Ring is to the Lord of the Rings: an object to be destroyed. Doesn't really matter what that object is. The technological marvels in Star Wars are just that: objects. Objects vs subjects. None of the technological marvels in the Star Wars films really form the subject of its storytelling.

Let's explore this dichotomy a little more by examining how technological marvels in two famous science-fiction films form the subject of their narratives and differ from what is in Star Wars. First, Blade Runner. In Blade Runner, the replicants are the technological marvel, and the storytelling centers around how humans reconcile with the fact that replicants (synthetic humans) are virtually the same as the real thing. Who's to say that a replicant who has an identity, memories, and dreams of electric sheep isn't human? This is science-fiction. Now, The Matrix. In The Matrix, the technological marvel is the titular "matrix": a computer program that is used to simulate human experience so that those same humans' bodies can be used as a power source. The whole crux of the story is based on the battle between humans and machines in a fight for the future. Again, science fiction. Many great science-fiction stories explore this topic, from 2001: A Space Odyssey, to the Terminator series, to Avatar. This same storytelling lens is not applied to any of the technological marvels in Star Wars.

To wit, Star Wars is not science-fiction. (It's fantasy.)

Full stop.

(Read more about my personal stance on Star Wars here!)

"Mister Polk Edgewater and The Miracle of His Soiled-Breath Solvaway"

Here's the opening scene to chapter 2 in our upcoming Pure Steam tie-in novella, The Alchemist's Gambit. Get book 1 here!

* * * * *

Felicia Dolloway sat comfortably across from her short wavy-haired companion on the opposing divan, purple trails of smoke crisscrossing her painted face as she removed the hookah stem from her pert pink mouth.

“So, tell me, Mister Edgewater,” Felicia purred, fingering the hookah stem like a flute. “What manner of throat-sweet cure-all would you have in mind for my so dearly afflicted?”

“Dearly afflicted?” Edgewater said, smiling. “If I’m not a two-bit horse salesman, you led me to believe this was nothing other than a personal call!”

“Why, it is, Mister E! But you wouldn’t have thought such a thing as that was needed on me, now, would you?” Felicia punctuated her playfulness by blowing a line of her purple-smoke-tainted-breath into Edgewater’s face.

The pneumatic water pipe gurgled as Mr. E hiccoughed and licked his lips dry of the sickly-sweet flavored tobacco that nested in the basin of the communal smoking apparatus. The public parlor in the one flophouse in Rooter’s Station that attracted all manner of customers was particularly busy today. More than ten percent of the trading and supply depot’s population, numbering in the low hundreds, could easily be found here on any given occasion, day or night, and at least twice that number were in attendance. A bed of dry goods and Ulleran sundries had just come in on the 2:05 out of Camp Destiny, and the parlor attendants were foppishly decked in some of the finest fashions out of Esteem, while supping on sumptuous Venuvian hand pastries. Each couple and small group kept to their own whispered-nothings and private intrigues by the curtained booths that ringed the parlor floor.

“Hardly, madame,” Edgewater replied at length, scratching his head. “Your sugary vapors shame even the most haughty women of Keystone.”

Felicia beamed. “How you talk!”

“It’s true,” he said. “And, if you have serious need of my services, true, too, are the claims that I make.”

“And when can you deliver, my smart little hairfoot?” Felicia reached across the hookah stand between them and rustled his hair.

“Posthaste!” Edgewater’s eyes fluttered at the rake of her fingers on his scalp. “Course, I’ve been called worse, madame. And better besides.”

“Oh, beg my pardons!” Felicia fumbled her words and her hookah stem. “I … me … well, you must be one o’ them Folks, now, ain’t ya!”

“The Folk,” Edgewater corrected. “But gnomes and halflings, we must all look alike.” A glass bottle broke somewhere to Edgewater’s left, and he was reminded just how careless and provincial the folk—his race aside—around here were. Careless was fitting here in the Disputed Lands, even if this territory belonged to no province or state in particular, but Rooter’s Station still catered to “back east” sensibilities, and this particular gnome bargained that a name like Edgewater, “Professional Hygienist and Traveling Amateur Genealogist,” would go unnoticed in a place like this. Careless and provincial enough, at least, he hoped.

“Next you’re gonna tell me your name’s not even Edgewater,” Felicia joked.

He laughed nervously. Maybe he shouldn’t have corrected her, after all. Better to leave lying dogs to rest.

Edgewater rose from his seat. “Shall we?” he indicated, lifting a doctor’s folding medicine case at his feet.

“Most certainly, Mr. E!”

Edgewater bowed as she left their smoky corner behind, taking a moment to surreptitiously spy the room for hidden dangers. Following in Felicia’s wake, he was content that everything was safe for the moment.

A knowing pair of eyes or two followed the stunning Felicia Dolloway, aka “Felly Doll,” semi-secret confidant and plaything of the notorious gang boss Rooter Baud, local smuggler and part-time railway saboteur—privately wanted on bounty boards posted up and down the border by companies B&S and South Settler both. She led her gnome companion behind a standing partition, etched in Elven designs, and through a sliding wall behind it. Problem was, poor Mr. Edgewater, while he knew of Rooter Baud’s reputation as a dangerous heavy and Miss Dolloway’s as a flowering socialite, hadn’t put the two of them together, as judging by her genteel nature, but was willing to risk being seen with her for the knowledge she was rumored to have.

The grand hoax of “Mr. Edgewater’s Soiled-Breath Solvaway” had taken Bigby Dolan little more than a day to propagate, which he was thankful for, given that Marlby, long his best friend and now trusted guide across the Disputed, had given them until sundown to rest up before the next leg of their cross-country dodge commenced. The three of them, Poppy included, had resolved that local authorities back in Harmonia were still tongue-tied and hand-tied, if not outright hog-tied, over how to figure out what had happened on the banks of the Heartwater that fateful afternoon more than ten days ago. The day he and Poppy, aided and abetted by Marlby, had left a dead federal agent, dubbed “widowmen” by those outside the government—of which Poppy was a rogue sort—burnt to a crisp in the bottom of their ditched getaway boat. It had been a week and then some of hard trekking and sleeping in empty logs and badger dens. Rooter’s Station was the first real taste of back-home they had afforded themselves, having skipped other easier-to-get-at forts, ranches, and fuel depots, since.

The lights went out as the sliding wall closed behind them.

“Take my hand, now, Mr. Edgewater,” Felicia said. “Where we’re going, there be no lights to see by.”

Mr. Edgewater—Bigby—did as he was bid, and felt his way up the unseen stairs as she led them on.

“I say, Ms. Dolloway?” Bigby whispered.

“Call me, ‘Felly’,” she said.

“Uh, yes. Felly. Felly? I seem to be short on memory, as it serves, but did we discuss my payment at all?”

“Why, no, Mr. E. We did not. In most dealings round these parts, though, payment isn’t rendered or even bandied about until a taste of the services to be bought are full and well proved authentic.”

“Naturally, Ms., err, Felloooo,” he stumbled, toe catching a step, “but … I, er, we ought to have some idea, hadn’t we?”

“We, Mr. E? Why, I thought t’was just you and I.”

"It is!" Bigby said a bit too lively, his accent dropping. "Of course, it is."

“Well, what did you have in mind, Mr. Edgewater?” Felly asked. “Or, was the hookah I treated you to not to your liking?”

“Not at all,” he said, regaining his composure as they reached the landing and a sliver of outdoor light beamed from beneath the door up ahead. “I’s just keen on hearing what you might know about local legends and such. I’m a collector as it were; fancy myself a raconteur of odd stories and personas. I’s curious, is all, what you’d be willing to share about a man called Merylki Bindealer?”

“The Warlock In The Warrens?” Felly said, as if for the first time. “I ain’t ever heard of no ‘Bindealer,’ but I heard a thing or two about Merylki and his last resting place.” She opened the door at the top of the landing to reveal an open-air rooftop patio ringed by a trellis crawling in ivy. A man in loose fitting overalls, his back to the opening door, swept at the patio deck with a long-handled, straw-bottom broom.

“He’s dead?” Bigby said, trying not to sound shocked. “I thought—”

“Last known resting place,” Felly corrected. “They say he’s bewitched and all. Some kind of haunt or spook. Been dead or kilt a dozen times or more, they say.”

“They do now, do they?” Bigby said, feigning disinterest.

Felly paused to regard the groundskeeper, then turned to Bigby, still holding his hand. “Now then, you can lay out your wares over yonder on that bench, and I can send this here feller to fetch your client, my boyfriend.”

Bigby and the groundskeeper both sounded in unison. “Boyfriend?”

Felly and Bigby looked to the groundskeeper as he faced them. The man with the broom wore a twisted grin like the cruel cut left by a vengeful knife, and Bigby saw trouble in his eyes.

“Whutchu doin’ here?” Felly said, mildly surprised, and cocked her body just so as she placed the back of her other hand on her hip.

“Cleanin’ house,” the broom man said.

Bigby stared at the man’s crooked grin and held his breath. Then someone kicked the patio door shut behind them.

Everyone on the patio looked up to see a pudgy, long-tongued brute covered in brown scales, leg a-dangling down from atop the stairwell’s roof against the closed door, and his two companions—one a wily looking young human and the other a barechested, ink-skinned half-elf, equal shares of sinister looks about them—lazing on the prowl.

“Cleaning? Shoot!” Felly said. “Get your sorry butts downstairs and fetch my beau!”

“Fetch fetches,” Crooked Grin said. “Boss keeps me around just for the kill.”

“There ain’t nothing here for you to kill,” Felly said matter-of-factly. “Now, git!”

Crooked looked at Bigby and sneered. “Who’s hand you holdin’, runt?”

Bigby looked at his own hand in Felly’s and tried to let go, but she held on.

“Don’t you go lookin’ at him, you jumpin’ fresh tumbleweed!” Felly leaned into her words. “D’you hear me! Go get, Rooter. I got a present for him.”

Crooked scoffed. “What, this?” he indicated Bigby with his broom. “What piece o’ tard he gonna give you for what, Felly Doll?”

“Just you nev-uh-mind,” she said saucily. “I’s gonna send him to Standing Elk when he’s a-finished.”

“Ho! Ain’t that right?” Crooked looked taken aback. “To do what?”

“He’s looking for somebody!” Felly said.

Bigby felt increasingly alarmed, and began to plot an escape route over the nearby trellis.

Crooked sensed the tension and reached out to grab Bigby by the shirt sleeve. “Who you looking for, stranger?”

Bigby jerked back, more in response to the stink of Crooked Grin’s breath, and felt his jaw tighten. “Why … you, good sir!” He gingerly opened the medicine case and slipped his fingers inside. “I have just the tonic for you! An oral treatment, really. If it serves to prove my claims to our lady here, I’d like you to test some!” Bigby finished with a wave of his hand as it emerged from the case and dashed a bottle of fizzy green liquid in the crook’s open mouth and eyes.

Crooked let out an awful yell as he reared back, dropped the broom, and clawed his face with one hand while reaching into his overalls with the other.

Felly yelped, too, surprised by Edgewater’s sudden move, and weakly leapt between them, flagging both hands, to halt any further aggression.

At their backs, Fat Snout and the other two hopped up ready to pounce.

Crooked was faster than anyone else, however, and ripped a knife from inside his clothes before plunging it blindly, aiming low at Bigby’s neck or face level, into the air ahead of him. Felly’s body verily moved into Crooked’s thrust as the knife buried itself into her loins. He growled triumphantly, and a choked gasp escaped her throat and her features strained.

Everyone except Crooked froze, and as he wiped his vision clear, blinking through a red haze, he, too, saw what he had done. Felly’s blood ran warm over his fist.

Bigby grimaced horribly, but bolted an instant later and scrambled up the trellis to his right after launching his now closed folding case over the side ahead of him.

Felly slumped to the floor with a quiet whimper, and Bigby looked back a second too long to watch her fall.

Fat Snout launched himself off the ledge above the stairwell and tackled Bigby bodily against the trellis, which promptly gave way and folded outward around the rooftop patio’s perimeter like a row of dominoes. The two of them rolled in each other arms, sliding along the rooftop’s tiled awning, as clay tiles spat loose from the weight and shattered on the ground two flights below. Streetside pedestrians gawked in stunned wonder at the fray.

Crooked’s other two henchmen lowered themselves down as Crooked himself stepped over to wrangle the dangling duo, slapping a bloody hand over Bigby’s gripping the rooftop’s edge.

“MURDERER!” Crooked Grin cried. He dragged Bigby to safety and held him in close. “We’ll get you to Standing Elk, murderer,” he spoke harshly into Bigby’s ear. “There ain’t nothing there to find what’s already been done! ‘Cept your bones come t'morrow mornin’!” Crooked turned to look at Tattoo. “Juice this rat!”

The half-elf produced a rusty syringe filled with a bluish liquid and jabbed it into Bigby’s arm before depressing the plunger.

Bigby’s mouth fell open as the patio swallowed him.

Future writer in the works…

"Gotta submit my manuscript!"

Soundtrack to Rogue Blood

Felt a stirring need to post the soundtrack that I listed to—dozens of times over, hundreds of hours worth—when I was writing my first full-sized novel (go nominate it now!), Rogue Blood. I can't help but think of scenes from the novel when I hear these tracks. Each one is significant of a feeling that dresses certain scenes from the book in the perfect tone. This list comes highly recommended as a companion piece of listening when reading the story.

Artist (Album) — Track Title

Apocalyptica (Cult) — "Path"
— "Struggle"
— "Romance"
— "In Memoriam"
— "Beyond Time"
— "Hope"
— "Kaamos"
Apocalyptica (Inquisition Symphony) — "Toreador"
Billy Joel (Greatest Hits: Volume 3) — "The Downeaster 'Alexa'"
Bon Iver (Bon Iver) — "Holocene"
Dead Can Dance (1981-1998 [Box Set]) — "Bylar"
Led Zeppelin (Mothership) — "When the Levee Breaks"
Ludovico Einaudi (Divenire) — "Fly"
Massive Attack (Blue Lines) — "Unfinished Sympathy"
Massive Attack (Danny the Dog) — "Polaroid Girl"
— "Danny the Dog"
— "I Am Home"
Massive Attack (Mezzanine) — "Angel"
— "Teardrop"
— "Inertia Creeps"
— "Dissolved Girl"
— "Man Next Door"
Massive Attack (Protection) — "Heat Miser"
Massive Attack (100th Window) — "Future Proof"
— "Everywhen"
— "Special Cases"
— "Butterfly Caught"
— "Antistar"
Moby (Everything Is Wrong) — "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters"
Moby (Play & Play: B Sides) — "Natural Blues"
— "Everloving"
Nine Inch Nails (The Fragile) — "Just Like You Imagined"
— "La Mer"
Nirvana (Nevermind) — "Something In The Way"
Orbital (In Sides) — "The Box (Part 2)"
Pixies (Wave of Mutilation) — "Where Is My Mind?"
The Smashing Pumpkins (Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness) — "To Forgive"
The Smiths (The Sound of the Smiths) — "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want"
Sneaker Pimps (Becoming X) — "6 Underground"
— "Becoming X"
— "Low Place Like Home"
Talvin Singh (Café del Mar, Vol. 6) — "Traveller (Kid Loco's Once Upon a Time in the East Mix)"

BGC:PSLGD.6

Ring in your New Year Pure Steam style!

"Dark Magic in the Root Cellar"

This sinister little tale I wrote can be found in Dreamless Roads - a fantasy anthology, a collection of wonderfully imaginative short stories by a group of talented writers that I am humbled to be a part of. You can find it at these vendors in different formats:

Amazon - paperback or Kindle

Barnes & Noble - both paperback and Nook editions

Have yourself a merry Pure Steam Halloween!

To see how, go here!

GenCon 2014: The Pure Steam™ Experience

Read here on how our team survived and even thrived during "The Four Best Days in Gaming"™.

BGC:PSLGD.4

Big … cups … logged? Four? Big cups logged for … what? Find out here!

Behind the Gear-spun Curtain: Races

Read on DMing.com/blog about two of the races we are developing for "Westward," the next RPG book project for the Pure Steam™ Campaign Setting.

Let me tell you a story about where the story is set…

A brief meditation on the Pure Steam™ Campaign Setting's setting and writing a world.

Tales of RPGs Past: Cray's lead-in

Picking up from where we left off last time, here's a lightly edited version of my character's lead-in as written by my old college Shadowrun GM, Mark Okuno. I really like how he picked up on the use of my characters and managed to present them in a way that makes me proud. Good on ya, Maruku-san!

RPG writing is fun and unique in that it's one of the only mediums in which you find the use of second-person narrative to be common. The "you" in this case refers synonymously to you, the player, and the character you're playing (i.e. the player character). Here's a good example:

“So, how come they love you so damn much?”

You look across the table at Arliss, as the twins get up, having warmed your lap for the last 20 minutes. You shrug and turn toward Tony who is looking over a black-colored dossier.

“It’s that stupid wig of yours,” Tony mumbles without bothering to look up. “And the eyes … definitely the eyes.” Tony flips through a number of pages.

“They don’t nearly seem so damn repugnant of you, and you ain’t that pretty neither, boy.” Arliss spits back, reaching up to adjust the wig. “It’s not like I don’t wash it now and then.…”

“Why even bother,” Tony continues without heed. “Just look at Red over here. Take that damn thing off. Flaunt it. Flash it.”

Red looks up from where he has been playing a game of round-the-clock solitaire. He reaches up to rub his polished scalp. Turning to face you, the immaculately dressed man pauses to look longingly at the dreadlock-like strands of hair hanging from your forehead. He sighs, then yawns, and resumes concentration upon his game.

“Yeah, well maybe I would if I didn’t have a number of HOLES in my noggin. It’s either this or a hat alright?” Arliss complains as he motions for another round of whatever brew he was drinking.

“How about a dog muzzle for the big one in the front of your face?” Tony looks up, setting the dossier down with his hand on top. “Just give up on those two. They don’t like you that much. What can you do?” Tony motions for a refill on his drink as well, seeing the serving girl pass by, and then the corporate man points a finger toward you. “Get my man here a pitcher of OJ. And ice.”

“So, how does it look?” Arliss asks the Italian as he gives you a once over.

“Cray here is the man for the job, no doubt. Looks like a little action is being put together for a hit on some museum. Extra muscle is what’s on the menu.” Tony looks over at you as well. “So how do you feel, Cray? That last scrap of yours took you out for a while. It’s been a couple of months.”

You look over at the seedy looking corporate man. “I’m fine.” Your guttural response comes out as a growl. “I feel even better.”

“Even your arm? Wasn’t it a compound fracture?” Arliss looks down and starts in surprise as he realizes that you are no longer wearing the cast.

You bend over, reaching down with a massive troll hand, gripping the edge of the table. To Arliss and Tony’s awe and surprise, you lift the cumbersome 50 kilo composite piece of metal and wood a full meter into the air, balancing it level as a board, all the while sitting down. Red grunts and stands up, continuing to flip cards onto the table.

“Holy shit, you’re a freak show.” Arliss whistles, drawing some attention from the nearby booths.

“I tell you, boy, he’s our man!” Tony laughs as he pounds his decker friend on the back. Red nods his head in agreement, eyes stuck to the cards.

“Well then,” Tony continues, “It looks like you’re ready alright. This one’s a private contractor, Cray, and for small timers like us, this is pretty big. This could be the one that puts Troika on the map.”

The serving girl returns with the drinks and Arliss grabs the pitcher of OJ, pouring it into your glass. As she leaves, Red quickly taps her on the ass, his hand immediately withdrawing back to his card game. The young girl turns around suspiciously, but can’t seem to figure out who violated her. Backing away slowly, she quickly turns and heads back toward the bar.

“It looks like a small group of people are being put together to jack something from a corporate owned museum in downtown Portland. This file doesn’t go into too much detail, but there’s gonna be a meet down at the pier on Tuesday night. Your name came up, Cray, as you’re one of the toughest sons of bitches to walk the Barrens, and they’re looking for some heavy duty bastard that can take a few hits.” He finishes, squaring you with a grin.

“Just tell me what I’m getting paid.” You bend over taking the glass of OJ as it disappears in your massive hand. Bringing it up to your mouth, you take a tiny sip as the glass immediately empties. With a sort of reproachful look, you stare at the glass and put it back down. Arliss immediately refills it for you.

“Well it says here that you’re gonna have to meet some guy named 'Scooter' on Tuesday night. You’re gonna have a little chat with him and some of the other goons they’re trying to recruit, and if all goes well, Troika will be wired five grand then, and 35 Gs after you’ve snatched the prize.”

You nod in acknowledgement. “So I still get thirty, right?”

“Yup, thirty percent’s your take on this one: that’s 12 Gs. So go down there, have a look see, and it’s your call on the spot. Just give me a call. We’ll be here.”

“Alright then.” You pick up the glass in your right hand, and the pitcher in your left. Five seconds later, both are empty.

“Remember, Tuesday night 9:30, pier 27. The man’s name is Scooter.” The three of them nod at you.

“Have fun!” Arliss laughs. Red flashes you a thumbs-up.

BGC:PSLGD

Wanna know what this stands for? Click here.

Give 'em the business!

Read here as Adam, our illustrious leader on the Pure Steam™ front, opines for the gaming masses on what it was like building our RPG company. (I'll be pulling the duties again next month.)

Tales of RPGs Past: "At the Founding of the Troika"

I played Shadowrun off and on years ago, and remember those times fondly whenever I think of staying up until dawn, read the word "flechette," or hear someone use the phrase "jack into" under any circumstances.

Here's the backstory to a Shadowrun character I dreamed up but never got the chance to really play out: a hulking street samurai by the name of Cray.

Arliss Freeman, a two-time convict out on parole for possession of illegal simsense, sat bolt-upright on the edge of his chair in the seedy pleasure den of a smoky pool hall in Seattle Downtown. The heroine-trembling hand of an emaciated girl, with long nail-painted fingers and bangles on her wrists, crept smoothly from Arliss’s knee to his groin and behind his belt from the supplicating position she held between his legs.

The joyfully terrified twenty-something gave a girlish chirp at the feminine touch.

“So,” an exasperated voice, accented with a touch of East Coast guido, spoke fast and sharp into Arliss’s ear. “When‘re you gonna scoot out from underneath that Gemini and sit back and have a drink wit' me?”

Eyes closed and head reclining, Arliss snapped out of pre-fantasy, as no flesh had met flesh yet, and jerked away from the table. With that, one of the Siamese twins gave the other a hurt look, receiving only indignation in return, and the two promptly slid out from underneath the table.

“Thas it,” Antonne “Fat Fingers” Feneli applauded, laying a buddy-buddy hand on Freeman’s shoulder. “Now we has ourself a tripartite…” he added looking to his right at a man everyone in the house knew only as “Red.”

Arliss turned his drawn dark-flecked face to Tony, meeting the corp bookie's hazel eyes with his own glazed white orbs. He straightened out his clothing and began to scratch and adjust an obvious curly wig that sat slightly lopsided on his large and oddly shaped head.

“You mean like a troika?” Arliss asked innocently.

“Yeah, like a troika. The Troika.” Tony smiled at Red under his greasy pate.

Red yawned. When he yawned, and Red did that a lot, his face would scrunch up like a prune and then smooth out again into that countenance of homicidal apathy everyone had come to expect him by. He wore a pressed navy blue suit with gray stripes and a carnelian flower pinned to his left breast. Red’s pristinely bald head was easily his best feature.

“I don’t think Red likes it very much,” Arliss observed.

“Eeh, he likes it,” Tony waved a dismissive hand in Red’s direction, then something caught his eye. Tony whip-slapped Arliss in the face and pointed, “Look! Number one‘s just arrived—shh, shh, don’ look, don’ look, shh—okay, wait—he’s sitting down. Yup, thas ‘im boys.” Business had begun.

Red gave Tony a doubtful glare from the corners of his eyes but said nothing. He rarely did.

“Now, this here catch is a fine specimen of grade-A ork meat. Might be jus’ the kind of muscle we need to square our little network, see. The group, ah, I mean, The Troika—”

“So wait,” Arliss interrupted. “That’s what we’re calling it now?”

Tony flinched. “Of course, now listen. This fella’s name is Warren, alright? I mean that’s some serious drek! If’n you got a break-legs man, I mean ork, runnin’ around with a name like Warren, you’ve got to be some kind of badass to have his kind of rep. Look at the guy!”

“Okaaay…” Arliss, ever the contrarian, glanced back at the door. “Tone, hey, look. What about this ton-o-fun strollin’ in now?”

Tony peered over at the door while playing that he was checking out the two blonde elves in the adjacent booth.

He blanched. “Ugh, that cologne-wreck of a dwarf named Fuller. Sheesh, Arls, thas it man! You tryin’ to earn yourself an early grave? I heared he’s all mixed up in something and I don’t wanna find out what! What is with you and riggers anyway, huh? No way, man. Frag that. No way.”

Arliss shrugged.

Red tapped a single index finger against the synthwood of the table’s underside. This immediately got the attention of both his partners as they all watched the floor for some kind of development.

In walked a troll. The thing had to be seven feet. All length of bone and odd grace, he strode through the door with a purpose and scanned the pool hall denizens with a single turn of his stringy, dark red mane. He halted at one of the nearby tables and stood over it like he was looking for somebody, then turned away a moment later.

Tony watched with his mouth ajar. “I think I know about this one fellas—count him as number two, forgiving Arls’ mistake earlier,” he finished a little breathless.

Arliss scratched his wig again, transfixed.

“This’un, my brothers Troika, used to go nights in a pit fighting circuit somewhere in the Redmund Barrens. Think ‘e’s name is Crayon, er, Crayfish, something like that. Had a pretty nasty streak goin’ till some joker threw powder phosphorous into ‘is eyes, blinded him permanently like, too, so they say.”

Red grunted. The way he did it meant go on. Arliss just nodded.

Tony grinned, “Say he went east after that, joined some kind of UCAS military unit, but that story changes all the time. Others agree this mother just off’n jumped in the ocean, took passage on some frigate up to Alaska or even Japan—dunno for certain. Anyways, all stories say he learned how to shoot and handle guns real good either way. That ain’t the strangest of it, though.”

Tony waited to make sure he still had his partners’ attention.

“Stories say,” he continued, dropping to a whisper, “that somewhere along the line, Cray got messed up by some kind of magic. A magician or a dragon in the shape of a man, who knows? Made him real jumpy see, when something bad’s going down.

Jus’ look at the way he enters a room, all quiet and imposin’ at the same time. S’like he can do it and make only those people he wants to get the attention—notice him, ya know what I mean?” Tony paused, realizing the weight of that statement. “Talks to ghosts maybe, or … well, is one.”

Arliss whirled on Tony and gave him the most incredulous stare that someone with cyber eyes could manage. Tony put his hands up in front of his body and shook his head. Ignoring the other two, Red’s expression strained as his head motioned in micro palsies, indicating something away from the table.

A sucked in breath later, the troll stood over the Troika’s table from where three pairs of eyes had been goggling him earlier. He grinned sharpened teeth behind a forest of dangling bangs, and leaned down to rest his hands wide on the table as an unsettling, wet-clicking noise came from somewhere in his throat.

“Do we have business?” Cray hissed.

Arliss, Tony, and Red all looked at each other in silent agreement.

Red curtly stood and extended a hand to his seat for the troll, offering him the only needed interview with the newly founded Troika.

Tales of RPGs Past: "A Tenday in the Care of Berrani"

Here's a bonus piece I wrote after Shaba's initial backstory to help flesh out some other aspects of his character. (This takes place after Shaba met Samhein but before the latter gave him the kyte.)

During one such foray into the dust-choked caves and jagged ravines that abut the World Beyond, Shaba went alone, following one of the trails that Samhein had shown him. Not long into this misguided adventure did Shaba sense the presence of something stalking him in the dark—a predatory beast on the prowl, a desert tiger perhaps, or was it merely a shadow? When the thing moved so too did Shaba, stumbling over crags and trampling down coarse scrub underfoot. So wild was Shaba’s escape that he lost his footing and fell down a long slope, coming to rest only when blackness found him.

When he came to, a massive mustachioed man stood over him, helping him to his feet. Strangers surrounded Shaba, each of the outlanders drawn up in fancy leathers and plate armor. The large man introduced himself as Sir Claude Roancoat (LG male human Msl 3/Pal 6 of Torm, age 37), a boldblade in the service of the Forest Kingdom. Shaba looked at each of their faces. He had never seen such a gathering of people before. There was a slight female, with pointy ears—an elf, Shaba thought—who wore twigs in her hair and smelled of tree bark, and one who stood half as tall as the man, closer to a D’tarig in stature, wearing a smile and carrying a lute decorated with imprints of bare feet. But it was the ugly one, a snaggletoothed half-orc, proudly wearing a pearly breastplate and a shield devoted to the Lord of Battles, who gave Shaba the leery eye. Samhein had spoken about such people before—“adventurers” he called them. They invited Shaba to sup with them while he recovered, and unwilling to accept hospitality without giving something in return, Shaba agreed so long as they would trade with him. It was through these interactions that Shaba acquired a finely crafted but rustic looking dagger with a cruel edge, much akin to his liking.

As the night wore on, Shaba learned that Roancoat’s company was intent on finding the ancient city of Rasilith, lost as it was in the concealing sands of Anauroch, the Great Desert. Trouble had arisen in a place called the Stonelands, and it fell to the adventurers to track the source of that trouble back to where they believed it had come. Shaba knew that Rasilith was said to stand in a region of the Great Desert known as the Quarter of Emptiness, a more desolate and lifeless place that did not exist anywhere else. It was not a place to be sought. But the smallman was confident, singing songs of yore and playing his lute to rally his friends’ convictions. The smallman also claimed to know much about Shaba, telling his friends that the D’tarig was a fortunate find and that he could help them in finding their destination. The druid seemed open to the idea, stating that her powers were more attuned to the woods than the sandy plain. But the half-orc, with the leery eye, was doubtful, warning his friends against trusting “One Who Lives Under Shadow.” Roancoat calmed them, and bid them to rest on it for the evening.

Meanwhile, Shaba’s mind was racing. The strangers had been kind to him, on the whole, and he felt he should repay them. He would draw them a map while they slept and leave to rejoin Biradoon by sunup. Alas, the strangers were always wary of him, though he felt he gave them no reason to be. It was the half-orc that proved to be his greatest foe, tricking Shaba into thinking he was asleep before catching Shaba as he tried to sneak away. Shaba whirled on the half-orc with his new dagger, believing the shadow that had stalked him when he fell had returned. The brief skirmish awoke the rest of the camp, and Shaba was quickly captured. Unable to properly communicate his stance, mostly by the half-orc’s bullying, Roancoat decided that the D’tarig was likely a spy attempting to return to the desert to warn his masters. This was something they couldn’t chance. Thus, Roancoat held Shaba hostage, though treated him well, as they moved on.

Days past, and Shaba grew to appreciate the company of the smallman, trading stories of the Zhentarim’s conquest of the desert and teaching Shaba how to read the stars. Roancoat fed and sheltered Shaba, always trying to cajole some new bit of information about the desert from the D’tarig, but forced to settle on half-truths and hearsay. Shaba would often find discussions of ultimate good and evil interesting—which is to say confusing—and would often question Roancoat’s proclamations of good deeds that ever seemed invisible to the near future. Shaba entertained his captors by flying his kite, and getting them to reveal more about the lands outside of Anauroch. Practicality—he was making use of the situation however he could, giving the adventurers only what they deserved in light of his predicament. Beshaba had repayed him for his hyper-curiosity, or was Shaundakul rewarding him for his adventurous spirit?

Finally, the day came when the adventurers were ready to enter the desert. Shaba’s usefulness to them was at an end, and so too, it would turn out, was their usefulness at an end for Shaba. They had taken care of him, had led him into no harm, but had kept him from his appointed place for longer than he needed. For this he would help them, to a point. Shaba would give them the map he had created, a map that remained incomplete since the night he had been captured. The map indicated a safe route through Desertsedge to the rim of the Quarter of Emptiness, but from there it ended. With a few finishing touches, directional indicators and warnings, Shaba’s map would appear to lead them directly to Rasilith, when in truth it would only take them part of the way, and perhaps even get them lost because of it. Thus, he would be repaying his captors for delaying his return to Biradoon by delaying their discovery of Rasilith. Indeed, Beshaba provides!

This time, back in Biradoon, it was Shaba who had a story for Samhein.