‘W’ is for ‘Armed Conflict,’ or, ‘Escalating Hostilities,’ or, ‘Police Action.’

‘W’ is for ‘Armed Conflict,’ or, ‘Escalating Hostilities,’ or, ‘Police Action,’ or... what's the word...?

First he heard them. They were late, two hours since dawn, before crawling out of their holes, camps all hidden under the palm canopies, all out of sight. Three days of failed attempts to siege his position and their smartest decision had been to sleep where his crew couldn’t see them. The humans came groaning, and rustling over brush they couldn’t name, and scratching at infections they’d never seen, and hid. Hees heard them hide in the great walls of foliage below his hill, and glanced three eyes down into their pocket of the valley, at the lip of the only slope leading up the only high ground for a quarter of a league. It was a bump in the terrain compared to the canyon walls east and west, but it was the only foothold available if your empire wanted to siege across to the Uncanny Valley’s western cliffs.

Hees remained at the precipice, flies crawling through his hair and ears, and raised up the sauropod leg that ought to have been his breakfast. It sweated more than he did, and he smeared it across the trees around him, painting their bark with gore. So did Matou and Yaw’s crews, and Alpee and Hamam, even though they’d been up the entire night butchering. Further up they burned pyres of the stuff, dispersing a stench unbearable even with gum stuffed in his nostrils, and he glanced between all the panting and painting triclopes, then up to the southern sky. Only the faintest hint of smoke over the pissavas, and no rumbling yet. Doa was a day late.

Ten, then fifteen, then eighteen green and yellow uniforms in the basin below, their petty two-eyed lives leading them to believe they were hidden amid tall brush. The Empire’s soldiers wore trousers and sleeves, not at all suitable to this boiling climate. Yet they judged Hees and his crew as savages for painting the trees with carrion in their underwear. He heard them. They had the same number of ears as Hees and yet seemed to think he couldn’t hear them.

“Superstitious…”

“What is that smell?”

“I can hit that one.”

And the creak of a bowstring. Two bow-strings amid the leaves, distinct while attempting harmony. He prayed south for Doa to hurry, and for the smoke to hasten.

He jerked the stump of leg up and caught the arrows with two wet thucks. Then the foliage below parted, from the ground to the canopies, and his three eyes drowned in hundreds of humans. They unleashed a swarm of gilded arrows, glittering as they sailed up the slope. Hees rolled inland, but Yaw was struck in the shoulder, and their crews cried, and everyone reeled from the slope, leaving access bare. Into that nudity rushed flanks of humans behind tower shields, beating rhythms with spears, beneath the watch of their archers in the trees above.

Hees fell to the pens, but husky Alpee was already there, yanking an arrow from the wood and drawing its head to slash the bonds. Hees yanked open the cage and hollered inward, two heavy hoots, and their theropods spilled out. Three days of siege and they knew where they were allowed to feast. Twice as long as he was tall and tails erect behind them, swaying and sibilating, snapping their fangs. He spanked one in the hindquarters and snatched its head-crest, riding along its side back to the cusp of their ridge. The monolophosaurs didn’t care about archers, and they considered tower shields good landing spots. Hees had to release as his steed leapt off the ridge and on top of three humans, craning its jaws over their crumpling shields to gnash at them.

"Monolophosaurus" by Michael Skepnick

The monolophosaurs didn’t care about archers, but they felt pain, and they soon shrieked with it. The ground palpitated as the Empire’s specialized archers peeled through, spitting lightning up the hill. Three days their wizard snipers had finally arrived. All Hees could do was swing his sauropod arm and hurl it over the ledge, smashing one of the bastards in the face and painting him with gore.

The throw earned his perch a blast from their snipers, and the ground beneath his feet exploded. Alpee’s crew had to catch him, and two looked in his eyes, and he blinked assurance that he was alive, and they dumped him in the ferns. Good men and women, one and all.

His triclopes went to the ledge with javelins, and loosed the trebuchets, made from trees and launching stumps. He felt their impacts in his guts, a satisfying alternative to breakfast, until one half-fossilized stump froze still in the air. Then another, and a third, an insult to all triclopes, as those wizard snipers caught projectiles. In the next instant, they reversed and plummeted into the ranks of triclopes.

He inhaled in shock, and the stench of carrion painted everywhere made him retch. He must have wretched south, for several strings of smoke greeted his watering eyes, thick in the nearground.

“About time,” he muttered, rubbing a fist to his lips. A three-eyed banner waved briefly above the pissavas before it was ditched, and its triclopic owner ran for his life from his cattle. Doa. Three days was long for her to find and goad automatons into chasing her crew, but this close, autos would stay for the smell of biologicals.

Hees backed from the slopes, tugging at anyone near him, and hollering for them to fall back. The first Auto Drones punched through the tree-line, perfect spheres of rust and steel, smoke billowing their asses. They rolled at him, but he had high ground, and so they rolled at the Empire of Gold and Jade first. Wizard snipers sprayed them with lightning, and some drones stuttered, but were immediately climbed over by their kin. Dozens climbing upon dozens, fiery ports opening in their hulls, sucking in spears and arms and bodies.

Some Auto Drones ignored the feast of humans, spiraling spherical bodies up the slope and heading immediately for his fragrant high ground. They’d probably never smelled anything so appealing, and he left it to them. Already the jungle trembled for the crane arms of greater automatons, Mammoths and worse tearing near, who would soon impregnate this entire league of the Uncanny Valley. No one was going to be able to cross it. What a shame. He saluted to the scurrying humans before departing to find and congratulate Doa.

'V' is for 'Vampires,' their dynasty and apocalypse.

'V' is for 'vampires,' that mildly evolved undead. An executive zombie, really. According exclusively to one series of accounts from the annals of the triclopes, this strain emerged shortly after an apocalypse of meteors wiped out all dinosaurs and most plant life. The skies were blotted out by seemingly eternal clouds of ash, which were the perfect circumstances for vampires to give living a shot.

A vampire's best friend.

So you knock off most of the sauropods, and most of the giant plants. That left the mammals in control, which is when vampirism really took off. The World of Night, where rats and fanged birds carried the plague across the entire continent. Tribes of infected centaurs and humans laid waste to any straggling healthy civilizations.

It was vampirism like the world has never known since. There were so many that they were forced to hold each other back and let blooded critters breed. They farmed people, region by region. The imps and centaurs still live where vampires stuck them, claiming ancestral birthright, even though that birthright was a nightmarish pen. The wars of that period were of impatient vampires against cultured ones, killing each other over the expiration dates of mammals. And then there was the apex predator.There’s the legend – the awesome legend – of the infected tyrannosaur rampaging the south coast. It never spread the disease because it just ate anything it came across – centaurs, dorads, anything. Your people hid in a cave? Then a bat flutters in, and before you realize it, the bat turns into a vampire tyrannosaur and he’s eaten your entire tribe. I love that people believe it’s still skulking in the volcanoes of the south. I don’t even care if it’s real. Who doesn’t want to believe in a vampire tyrannosaur, blending in with lava mist or drinking sharks at the bottom of the sea?

Surprisingly unsafe from inventive vampires.

If it’s still swimming around, it’s almost all that survived. Because under the torrents of dust, they were unbeatable kings and queens, spreading their disease at will and treating the planet as a buffet. Then the planet closed for business by clearing its atmosphere. It was the first morning in nine hundred years. The sun crawled across this continent, frying skinny-dipping biters, their ranchers and warlords, some fleeing in the forms of bats or wolves, though still more standing slack-jawed in awe. They’d thought the sun was a fairytale.

Funny that they all turned to fairy dust. I hear faeries eat vampire bones, and pay handsomely if you can find some.

Hands-down, the best apocalypse. It was just a sunrise. A little twinkling of a nearby star, checking to see how we were doing and eradicating most of the undead in existence. If only it was that easy to get rid of tentacle monsters.

'U' is for 'The Uncanny Valley.' You probably saw this coming.

‘U’ is for ‘Uncanny Valley,’ something you’ve doubtless heard of by now. The Uncanny Valley is a titanic canyon dividing the continent, running from the north-edge of the ocean and splitting into three smaller valleys at the most southernly border. It is so vast that it is the only thing that has prevented The Empire of Gold and Jade from colonizing The Frontier in the west.

The Uncanny Valley sports several unique features. Its basins are notoriously warm, supporting multiple broad jungles that themselves are home to most of the world’s deluxe-class sauropods like brachisaurs and tyrannosaurs. The northern region is the exclusive home of gryphons, and the world’s only manticores live in its southern region. These large biological creatures have also attracted most of the world’s remaining automatons, holdovers from the Gremlin Age, who hunt sauropods and manticores alike. In addition to its vastness, these dangerous inhabitants make it still harder to cross. There are families of triclopes who advertise their ability to help you cross, though it is some of the most hazardous work in the world.

A unique geological feature, The Uncanny Valley is believed the result of an apocalyptic quake that split the continent, but it predates any written history. It has famed depths, creases and cracks in its basin allegedly running deep into the core of the planet, or to the origin of the World-Ocean. He first succubae were discovered slumbering deep within its crevices, along with structures like underground temples that also predate any doradic or impish culture. Optimists believe answers to the world’s apocalyptic cycle could be down there. Pessimists think succubae are the beginning of the awful things you’d be better off leaving alone down there.

Though a wonder of the world, most cultures stay away from The Uncanny Valley. Its wildlife is too dangerous to approach unless you’re deliberately rustling sauropods or farming gryphon feathers for all-chemistry. The Empire of Gold and Jade have plans to build a bridge across its gap, yet no structure of such a size has been erected for the entirety of the Human Age. Humanists consider that a good reason to build one.

UPDATE: This addition is for Larry Kollar, who in a previous post asked why the Uncanny Valley doesn't flood. After all, if it's a canyon stretching from ocean to ocean, it ought to be wetter than it is. I meant to be ambiguous about this, but not so ambiguous as to not answer it at all. The Empire of Gold and Jade has charted the southern end on the Uncanny Valley, which terminates in a half-frozen ocean, and found it mildly above sea level, and usually quite waterlogged, if not lake- or river-logged. Their attempts for expansion in the south have mostly been ocean-based with their fledgling fleet. However the northern edge has never been charted, in part due to the extremely hot climate, and in part due to the high population of gryphons. Human eyes may never have laid upon the northern opening of the Uncanny Valley - something my fiction is going to go into, and which makes a little mum about.

'T' is for 'Timeline,' dedicated to Richard Bon.

‘T’ is for ‘Timeline.’ Richard Bon asked for a comprehensive timeline of my fictional world, and while I don’t want to spoil everything, I am willing to lay out a thousand years for T-day. I hope he enjoys it!

0 Years – The undetermined baseline of modern history. Many cultures and apocalypses are believed to have existed before this period, but are not widely recorded or recognized. Triclopes, Nine-Legs and Centaurs had something going on around this point. Much less afterward.

~1 Year - Apocalypse of Sauropods

-Sauropods, theropods and winged creatures, thought to be long-extinct, return in enormous numbers; reappearance unexplained.

-Cities trampled, ancient diseases reintroduced, various civilizations collapse.

~10 Years – Lands both east and west of The Uncanny Valleys become grazing land and hunting grounds for dinosaurs. Anyone who wants a civilization better be discrete.

~150 Years – Gremlins amass enough technology to erect anti-sauropod strongholds and safe zones. Progress begins.

~250 Years - Apocalypse of Gremlins

-Gremlins launch flying cities that sauropods cannot touch.

-Lightning cannons used to police populations of sapient creatures; immediately regulate what technology other species may have. Show favoritism to submissive tribes of triclopes.

~280 Years – Gremlins “adopt” triclopes as laborers.

~315 Years – Gremlins “adopt” imps as pets; begin breeding them like show-dogs.

~350 Years – Gremlins perfect automaton technology; relations with triclopes terminated.

-Automatons begin work in construction, maintenance, medicine.

~400 Years – Triclopes return to ancestral territory in northern Uncanny Valley. Seem to be building strongholds as though not trusting this to last.

~550 Years - Apocalypse of Autos

-Gremlin technology turns against them; all flying cities crash, explode; gremlins go extinct.

-Gremlin technology ‘automatons’ hunt and consume all living things. Motives unknown.

-Imps escape extinction; seek refuge in far west; establish underground cities with dorads and humans.

~580 Years - Automatons have tough time with sauropods, gryphons, cyclopes; feuds begin; automatons amass more greatly near Uncanny Valley, entrenched in warfare they’re not programmed to recognize they’re engulfed in.

-Every other life form still relatively screwed; nomadic cultures reign.

~650 Years – First rumblings of an “Imp Empire” far out west.

~750 Years - Apocalypse of The Shock

-Continental electrical storm fries majority of automatons; divine intervention?

-Imps claim responsibility for The Shock; “befriend”/”enslave” humans for labor in expanding a magic-based empire.

~770 Years - Imps formally establish empire in the far west, based on magic and manipulation of elements; magically-enhanced agriculture becomes food source for many cultures.

~820 Years - Impish empire flourishes throughout regions west of The Uncanny Valleys. Dissidents flee east.

~900 Years - Imps undertake great project to “wake their ancestors” for next great age.

~920 Years – Triclopic scholars uncover imp fraud; imps did not cause The Shock; minor war breaks out between triclopic tribes and imps.

~930 Years – Triclopes, Centaurs, Satyrs have minor land-wars with imps over ‘sacrifices’; humans begin to flee enslavement in favor of tribes in the east.

~980 Years - Apocalypse of Demons

-Imps’ ancestors, The Demons, awake and set planet on fire.

-Half of the world’s imp population dies; millions from others species perish.

-Beginning of a pan-species war against Demons, sweeping eastward.

~981 Years – The Human Age

-Golden Emperor and Jade Empress, both humans, unite their tribes, use all-chemistry and golems to stop tide of Demons.

-Humans now most populace species in the east; Golden Emperor and Jade Empress establish a proper empire. The Human Age begins.

~1000 Years – Massive campaign undertaken to document world history undertaken by humans. Other focuses applied to all-chemistry and agriculture.

~1010 Years – All non-human species begin to flee the east; Empire of Gold and Jade provides some groups with treaties to keep land in ‘The Frontier,’ lands west of The Uncanny Valleys, or to serve as second-class citizens domestically. Religion is outlawed. Mass exodus of Red Brigadiers.

~1160 Years – Large number of golems attempt to rebel against The Empire of Gold and Jade; are defeated and destroyed. According to government records, there are no casualties. Viewed as first apocalypse to be stopped by a ruling empire.

~1190 Years – The Empire of Gold and Jade begins to move west of Uncanny Valleys; claims to need land for expansion. Triclopes and Red Brigadiers declare formal war against them.

~1200 Years – Massive famine that government records as having no deaths. Thwarted by all-chemical agriculture. Recorded as second apocalypse averted by the standing empire.

~1260 Years – Present. Things are going great, according to government records.

'S' is for 'Sauropods.'

‘S’ is for ‘sauropods,’ the great beasts of burden in The Frontier. They were considered either extinct or purely mythological for much of pre-history, until that one apocalypse where millions of them returned from the dead. Where exactly they’d gone or how they’d returned is still a mystery, the very answers trampled beneath their titanic feet. And while they wiped out a few minor civilizations with their come-back, they’re generally easy to cohabitate with today.

‘Sauropod’ is a wildly misunderstood word that is often used to refer to all dinosaurs and anything dinosaur-like. Even dactyls, which have more in common with giant birds than anything, are referred to by the name.

"No, you tell her she's not a sauropod."

The most famous strain are deluxe-class sauropods. Convoys moving between city-states will often purchase brachiosaurs, using their sheer size to scare off raiders. Ankylosaurs, too, are favored by impish convoys, as their tails double as defensive weapons in skirmishes. And though not technically “sauropods,” would-be heroes have been trying to saddle tyrannosaurs for a thousand years. No one’s made it work, but the first one to succeed is going to be famous, and probably win their first war by intimidation alone.

Sauropods are generally misunderstood by those who don’t directly deal with them. Often theropods are lumped in with them, and because of the fame of brachiosaur and hadrosaur pods, they have a reputation for gigantism. In fact most sauropods and theropods are smaller than humans; compsognathus is so insignificant that, even though numerous, it is considered a common pest or food source in much of The Red Crescent. Most cultures are plentifully exposed to sauropods and ought to know they range wildly in size, but they simply don’t care. They only care when they’re being attacked by them, or betting on the hadrosaur races up north.

My Foot Stopped Working: Nothing I Can Do, and, The End of Blogging

The worst is over. Not the A-to-Z Challenge - that's been fun - but the worst of the lung infection. Three times this week I was able to walk downstairs and make myself lunch. Whine about ablism all you want, but I do not handle immobility well. It's my big emotional vulnerability, especially when my body is so taxed that it can't move anymore, while my nerves as so shot that they're begging me to adjust for relief that can't come. I'd say I was a proper mess this time last week.

It got so grim that my neuropathy became unimportant. The loss of feeling hasn't progressed beyond the previous level in my feet for about two months, and there's been no suspicious loss of motor control. After one last set of tests and fruitless meeting with a neurologist, I've given up. Unless I get another sign on the neuropathic front, this is just something I'm going to deal with. In the scope of my medical life, numbness isn't scary. And while the last set of tests were utterly useless, I did get this funny and racially insensitive label from the hospital paperwork:

In case you were wondering: I'm officially not Hispanic.

The A-to-Z Challenge and my recent illnesses have also led me to question my posting habits. I've posted daily for several years now, and this month's theme hasn't done anything unusual to me, other than demand more of my time. As I prepare the next slate of submissions for magazines and agents, that time feels like it's dwindling, especially on those days when I haven't had the strength to lift head from pillow.

So, beloved readers, how would you feel if The Bathroom Monologues finally ceased daily publication? The new routine would remain consistent. I'm thinking of running a Friday Flash every Friday, and something non-fiction every Monday. Twice a week feels more manageable, though it's not set in stone. I'm seriously curious for what readers think about this, and what they want from the blog.

So: what do you want from The Bathroom Monologues?

'R' is for 'The Red Brigade.'

'R' is for 'The Red Brigade.'

The Red Brigade is the dominant sect of a disorganized religion worshiping five absent gods: The Bold, The Wise, The Provider, The Deceiver, and The Fifth. These gods are explicitly abstracts, not thought to inhabit a distant plane like other religions, and are seldom anthropomorphized. Rather, someone who wears the red jacket or wristband of the Red Brigade strives to embody one of the five, and their good works in that form are considered both prayer and divinity.

Exact practices vary wildly based on your geography, and there is no central body governing The Red Brigade. The most common form of The Bold is the soldier or warrior, such as those insurgents fighting against The Empire of Gold and Jade’s incursion into The Frontier. The Wise are most commonly scholars or strategists, while The Deceivers are most infamously spies who infiltrate other societies. Most cherished are The Providers, such as parents, educators and farmers. The Fifth god is seldom mentioned by name, and is the only one for whom, after you converted to its ways, you cannot convert back.

It is also dogma that Red Brigadiers change from one phase to another as is needed by their people. Most Red Brigadiers are yetis, centaurs or humans, though it is spreading among triclopic peoples. Secularists pin the recent trend in triclopic Brigadiers on it being such a time of strife for them, what with their presently losing a war to foreign secularists and all.

‘Q’ is for ‘Question,’ OR, The First Apocalypse

‘Q’ is for ‘Question,’ and the most common question asked is, “What was the first apocalypse to hit this world? What started it?”

There’s a myth about that. Nowadays it’s impossible to imagine the world without apocalypses. The gremlins thought it was their turn, built automatons to do all the heavy lifting for their empire, and the autos turned on them. An electrical storm reduced the autos to blank statues. The dead rise. The bourgeoisies rise. It’s as natural as seasonal cycles. Yet if you consult the oral legends of the oldest races, the centaurs and the nine-legs, and the remaining records of the gremlins, you find common references to a First Apocalypse.

All land that we now is actually the decomposed shell of the World Turtle, which once swam either among the stars or in what today we call the World-Ocean. A big son-of-a-something, and healthy, such that all the world’s plants grew from its shell. Since it was green, most of the flora were forests. Thick jungles that consumed lumbering beasts, toughening the sauropods and cyclopes, so that all life was hardy, ruled under the Four Gods.

And there were gods, captains of this Great Ship World Turtle. One would wander down to its slippery head and whisper, “I feel like inventing ‘East’ today. Find a new direction and name it that.” And it would comply, because turtles are prone to peer pressure.

So one day the Goddess of the Sky climbed down the World Turtle’s neck and whispered, “You notice that yellow thing up there that makes days possible? Swim over to that. I want to know what it tastes like.”

Then she climbed up to the highest point on the World Turtle’s shell for the best view of the sun. But while she mounted, the God of the Depths climbed down the World Turtle’s neck. He whispered, “That nasty thing’s hot. How about we dive? See what’s under these infinite waters?”

Then he scampered off to the apex of the shell, expecting to get the best view of his desires. Yet as he ascended, the Goddess of Mystery rode the rivers between the plates of the World Turtle’s shell down to its ear. She cupped its beak and whispered, “Why did we ever start going forward? We never saw all of what was at the beginning of creation. Can’t you go backwards for just a few eons so we can appreciate what’s back there?”

To the World Turtle’s credit, it began to dip under the waves while it about-faced, conceding to two demands at once. Upturning so dumped a thousand sauropods into the surf and enraged the God of Boldness, who had been teaching them beach sports. He tumbled down the World Turtle’s slope, jabbing a javelin into its scalp to hold on. “What do you think you’re doing?” he chastised. “We’re making headway. We might see where creation ends if you just kept the bearing. We need to find what else is out there.”

The Goddess of Mystery hadn’t yet departed, and so contested his virtue. Their argument whirled into a tempest, the ferocity of which was only split when the Goddess of Sky and God of the Depths coming roaring down at each other. The desires of the four were irreconcilable, and none were willing to go second. They argued for so long that some of the lesser critters had to develop free will just to go on living, and they would have kept going forever if the World Turtle hadn’t stopped. Its continental body drifted, listless, unable to obey so many commands.

The Four Gods quit its head, unable to argue the World Turtle into submission with three dissenters. After it became obvious none could coerce each other, they split separate ways. That’s why none of them had alibis.

Tragedy struck at dusk. Jungles suddenly wilted to nothingness. The continental shell cracked and powdered into soil. Countless species died from the sudden shock of the modern world being born. Mortals rushed to the great head and found it dangling under the waves. Someone had drowned the World Turtle.

There were only four capable of such feats, though no one saw which God did the deed. Sky accused Depth, Depth accused Mystery, Mystery suspected Boldness, and Boldness pointed fingers at them all. They dragged each other to Celestial Court and have spent all known history simultaneously arguing four homicide cases. It is very difficult to out-argue someone who is nigh-omniscient and exists outside time; more difficult still to reconcile four such people who are all intentionally playing obtuse for argument’s sake.

And while we wait the eternity for the verdict, everyone has ignored the very possible fifth cause: the World Turtle may have drowned itself in the strife of indecision, or to rid itself of the godly masters. It can’t be asked, though, and that first dusk was a confounding one for the cyclopes and sauropods. There was all beloved life, drifting on a dead turtle, with no supervision from the Gods, and mildly curious how their fellow surviving life-forms tasted. It’s small wonder things went wrong after that.

‘P’ is for ‘People.’

The menu.

‘P’ is for ‘People.’ The singular is ‘Person.’ Succubae think you’re not one.

Succubae are one of those creatures most people didn’t think existed for many ages. They claim to have existed since the dinosaurs died out the first time, and bear a strong dislike for their egg-based fetishes. They’re a difficult creature to reconcile with our materialistic notion of life, since they’re not from this plane of existence, and largely take physical bodies to play with their food.

To themselves, they are people. They have souls, minds, wills, personalities. Things that evolved don’t. Things that evolved, including triclopes and humans, are chemical soup in attractive packaging. You’re shaped like a person in the way that a chicken nugget might be shaped like an egg. They hate eggs.

What exactly disqualifies all intelligent life from being people is hazy. You might imagine that an entity that had to eat other sentient entities to survive might insist those entities weren’t people in order to assuage guilt. Succubae claim to never experience guilt. Guilt is a chemical thing.

‘O’ is for ‘Optimism.’

‘O’ is for ‘Optimism.’ If the apocalypses have revealed one thing about sentient life, it’s that the optimists are the only ones worth paying attention to. Pessimists and optimists die alike, but the former die having accomplished less, and having been far less entertaining to watch.

This perspective formally began under the Gremlin Empire, who used spores to observe the behaviors of lesser beings. Triclopes, nine-legs, centaurs and the like were reality television, and gremlins would drop supplies on tribes that behaved in entertaining fashion.

Since then, it’s been the optimists who made things work. They renovated the destroyed remains of old cities into new shelters. They scavenged the last technology, pushed progress, and in the Frontier, have even gotten old species to cooperate. You’d never have expected humans to forgive the imps for enslaving them, yet now they are routinely traveling partners. Those who think the struggle is worthless perish. Those who embrace it might change the world for the brief time they live in it.

Nowhere is optimism more embraced than The Empire of Gold and Jade. Despite its tyrannical reputation, it has done more for the study of external magic and formal physics than any culture in hundreds of years. They possess the only cities where the sun never sets, and command the weather to serve their crops, and their military squads, like the Storm Guard. That they frequently use their optimism for their gain at the expense of others reveals a little something about optimism: menace is just fear of someone else’s optimism.

'N' is for 'Names.'

‘N’ is for ‘Names.’ Theresa Bazelli asked if I’d talk a little about the naming conventions of my world. Here’s hoping she approves!

"She reminds me of your uncle..."

The world has seen several dominant cultures, and thus its share of naming conventions. Modern humans have hyphenated names, like Teffes-Ro. The first part is the personal name; ‘Teffes’ is no different than ‘Danielle’ or ‘Mohammed.’ The name usually consists of one or two syllables, including a consonant from the name of a male in the family and a vowel from a female in the family the parents wish to commemorate. Most parents decide to commemorate themselves.

The second part is an external name, often connoting family or a tribe; ‘Ro’ is similar to ‘Smith’ or ‘Goldstein.’ Most of the oldest and most vaunted family names are monosyllabic and privileged, including ‘Ro’; converting your name to one for the status can get you killed by someone protective of their familial or tribal brand.

This two-named form has existed regionally for at least two apocalypses, but was rendered the standard by The Empire of Gold and Jade who sought to count and categorize all citizens. This allows them to allot food subsidies, golems and military police, as well as organizing taxation. They pride themselves on knowledge.

The “Ky” Movement is an opposition, seeking people to give up their family or tribal names and use only “Ky.” To some it’s rebellion against the empire; to others, it’s a means of escaping their past. Converting yourself to a Ky is a lot like declaring bankruptcy; you forfeit all possessions and rights to others. There are so many people with the name that many law organizations will give up pursuing someone with the name. Few people live under the name for long, finding its stigma of worthlessness too dangerous. Others like Mahut-Ky, the villain of The Last House in the Sky, don’t care about or even enjoy the stigma. Stereotypes can be used as weapons.

Names are much less standardized in The Frontier. Many species have taken the old gremlin behavior of naming their families after things; one of the protectors of God’s Lap changed their family name to “Walls,” to become synonymous with the station they commanded.

The most famous gremlin convention was combining words, such as “Hillneath,” “Vineguard,” and “Skylane.” This invariably described a precious site, and then the people and slaves belonging to the site. Only imps and triclopes still bear names from this convention, having deeper affects from the gremlin empire’s slavery and breeding campaigns. They’re hard to shake, culturally.

'M' is for Automaton 'Mammoths'

‘M’ is for ‘Mammoths.’ 

You never think you're going to
have to fight one of these. Be ready.

Automaton Mammoths are the largest automatons still known to roam the planet after The Apocalypse of The Shock. The Shock was a continental electricity storm that wiped out most mechanical beings, much to the relief of biological beings. They’d been a real pain, never tiring in their adventure to shovel all life into their furnaces. The surviving biological species still haven’t figured out why the autos keep doing that. Surely there are more efficient fuel sources.


Auto Mammoths range in size with most deluxe-class sauropods, and are typified by their size, their treads, and that most of their appendages are construction tools, suggesting these were once what the gremlins used to build their empire. Today they can dig several cranes into the shell of an ankylosaurus and drag it into their combustion chambers.

Auto Mammoths reside mostly in the Uncanny Valley (see ‘U’), presumably because only this region sports acceptable prey. Here also reside most of the world’s deluxe-class sauropods and theropods, like the brachiosaurus and tyrannosaurus, as well as cyclopes, manticores and gryphons. Because of their curious penchant for seeking biological matter to combust, Mammoths require the largest prey to continue operating. Auto Drones often move in small packs alongside Mammoths, picking off smaller prey or bits of deceased larger prey in a mechanical symbiosis. It’d be beautiful if it hadn’t killed so many awestruck scientists.

Sunday is for Empire of Gold and Jade

Since E-day was for a story and not a proper entry, I'm dedicating this day of rest to The Empire of Gold and Jade. Consider it giving tyranny equal time.

The Empire of Gold and Jade is more of a corporation than anything these days, but keeps the name and aesthetics for impressions. It is the first successful human empire in recorded history. It was founded 280 years ago after the Apocalypse of Demons, when the Golden Emperor and Jade Empress merged their tribes to fight off the fiery invasion. From the smoking remains of the east, the mighty newlyweds carried culture. It was hard to stop them from taking over after that, what with all the demons having devastated the populations of more powerful or established species.

The Empire of Gold and Jade has an immaculate history. It is deeply progressive, seeking rational explanation for most phenomena in the world, and it is that approach for which its citizens believe they have successfully staved off any apocalypses. They regulate most enterprise and banned religion, though critics question if the Empire, its rulers and founders have not taken on divine status. It presently rules the eastern half of the world’s known continent, up to the Uncanny Valley, which blocks passage to the west. They are working on that.

They have noteworthy achievements in architecture, including the invention of “whitestone,” a self-cleaning building block that makes for very tidy houses. They also invented golems, which have revolutionized industry with free labor that never needs to consume anything like some automatons we might mention. They even have a very humane prison where they keep any captured monsters. The tales those imprisoned monsters have to tell about how humane the prison really is makes up the plot of The House That Nobody Built.

They are the perfect ruling class for this world, according to government documentation. Government invented and controls the printing press. According to government documentation, they are sure they will never be hit an apocalypse. One hasn’t come in 280 years.

'L' is for 'Lonely Giant.'

‘L’ is for ‘The Lonely Giant.’ This is the greatest prison of the Human Age, built upon the remains of the world’s oldest surviving monastery. It is set in the southern plains of The Empire of Gold and Jade, as far away from civilization as possible, where only fringe farmers work. There is a psychological comfort to knowing The Lonely Giant’s inhabitants are impossibly far from where you live. The Lonely Giant is used to house monsters.

There are the typical creatures – rogue all-chemists, serial killers, nine-legs, that sort of thing. But there are also greater beasts, like manticores and plants that would otherwise overrun entire cities. There are immortal and amortal creatures, such as succubae and golems that humans couldn’t figure out how to slay. There is even record of an astral being which was accidentally summoned to our world and imprisoned within meat.

Some critics question why all mortal offenders are not simply killed. To this, government employees respond that there is a certain comfort to knowing The Empire of Gold and Jade can contain its threats in one distant place.

Some critics also question if the government isn’t doing more than merely containing these creatures. During The Lonely Giant’s history, the Empire of Gold and Jade’s military has attained unusual weapons, including invisibility and the telewire, which were previously thought exclusive to exactly the kinds of monsters they might now be dissecting and studying.

Some critics have to be imprisoned.

‘K’ is for ‘Ky,’ OR, Splendid Master in Hiding

This post is a mash-up between the A-to-Z Challenge and Friday Flash. It's a flash story set in the Empire of Gold and Jade, centering around one of the many people named 'Ky.' 'Ky' is the name you swap to if you're trying to get away from your family, debts, or in this case, fame.

It took the boys three seasons to find him. He’d gone reclusive in the modern wilderness: slums. It would have been easier to track of the man on a mountain top or distant island. In a sea of scrawny, old foreigners, with names in another alphabet, he was almost invisible. Having stripped himself of his wealth and proper name, he wore only the rag of an honorific, “Ky.” There were over two thousand others named “Ky” in the slum, and forty-two in his apartment building.

That was on purpose. Ky refused to train them, even when they offered him their entire inheritances. They sent him ten newly-sewn suits, and ten handmaids, and ten immaculate meals from the master chefs of the Cloud Hills. He left their gifts unworn, unsullied, and uneaten. The boys found their food rotting in the alley, supped upon by stray imps and tentacle monsters.

They did not give up easily. They accosted him every time he stepped outside – for the latrine, for his morning walk or sunset meal. He ate once a day, and refused anything but the smallest container of raw rice, and he refused conversation when they took supper alongside him, spurning their money.

On the third sunset, while he was out at his meal, they bribed the landlord and broke into his apartment. Ky returned home to find no cracks in his ceiling, no vermin in his walls, and for the first time in twenty-one seasons, that his lonely lantern actually glowed. They’d left it on for him. He sat up with the light on all night long, though he did not invite the boys in.

He invited them inside the next morning. Their Splendid Master Ky would begin their training just as soon as they donned more practical clothing.

The first lesson was of Stamina. The boys would pick up every piece of trash in the adjacent street, which stretched for four empirical lengths. No clod, turd or broken bowl could be left behind, and they had only two hours to collect all of it. Being boys of unfairly fair youth, they managed it, even if they collapsed at the end.

They thought it unfair until the next day, when they were assigned the second street over, and only an hour and a half. Every consecutive day drew another street of waste.

After four days of the exhausting work, Splendid Master Ky added a second lesson: Perception. The police of the city were needlessly abusive to non-human parties, running them out or collecting extortion from triclopic shops. The boys were not allowed lunch until each could find at least one police-servant who had broken the code of conduct and reported them. In a week, he increased their assignment to three a-piece. In three weeks, they found it much harder to find such police-servants, much as the police-servants found it quite difficult to retaliate against the children of the rich.

Every day they had their lessons in Stamina and Perception. They chaffed to learn exotic fighting styles, of the Charred Fist and the Unknown Walking. Yet as quickly as they could clear a street of refuse, this Ky said they were not ready. He introduced the third lesson: Agility. It seemed that serpents and rats infected with tentacalia had beset the slum in recent seasons, and were often snatching babies or otherwise tearing up tenement ceilings. The only way to combat them was to scale the very structures they tormented.

Building upon their existing stamina and cleverness, the boys had to dispatch a dozen tentacled fiends per afternoon, and doing so meant either flying along scaffolds or swinging from ropes. Often Ky took his sunset meal on the sidewalk while watching the boys in their spectacular fights with the tentacle monsters. He was seldom alone; they drew great crowds of the poor, myriad Ky-folk who could always use a little more entertainment.

Their Splendid Master Ky was the only one not enjoying the spectacle. He had to make up a fourth exercise for them before they got too good. Eventually the boys would realize what you already have, and they would be quite angry about it. Perhaps some mysticism about Patience? He hoped that would take, or if it didn’t, that they finished cleaning up the slums before killing him.

‘J’ is for ‘Jangs the Sphere.’

‘J’ is for ‘Jangs the Sphere.’ You won’t find him in any history books, because he helped author most of them. He helped steal the printing press, then eliminate its inventors so that it would seem like it was The Golden Emperor’s work. He then ordered every book they pressed be about the royal couple. That was his Monday.

Jangs the Sphere was, to put it impolitely, The Golden Emperor’s P.R. ninja. He had infinite resources to assure that the public never saw any flaw in The Golden Emperor’s work, from silencing famines to eradicating terrorists. And when he eradicated terrorists, he typically eradicated everyone who knew them. It was the best way to keep one version of a story in public. The portly diplomat was so good at his job that he had only one rival: The Jade Empress’s P.R. ninja.

It’s been wiped from history, but the royal couple never liked each other, and constantly sought to undermine their spouse in order to raise themselves up. The Jade Empress employed Chuan-Ro, an all-chemist and poet, to do most of her assassinations and smear jobs. Jangs and Chuan-Ro spent most of their time undoing each others sabotage in a unilateral game of Spy Vs. Spy. More tragic, then, that the two were utterly smitten with each other, and forbidden to ever court. The few people who know Jangs and Chuan-Ro existed think they may have spent their final years together before being eliminated by their successors, but no one can confirm. After all, there’s not a word of written history about them.

I very nearly wrote a book about this duo in 2012, but went with a different time period. What do you think. Should they get the light of day and the press of a novel?

'I' is for 'Imps'

‘I’ is for ‘Imps,’ proud owners of the previous empire before the Human Age. Diminutive by conqueror-species standards, they are about crotch-height on a human. They began their existences in The Cracks far out west beyond The Uncanny Valley, where they were collected by gremlins as popular pets. Gremlins bred the imps mercilessly, crafting races without mouths, eyes or many of the internal organs the typical biological organism considers comfortable. Today, the surviving breeds of imps often require repeated surgery in order to successfully eat food.

After the gremlins destroyed themselves in a selfless effort at defining hubris, the imps seized their remaining technology for personal conquest. They had the additional benefit of naturally enchanted bones, particularly horns, which manifest in them not unlike acne and tumors in other species, and enable amazing feats of conjuration. They may be one tenth the body of a triclops, but they can shoot lightning at him, and this levels the playing field. 

Their feats of magic climbed in scale until they attempted to summon their transcendent ancestors, a tribe most people refer to as “demons.” The summoning went very successfully if your goals are to set half the world on fire. The Apocalypse of Demons sapped most people’s sympathy for any slavery the gremlins put imps through, which imps consider insensitive, because it cost them their empire. Post-empire, imps spend most of their time screwing each other over, since cooperating went so poorly.

‘H’ is for ‘Humans.’

‘H’ is for ‘Humans.’

Artist's rendering.

A historically underachieving species, they were widely regarded as a knock-off of the triclopes. As opposed to the triclopes, they have only two eyes, possess weak senses of taste and smell, have particularly weak hide and muscle tissue, heal very slowly or not at all, gestate for less than a year. People who use economic trends to study the world cannot fathom how cyclopes can be so enormous and durable when, eye-wise, they ought to be the next step down from biclopic humans. People who use economic trends to study the world and phrase things more sensitively believe humans achieved their modern dominance by gestating so quickly, thus flooding the market with their brand.

After imps managed to conquer the known world, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that humans could. The bar for domination was low enough, and they were a hungry enough species to try science again. Most species thought, given that science had literally eaten the Gremlin Empire alive, it was a bad idea. Humans considered that a very interesting philosophical point that they’d think over after using science to conquer everything. It’s worked out well so far.

It’s an unwritten rule of many universes that humans make great protagonists. It’s unknown as to why, but humans are prone to heroism, if for no other reason than because if another species did it instead then humans couldn’t be the center of attention, and that’s unacceptable in fiction. Humans are even the protagonists in most Godzilla movies, to the chagrin of everyone who enjoys Godzilla movies.

I enjoy Godzilla movies. I named two species after his nemeses.

‘G’ is for ‘Golems.’

‘G’ is for ‘Golems.’ 

Allegedly invented by servants of the Jade Empress about 270 years ago, they are classified as non-sentient constructs with no internal source of motion or determination. The most common kinds of golems are ‘clay’ and ‘hair,’ though there are allegedly more intricate golems in the Cloud Hills, including legends of gargoyles and walking suits of armor.

In the early period of the Human Age, golems were essential replacements for beasts of burden, in clearing rubble and toxic materials spilled by exploded demons. Even today they are used primarily as sentries and transport, and appear exclusively in the east, serving The Empire of Gold and Jade.

Only human wizards and all-chemists have yet figured out how to construct golems. Three of the four inventors of the original golems were slain by their creations, giving us the popular legend: if a golem consumes the body of its creator, it is granted free will. Not possessing minds of their own, golems tend to go insane upon achieving this free will. The most notorious case was 120 years ago, when The Golem King attempted a revolution against humanity. It and its movement were driven into the World-Ocean and destroyed by the Empire of Gold and Jade (see 'E'). This is considered the first potential apocalypse that the Empire stopped.

Many people, human and non-human, are uncomfortable with golems because of their similarities to the gremlins’ mechanical Automatons. Even though golems are magical in nature, the stereotype of the biological-consuming monster persists. The Empire of Gold and Jade has a policy of destroying any golems exhibiting free-will, though there are rumors that some are collected for study at The Lonely Giant, a prison designed to hold and study monsters (see ‘L’).

Waiting for a Day of Rest

Well, my first week of the A-to-Z Challenge went pretty well. Posts all went up on time, and only one had catastrophic formatting issues. I actually used an image on Saturday. Almost almost to the Bronze Age of the internet, which is pretty good considering how my physical week went.

Friends know that last weekend I had to travel out of state for several days to take care of my grandmother. She had a terrible health scare, and while I won't repeat everything that was hypothesized, I will say how relieved I am that most of it was false. She's in stable condition now, under 24-hour care, back on solid food and much more lucid. She loved having her grandkids check on her over Easter.

But spending the weekend at the hospital wing is hazardous for someone with my syndrome. By Day Two, my immune system tanked and I was sniffling. I barely returned home on Monday before collapsing from what I thought was a chest cold. It turned out to be a chest cocktail with a key ingredient: a lung infection.

I'm sorry if my Twitter or blog comments have read loopy. It's certainly thrown a kink into my fiction submissions, but I managed to get all my posts in. My mother was kind enough to drive me to and from the hospital twice during this mess.

Today Mom called with a frog in her throat. Looks like her kindness was rewarded with a lung ailment of her own. We can guess where she got it. So I'm driving her to the hospital Monday morning.

"No good deed..." That stupid phrase really picks up momentum as you get older.

How was your first week? And how did you think I did?

‘F’ is for the ‘Frontier.’

‘F’ is for the ‘Frontier.’

The Frontier refers to all lands west of the Uncanny Valleys. Not settled or developed by the humanist Empire of Gold and Jade, it is home to the highest populations of most other intelligent species, including imps, nine-legs, triclopes, dorads and centaurs, as well as most of the largest life forms, including sauropods, gryphons, land-squid, cyclopes and biollants.

Natives.

Most species band together in The Frontier, requiring co-existence for survival in harsh climates. The Frontier experienced most of the damage in the recent Apocalypse of Demons, and is something of wasteland. Most of the existing city-states are built in the remains of ancient sites, such as God’s Lap, built around the last surviving skyscraper from the Gremlin Empire. Clemency is an avidly lawless city-state built in a crater where a great demon once exploded.

Most thriving city-states form The Red Crescent, a crude travel route with open-door policies to the Red Brigade (see ‘R’). The Red Brigade is a militant sect of a disorganized religion the Empire of Gold and Jade pushed out of the east. According to their treaty, the Red Brigade own The Frontier. No one in The Frontier cares. The Empire of Gold and Jade has spent the last forty years reneging on the deal and invading.

The north-east of The Frontier is the ancestral home of triclopes, who hold largely homogenous strongholds and mining colonies there. This includes the northmost reaches of the Uncanny Valley, which are at their most shallow and least populated by giant monsters. The Empire of Gold and Jade makes frequent attempts to cross the Uncanny Valleys here, and is in a perpetual conflict with the triclopes over the region.

The Empire of Gold and Jade may well be coming east for all the tourist attractions. Allegedly it still rains shards of metal in The Sarlund. The Red Brigade patrols The Z (see ‘Z’), the world’s only remaining zombie reservation. Travel far enough west, and rumor has it that there are tears in the fabric of reality. No one has ever come back from the deep west to confirm such rumors.

Bathroom Monologue: Birth of the Human Age, OR, 'E' is for 'Empire of Gold and Jade.'

So this is a cross-post. It is both my #fridayflash for the week, and my 'E' entry for the A-to-Z Challenge. 'E' is for the 'Empire of Gold and Jade,' the first, only and reigning human empire.

Everything noteworthy around here begins with an apocalypse. Theirs was the Apocalypse of Demons, when the womb of the world was torn asunder, imps stoking The Cracks in the distant west until their ancestors roused. Then emerged the demons, intangible and vast, and rather than bestowing the imps with an infinite kingdom, seeking to add our world to their blessed charnel. What magic the imps possessed was corrupted, and their bodies pulped into titanic corporeal forms for their ancestors to roam our plane. So ended the previous tyranny.

Their slaves, the humans, fled into the east like water amid fingerprints. Away fell the nine-legs and triclopes. No one could survive the breath of demons, so toxic it reduced the largest sauropods to skeletons. Nine-legs, which many thought did not even have lungs, choked to death under the long strides of titanic demons. Deserts quaked, sinkholes supped upon cities, and the skies rained a burning wine. It was a most glorious apocalypse.

Only as they approached The Uncanny Valley did any opponents stand unyielding, the work of humans and not yet humans, the golems, the bodies of granite and brick, and within them all, hearts of jade. Secrets stolen and perfected by the cleverest slaves, these were the creations of the Jade Tribe, commanded by a voice that rose above the howl of demons. Her golems clung to their ankles, and then to the knees, dragging them to the ground where they could be pried apart.

Yet not all demons took to land, many sitting astride the clouds and hurling comets at the foolish mortals. Here came the Golden Archers, all-chemists who summoned power from without, not within, taking up the wand and the stave. Wizard snipers shot the demons out of the sky, cleaning heaven by making war. Surviving triclopes and imps hid in the shadows of humans for mercy.

Of those fallen demons, the majority exploded upon impact, maiming the land. Those demons who fell without combustion were made the campfires for the brave Golden Archers, and their chief, who will be marked as the Golden Emperor, climbed into the hull of the greatest fallen demon, and carried out from its sundry fires a breastbone of unparalleled magic. This he offered as a wedding present unto the chief of the golem-makers, she who will be marked as the Jade Empress. The bones of demons formed unparalleled golems, titans in their own mindless right, a bulwark against the inferno. No fire passed east of the humans’ brave army, and it unfurled west until the demons were extinguished, and all that lay behind it was a kingdom awaiting two thrones.

In the first dawn of their campaign, he who will be marked as the Golden Emperor and she who will be marked as the Jade Empress were wed, as were their retainers, and where the Golden Emperor had three additional retainers, so they were wed to the Jade Empress’s eldest sister and two brothers, and so were their generals wed, and where the Jade Empress retained two additional generals, these were wed to the Golden Emperor’s aunt and eldest blood brother. They wove their peoples together so that no tide could sunder them. It is recorded by every poet worth reading that together these two carried culture out of the fire.

And that’s how the latest tyranny began.

‘D’ is for ‘Drones.’

‘D’ is for ‘Drones.’

The Drone-class of automaton is the most common in the world. Once upon a time they were cleaning and maintenance drones, sometimes used for defense or transportation, easier to manufacture, store and replace than slave labor. They are land-based and spherical, running on a sort of combustion engine that can utilize various compounds. For reasons no one has yet identified, they actively seek to combust biological compounds. They started with their creators, the gremlins, and have never let up. They are often found in packs, flocking around larger automatons, such as the Mammoths, former construction vehicles that have turned carnivorous.

I originally derived the name from ants, never anticipating the U.S. drone program to get so prolific and ugly. I’ve gone back and forth over this name. It’s perfect in-world, and honestly, the U.S. drone program is so heinous that the thought of the name now being applied to an unmanned killing machine that wiped out its originating society is artistically appealing. I’m inclined to keep it, but I’d love opinions on the topic.

Tomorrow: ‘E’ for that obnoxious empire the humans are building.

‘C’ is for ‘Cartography.’

‘C’ is for ‘Cartography.’ As far as the Human Age is concerned, there is no comprehensive map of the world. Gremlins were the only species that ever made it far in cartography, and they were wiped out by their own technology in one of those pesky apocalypses. The technology is still around in the form of automatons, but it’s unknown if they’re mapping the world. They tend to consume and combust any people who ask them about it.

Still, a compass is a good idea. It’s common knowledge that there is at least one continent on the planet: this one. It is surrounded by what is lovingly called “the World-Ocean,” though no one has ever gotten to the west coast of the continent, and some people believe there is no west coast. No one who has gone to check has ever come back to confirm.

Other fun facts if you should take up cartography:

-The planet seems round. People cross a horizon as they walk far enough away from you, making it fairly obvious to every culture that has ever lived. Most have not cared.

-It gets warmer if you go north and colder if you go south.

-The middle of the continent is split by The Uncanny Valley (see ‘U’), a titanic canyon that spans the entire land mass. It's presumed the result of an ancient apocalyptic quake and is a favorite vacation spot for dinosaurs and hungry robots.

-The Empire of Gold and Jade (see ‘E’), the present human empire, rules everything east of The Uncanny Valley. They would like some of the west soon, if you don’t mind. It is relatively developed with irrigation, manmade rivers, agriculture and cities with artificial lights.

-Everything west of The Uncanny Valley is referred to as “The Frontier” (see ‘F’) Here you will find most of the surviving automatons, sauropods, sentient non-human species like triclopes and dorads, and most of my recent protagonists.

-There is a vast archipelago to the east of the continent, where people go if they’re hoping sit out the next apocalypse. The bet is that the land masses are so small that it wouldn’t be an apocalypse if something terrible happened there, thus making them the least likely target.

Tomorrow: ‘D’ is for ‘Drones.’