Archive | December 2020

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The Bellamy, Chapter 26

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It only took Amanana a moment to recover from the surprise Veronika had given her.

“Time travel.”  She chuckled, although it was a bit weak.  Then she nodded her head slowly, as if in acknowledgement. “Indeed.  You’re more clever than I thought, and that is definitely saying something.  You’re quite good.”

“The clues are all spelled out in the testing, though,” Veronika protested. “I was supposed to figure it out, wasn’t I?” Continue reading

Purchase Negotiation 50: Evil Stepmonster?

First: Purchased: Negotiation

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“A very attack dog,” Sylviane commented, as her hands brushed over Leander’s horns. She was exploring his Change more kindly, more gently than he could ever remember anyone doing before. But.

He chuckled, shifted a bit. He liked the way she touched him. Something about the way she said attack… “Your dog,” he clarified. “Your hound.”

“Mmm. My Leander,” she murmured softly. She wrapped her arms around him, pressed a kiss to his forehead, kissed the edge of one of his ears. “Thank you.”

“Thank… why?” He blinked at her in bafflement.

“Because I can see why – I can see why you might not want to show me this. So thank you. I know you didn’t have to.”

She closed her eyes. Leander wanted to make a comment about how, if she wanted to see him, she should look, but he stayed quiet.

When she opened her eyes, it was as if she had opened his eyes, too. Continue reading

Beauty-Beast 45: Unknown Knowns

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We have a couple chapters of Beauty-Beast thanks to Anke’s commission!  Welcome back to Ctirad and Timaios et al!

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Ctirad was struggling to stay awake. 

Although Timaios had said that’s what we’re here about, it had been almost forty minutes, and they – mostly Sara and Timaios, with Signy putting in on occasion and, more rarely, Ctirad having something he felt was useful to say or, slightly more commonly, Timaios asking him a question – still hadn’t gotten to doing something about Ermenrich.

He was daydreaming while they talked about mergers and acquisitions, contemplating what he would do if he had Ermenrich under his collar. He had gotten as far as ordering the asshole to never speak again when Timaios brushed his hand over his hair, bringing his attention back to the conversation. 

“I’m sorry.”  Ctirad looked up at his Owner.  “What was that?” Continue reading

Saving the Cult (if not the World), Chapter Thirty-Four

Saving the Cult (If not the World) "It's time." Manfield Lee knew he was good at sounding authoritative even when he didn't know what he was talking about - he'd turned a fortune into a megafortune doing just that, after all, not to mention running the Organization - but right now, he DID know what he was talking about. After all, it was just a date, wasn't it? And if the date turned out to be wrong, well, then he knew exactly what to blame it on, and that blame would fall on the scholars and the psychics, not on him. The other thing Manfield Lee knew how to do was to place the blame in very specific ways that were not him.

Officer Dean looked as if she hadn’t slept. “The power plant isn’t saying a damn thing.  We asked them every way we could, we got a warrant, we have all the lawyers on it, they’re not saying anything. They’d rather risk the city being melted than admit culpability.”  She huffed, but there was no heat in it. “We cleared a path for you and your — your bus.  So tell the driver to go as fast as he feels as safe, just follow the flare line.”

While Lina, Jackson, and her father collected this information, Dylan and Ethan were herding those of Lina’s “volunteers” who’d returned — almost all of them, she thought.

“God,” she whispered.  “All these people, Jackson.” Continue reading

The Pencatte Choose Your Own Adventure Story to Far

You’re standing at the edge of the Pencatte Catacombs park, the part where the nicely-curated and protected catacombs are fenced off from the real catacombs, the deep tunnels hiding deeper magic that run under most of Pencatte.

Your group of friends has a tradition of Halloween dares, and this year, all your past dares have come back to bite you.

You’re going to go into the catacombs. Your friends are cheering you on, jeering you on, but they’re not coming with you.

It’s just you, these bolt cutters, and the darkness.

You slip through the gate, flip your friends off, and walk into the dark.

The sounds of your friends fade fast, too fast. The tunnel slants slightly downwards; you’re in a rough section, where the walls are braced but there’s no brickwork or other decoration.

The rational part of you says this is why the park part ends here – the park catacombs are not just cleaned and sanitized, all the bones gone, they’re pretty. Lots of carvings and fancy metal work and mosaics.

This part is just a tunnel.

The rest of your mind has other opinions.

This tunnel, everyone says, this is where the ghosts come out, and the gate isn’t just to keep explorers like you out, it’s to keep the ghosts in.

You feel a breeze from down and to your left. You can’t hear anything at all. Your flashlight plays over the tunnel, and in front of you it splits: stairs downward to the left. A slow angle continuing slower downward to your right.

You’ve gone in.

You could turn around now.

Of course, your friends would know it was barely filling the dare. Also, this would be a very short story.

But you could turn around now.

Or you could keep going. Left, where the breeze is, or right, where you’re not that far underground? Continue reading

The Bellamy, Chapter 25

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After that, Veronika and Amanana talked about far less important matters. They discussed the artifacts that had recently come into Supernatural and the Occult, and Amanana talked about her time at the front desk. They chatted about the Fillion and people they both knew from there, and the very annoying Brain Display they had both been disappointed by in their own time – “I mean, there were brains, yes, but I expected it to be somehow – well, more” – and about the Live Acquisitions room.

“Are there – I mean – well, I mean-” Continue reading