Gemma took the Egress, which apparently belonged to Pallida, but before she did, we took a few crates full of stuff out of it. “These are good times for renacim. We weathered the storm of the Second Empire far better than most,” she said as I helped her haul the crates up the hill to […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 126: Ever Onward
“I don’t really understand the distinction,” said Tiff. “The DM controls all of the characters.” “DMPC is Dungeon Master Player Character ,” said Arthur, putting emphasis on the last two words. “It’s true that the DM controls all the characters, but the DMPC occupies a role as a player character in a way that NPCs […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 125: The Remnants of the Past
Pallida showed up with Heshnel and Gemma right around dawn, the earliest that they could have come and still claimed to have waited a day like we’d wanted them to. Their metallic bean-ship came down in a field half a mile from Bethel, and I walked down the path a bit to go say hello. […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 124: Fight Club
“I wanted to talk about,” I began, before Amaryllis raised a hand. “Ten minutes,” she said. She’d led me to the room we’d been using as a time chamber, and had a brief conversation with Bethel along the way. Bethel understood the purpose of us going off together like this was so we could get […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 123: Medieval Stasis
“So what, precisely, will happen if we start shipping out televisions?” asked Amaryllis. She was pissed off, for a number of reasons. She was pissed off at Bethel, naturally, for both the foul play and the break in communication, especially against someone who was probably an ally. She was pissed off at me, for taking […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 122: Raven
I opened Bethel’s front door slowly and looked out at Raven with a raised eyebrow. She was dressed in black from head to toe, a concealing outfit that went so far as to keep her neck covered. Her hair was the same way Maddie had usually worn hers, bangs cut to just above her eyes, […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 121: Maddie
There wasn’t much to say about Maddie. She was Craig’s shadow, as much as he would let her be, which meant that I’d known her about as long as I’d known him. On the rare occasions that I would go over to their house, she would bring chips or drinks for us while we played […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 120: Deceptions
“No,” said Arthur. “I’m saying it’s a numbers game, and only once you know the numbers can you play the game.” I slid into the booth next to Tiff with my food. Ruttles’ had a burger bar, full of fixin’s, and whenever we ate there, I always spent a lot of time making sure that […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 119: Depths
I spent some time staring at her body, her corpse, the flesh that had contained her but now did not. It felt like the weight of her death settled on my shoulders and then stayed there, pressing me into place. It probably wasn’t all that long, since Amaryllis moved over to Fenn and pointed the […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 118: Breaking Loose
We left Bethel behind again. She and Amaryllis got in a fight about it, or at least as much of a fight as Amaryllis usually got into, which amounted to speaking a little more passionately and quickly than was necessary. The problem was, Bethel didn’t wholly care about us. The idea of being a mobile […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 117: Beast of Burden
I got some awkward looks when I came into the common room. Everyone was seated around the large center table except for Valencia and myself. We didn’t have assigned seats, except for Grak and Solace, who needed special chairs to make it less awkward to sit at the table, but we did have places we […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 116: Therapy
It was always the lulls that I treasured most. “Okay,” I said to Fenn as the train rumbled along the Lion’s Mane. I reached into the backpack, visualized what I wanted, and pulled out a candy in an orange wrapper. “This is a Reese’s.” “Are we going to be sick from all the sugar?” asked […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 115: Communicative
I talked for what felt like hours, with relatively few interruptions. There were a fair number of things that I had to leave out, and a fair number of things that didn’t make sense because I had to leave parts out. I didn’t want to tell them about the teleportation key, but without explaining that, […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 114: The Meeting of Minds
The interior of the fort was bigger than the exterior, which was readily apparent once we were through the front entryway and looking down the great hall. Two long tables made of a pale wood looked like they probably sat a hundred people between them, though both were empty. A huge fireplace took up most […]
Worth the Candle, Ch 113: A Hell of a Time
There were sometimes little things about Aerb that bothered me, usually because there wasn’t any obvious reason why something should be the case. Early on, I had just rolled with most of it, more concerned with survival than asking the little questions that had popped into my head, or more focused on the big existential […]