Fiction – The Dice Pool

Homebrew Heart Landmarks 4

Railsea

China Miéville. Go read some of his books. Go on. I’ll wait. Need more? OK. I recommend the full Bas Lag trilogy. In my opinion each book in the series is better than the one before. Anyway, those should only take a month or two to get through. Once you’re done with those, immediately pick up “The City and the City.” Just trust me. You won’t regret it. Once you have finished getting your brain-digits around that, please relax your cerebellum and get ready for “Embassytown.” Read all of them. Please.

I still have a few of his books to catch up on. I’m a little late to the party. I picked up “Perdido Street Station” in a second hand book shop about 15 years ago and couldn’t quite get past the idea of a woman with a beetle for a head (not a beetle-head, that’s different. Her head is a beetle.) I gave it another go a few years ago and was immediately hooked. The so-very-alive city of New Crobuzon, its fascinating and beautifully realised inhabitants, the wonderful meshing of the steam-punk, the fantastical and the horrific all worked together to make me simply want more and more. Luckily, “Perdido Street Station” is about 1000 pages long and has two sequels so they kept me going for a while.

I’m currently reading “Railsea.” This is not a Bas Lag book, but it evokes a lot of the same feelings in me as his earlier work. It is set in another world, one where there is a literal sea of rails between the continents and islands, where trains are captained by Ahab-like characters who pursue Moldywarpes (giant moles) like sea-captains pursued whales in centuries past. The ground between the tangle of rails is not literal poison, oh no. Our main character, Sham, tells us that. But if you touch it, you’re courting death, or dancing with danger at least. The subterranean lifeforms, bugs, giant mammals, that sort of thing, they’ll come and drag you down or tear a leg off if you’re not careful.

I haven’t gotten very far into the book yet, but I am savouring it. I’m exclusively reading it on my train ride to and from work so it’s hard to get up a good head of steam as it were.

Anyway, it felt rather “Hearty” to me. You know, what I mean, reader? Got the old Heart Landmark juices flowing a bit. There’s so much about magical, inter-dimensional underground railways in Heart: the City Beneath. It felt appropriate to come up with a Heart Landmark inspired specifically by “Railsea.”

The Vermissian Graveyard

Name: The Vermissian Graveyard
Domains: Technology, Cursed
Tier: 3
Default Stress: d8
Haunts: The Engine (d8 Echo)

Description:
Beneath a roiling crimson sky of steam clouds, a vast and silent plain of dry red earth, dotted here and there with scrubby trees and hardy grasses, whorled and tangled by an impossible rat’s nest of railway lines. At their final rest atop these lines, trains. So many rusting, curving, snake-like carriages and engines. Freight cars, passenger cars, entertainment and dining cars, all lifeless, dark, slowly falling to pieces.
Maybe this is where the trains of your Vermissian went. It could be. Perhaps some of these vehicles once were meant for that cursed underground, but most are from some other Vermissian, some Vermissian that never had an “Incident.” Perhaps they came through Fractures, perhaps the Terminus directs all old hulks of rail-stock from across all realities to this place, this final resting place. Or maybe it’s the afterlife for these faithful old servants.

It’s certainly haunted enough to be a graveyard. Ghostly passengers walk the aisles of the cars seeking their seats, spectral engineers stand about in cabs, smoking cigarettes, conductors from beyond examine tickets to nowhere, on trains that will never move again.

The ghosts can’t do much to a living soul except maybe freak them out a bit. But don’t touch the ground. Do not touch that brick-red earth beneath the rails. Step down and you’ll understand why this place is devoid of all life. The slightest vibration will attract the stranded dead, grasping undead things, trapped here with their last trains, jealous of the life and wealth of the living, lying in wait below the earth. All they want is to strip you of your wealth. So, if your greatest wealth is your memories, they’ll take those, thank you very much. If your wealth lies, rather, in Queens and Stens from the City Above, they’ll leave you a pauper. If your most prized possession is your body or the blood in your veins, they’ll take that too. No matter what they take, they’ll try to take all of it, leaving nothing but a ghost behind, stuck on a train that’s never going to move again.

In what might be the centre of this mess of rolling stock, a single orange fire burns, fitfully and brightly, belching out spire-black smoke from the chimney of a single, shiny black engine. An old steam engine, kept polished to an unlikely shine houses the Engineer. They are a skeletal figure equipped with a spire-black shovel a set of neatly pressed denim overalls and a tall blue peaked cap. Fires burn in their eyes, emitting sparks occasionally, mirroring the hotly glowing fuel they keep the engine topped up with. When a stranger comes to the Engine, the Engineer hands them the shovel and gestures to the bunker full of spire-black and then to the fire. If they shovel a few loads, the Engineer will bow and point the way to the exit of the graveyard. They will leave feeling tired but fulfilled, as though having done a good days work. If they shovel in a suitable resource, the Engine will belch and shake and will bathe the worker in orange light, removing d8 Echo Stress from them as well. If they do not shovel, the Engineer will shrug, light a cigarette, and go back to shovelling himself.

Special Rules:
Without the help of the Engineer, this Landmark becomes a delve with Resistance 12. Potential encounters with Signal-box Cultists (see the Heart core book page 196) abound on this delve. Other possible events include falling through the floor of a rusted wreck, having to avoid toxic freight and slipping off the rails onto the ground where the Stranded Dead await.

The Stranded Dead inflict d8 stress to whatever resistance is most important to the PC. This could be defined by the PC themselves or you could choose the one they have the most Protection in.
Fallout Slight Delay (Minor, Any) You touched the ground in the Vermissian Graveyard and drew the attention of the Stranded Dead. They took something from you. Now you’re just ever so slightly translucent and the ghosts on the trains are asking you to sit next to them. All actions taken to escape the Graveyard are Risky.
Fallout Major Disruption (Major, Any) You touched the ground in the Vermissian Graveyard and the Stranded Dead took so much from you. You’re hardly there anymore. You can understand the vapour talk of the ghosts on the trains. All actions taken to escape the Graveyard are Dangerous.
Fallout Ghost of the Graveyard (Major, Any) You touched the ground in the Vermissian Graveyard and the Stranded Dead took everything from you. You join the other ghosts and take your seat on the dead train.
Resources:
Train parts, d8 Technology
Train Ghost ectoplasm, d8 Cursed

Ways and Means: A Heart Sourcebook

To wrap things up, I thought I would let you know, dear reader, about the new Backerkit crowdfunding effort coming our way soon from the good people at Rowan Rook and Decard. It’s called Ways and Means and it looks like it’s going to be a great sourcebook for both players and GMs of Heart. It’s going to have new Classes and Callings as well as new Domains of the Heart and events to fill them with. You can sign up to support it here.

Sailors on the Starless Sea Part 2

Level 2

A few weeks back, I wrote up the fictionalised version of the events that occurred in the first session of Sailors on the Starless Sea, as played by the incredible members of our local in-person RPG community, Tables and Tales. They had just defeated the Beastman menace aboveground and were girding their collective loins to delve below the Keep of Chaos. Here’s part 2. Spoilers ahead if you plan to be a player in this module in the future!

The Starless Sea

In and in the darkness settled about the invaders and their new recruits, the doughtier of the captives they released from their chains in the charnel tower above. From the first landing in the stairwell, they gazed down and some saw the gleam of gold upon the steps below. Guðlaf, ever in pursuit of greater treasures, descended and found only a trio of lonely coins dropped and left where they lay. But, too, he noticed a curiosity in the one wall of the second landing. It appeared to stand…ajar. He and several of the others pushed through the revealed entrance to a chamber bedecked in antique cobwebs and festooned in the emptied carcasses of a treasure horde’s chests. While Marquis and some of the others gathered up what little coin still graced the grey stone floor, Hilda the Herbalist went to inspect the chests. One, she discovered, easily enough, had a hidden compartment in the bottom. Delighted with her discovery, she levered it open. The treasures inside were roundly ignored as a blade swung out, slicing away two of her earthy fingers. She cried out and bandaged the wounds as the others examined the find, tarnished silver jewelery, glittering emeralds of great worth, and a tabard of black, bearing upon it, the sigil of Chaos. As well, a brace of potions, oil of the black lotus according to Hilda. Imbibe it and gain great fortitude for a short time, but suffer for it later if found too weak to bear it.

Across the landing, another contingent of brave souls had found a great rend in the rocky wall. They had entered and found only another door. This one was surrounded in evil-looking runes. None of them could decipher their meaning, but they proceeded to attempt to enter nonetheless. They shoved and heaved and, eventually, shifted the great stone doors on their hinges. As they did, the magical wards fulfilled their fell purpose, exploding in unholy fire. Immediately, Ealdwine Dwerryhouse, the recently recruited Pádraig, elephant-eared Dainn and Ropert the rope maker were roasted like swine on spits, leaving only the girl known as Bear and Darik to enter the frozen tomb of the Chaos Lord Felan. He lay there still after years uncounted, perfectly preserved with his enormous axe and his glittering armour frozen with him in translucent funereal garb, a thick sheet of magical ice. Daric entered and tried his best to break through to retrieve the weapon but to no avail. Fearing for his life in the ice-clad chamber, he retreated.

Re-united on the fateful stair, the survivors gathered their courage and continued down into the darkness. They had come to rescue their neighbours and kinsmen and by the gods, they were going to do it.

Soon they found a new chamber, this one richly decorated in tile mosaics. In the centre a long, deep pool stretched almost to the other end. Almost all of the survivors were gripped by an undeniable drive to gaze into the waters of that pool. They simply found themselves there, as though transported by an invisible hand. And as they looked, the skulls of men and women rose, like glowing, hideous bubbles until they floated there, awaiting their new owners. The villagers took the skulls offered by the pool and were released, then, from their compulsions. Free to examine the rest of the chamber they found several nooks containing the mouldering old robes of some sort of Chaos cultists. Two of their number, Lydia and Roric took the robes and donned them, perhaps to fool some future enemies. Others looked upon the mosaics. They depicted several subjects. The first was a hooded figure standing atop a tall, stone monument, seven tentacles waving from the dark waters of the lake below it. The second showed a pair of armour-clad warriors clutching a single flail and commanding an army of bestial fighters. The third revealed a golden ziggurat atop a small island and a tall figure atop it, in the process of sacrificing a maiden.

Leaving the Dread Hall behind, they went on, down and down a long set of wide stone steps all the way to an incongruous beach of black sand, occupied by a massive menhir and, beyond, in the misty waters of some starless sea, the majestic, draconic prow of a proud longship.

Marquis decided to take the reins, doffing his heavier clothes and items so he could swim out to the ship unburdened. The others tied rope to him and chain to that, to allow him to swim the whole way. The water froze him almost to paralysis, but he persisted, as though crawling through the blackness of the void where the Chaos Gods dwell. Almost had he reached the forbidding hull of the longship when he felt something even frostier than the waters wrap around first one leg then the other. Bubbles escaped his mouth as he was pulled down, down, down into the deep and the dark. Those left on the beach could only notice the rope streaking through their hands at a speed Marquis would be incapable of. They tried to hold on but soon gave up when they saw first Marquis’ left side and then his right, dangling from a pair of gargantuan tentacles, then dropped into the water, never to be seen again.

Determined to find a way to the ship, Peggy, the well-known, one-legged beggar of their village, led the rest across the sands towards the cursed obelisk, and attempted to decipher the meaning of the swirling, mystical carvings that adorned it. Anger, violence and a compulsion to cut out his companions hearts and sacrifice them to a being of pure chaos beneath the still, black waters washed over Peggy, but he pushed away, he resisted and, instead, climbed the narrow stairway that led to the top of the menhir. Already, Lydia, ever faithful and sworn to carry the burdens of others, stood on top, examining the melted remains of a red candle set into a stone bowl that she found there.
“No more room up here, cripple. Go back down,” she said, heeding the beggar but little. This was enough to send the traumatised man into a rage.
“Do not call me that!” he screamed, lashing out with his crutch and knocking Lydia from the summit of the stone. She fell and hit the sand with a sickening crunch. Peggy looked down from above as the others gathered around their neckbroke companion. He felt no regret, he felt no remorse. Instead, he lit the stump of the crimson candle and watched as the ship approached the shore.

If the others thought of vengeance or justice for the murdered Lydia, perhaps they decided it would be best to address the matter after their fellows were rescued from this hellish sea. They all climbed aboard the boat and it turned to face a golden glow out in the murk of the great cavern. Mu set the pace and the strongest of them took an oar each, rowing for their lives and the lives of their loved ones. On they went until they could easily make out the shape of an imposing golden ziggurat atop an island out there in the waters. It appeared just like in the mosaic. The subject of human sacrifice entered the minds of many of the villagers so they redoubled their pace.

Until the tentacles re-appeared. One wrapped itself quite securely around the stern of the ship and another attached itself with its strong, wine dark suckers to the gunwale, as five more burst from the water ahead, thrashing and threatening.

Guðlaf thought of the censer he carried in his bag, the one from the chapel of chaos in the keep above. Perhaps, if it could be used, the creature would recognise fellow worshippers of the Choas Lords and allow them passage. He retrieved the item, opened it up and remembered… he did not possess the incense. The rope maker, Ropert had it on his person when he was roasted by the flame ward trap in the tomb of the Chaos Lord, Felan. Curse his greed! He called for aid, holding up the useless censer and Hilda noticed. Cleverly, she carried always in her satchel a collection and mixture of herbs and ingredients that might come in useful in many situations. Here she attempted to recollect the smell of the incense Ropert had recovered from the chest in the chapel, and praying to the spirits of her fore-mothers, sprinkled them into the censer. Guðlaf sparked the herbs to flame and swung the censer madly on its chain across the deck of the ship and over the inky waters. The tentacles reacted immediately, retreating into the depths, their owner remembering, perhaps, the ancient compact between it and the Chaos Lords Felan and Molan.

On they rowed until they landed at a narrow strip of beach below the lowest steps of the great golden ziggurat. A hellish orange light burned through the cracks between its huge stone blocks. A ramp, long and straight, led up to the very utmost of the pyramid, flanked by beastmen of all varieties, baying and howling and crowing and hissing as a steady stream of villagers, tied and chained and gagged were forced up to their doom.

Realising their time was now very short, the sailors sent out a sortie to see what they could see, Bear and Lindon Lyndone crept around the outside of the imposing golden edifice and then up they went to spy on the top. Up there they could see several more Beastmen, shoving humans and treasure into a glowing pit, overseen by the effigy of a tall, one-eyed armour clad warrior with a flail. They went back to report what they had discovered and the sailors decided to break into two groups. The first would be led by those with the chaos cultist robes on, taking the others as sacrifices up the ramp, in the hope that they would not be noticed by the Beastmen who were so rampant in their worship. Meanwhile, the other team would creep around the ziggurat once again, in an attempt to make it all the way to the top and stop the sacrifices without angering the entire crowd of Beastmen.

In preparation, Mu and Guðlaf consumed the black lotus oil, danger of death be damned! Danger was all around!

And so they set off. The two in the robes, pushing and prodding their companions ahead to give the impression they were the capturers. All seemed to be going well until, Mu, unable to witness the cruelties being heaped on his people in silence uttered a single “mu,” and raised his head to better perceive the situation and a great, pug-faced beastman, noticing Mu’s human features, barked and yipped and grappled Mu. Then, the battle was truly joined. Around the other side of the ziggurat, Guðlaf, one of the stealthy team, dropped a bag of the coins he had been dutifully collecting through the keep and below it. It clanged and jingled with surprising volume, attracting the attention of a contingent of Beastmen from those lining the ramp. They wasted no time in attacking.

Combat proceeded and for a while, it looked hopeful for the villagers. They felled one unholy chaos creature after another, but when the Beastmen gathered their wits enough to launch a significant counter attack, peasant after peasant began to go down. Several of them were dragged to the top of the ziggurat where the great Beastman shaman was hurrying the end of the ritual to summon the Great Chaos Lord, Molan into the effigy set above all. But there, they managed to escape their fate at the bottom of the molten pit. Instead they attacked the shaman and his acolytes who fought back like animals. Bear, so lucky so far, found herself disembowelled on the end of the shaman’s blade as she bravely went into battle with him.

But the ritual had been completed now, the Chaos Lord inhabited a physical form once more. His skull-like head bore only a single blazing eye, his dark armour glistened in the remaining light now that the magma in the pit had been consumed by the ritual. His flail, glowed with a demonic fire, lashed out at all that approached. He laughed at the attempts to bring him down. But those who still stood, those not occupied by the Beastmen on the ramp, joined forces to do just that. Around him his forces dwindled as the villagers, urged on now that their fellows had been found and saved from sacrifice, brought low the shaman, his bestial acolytes and many of the forces on the pyramid below. Roric charged and was crushed by Molan’s flail, the halfling, Hamfast Harfoot, but recently rescued from the tower of the keep was undone by the skewer-like spear of a beastman, likewise, Lindon Lyndone found himself run through.

The attacks to the great Chaos Lord went on and on, many utilising the glowing skulls they had retrieved from the Dread Hall, which exploded in green fire when they struck. They had demanded to be used, glowing now more fiercely than ever in the presence of the hated Molan. It was one of these, flung by the wily and murderous Peggy that struck the Chaos Lord in the eye, setting his whole head ablaze and finally bringing him low. I cheer of triumph went up from the assembled villagers, both fighters and captives alike, as his body melted leaving only his accoutrements, flail and armour. Peggy wasted no time in lunging for the great flail, but it was a mistake. The hero of the hour found himself burned and destroyed by a magma golem’s fiery pseudopod as it generated from the Chaos Lord’s remains. Vargan, also, greedy to the last was left a burning husk by the golem as he had reached for the armour.

The rest of the villagers gathered some of the fallen coins that littered the top of the ziggurat and then ran for their lives. The cavern was collapsing around them and a great tidal wave rose from the west side of it, threatening to destroy them all in moments. All but Daric reached the ship in time and climbed aboard. He had insisted on remaining to gather even more riches and he was forced at the last moment, as the ship pushed off and the rowers began to row, to leap across the churning black waters of the Starless Sea, into the waiting hands of his comrades, forgiving as they were of his greed and foolishness.

The titanic wave hit them, drowning the evil island and propelled the dragon-prowed longship across to the far side of the sea and down a narrow tunnel and on and out into the waiting river beyond. They had escaped.

Guðlaf lay on the deck in the sunshine, breathing ragged and baleful breaths. He looked into the eyes of Mu, who was sprawled beside him and spoke the words “It is well.” Both had taken the black lotus oil knowing the risks. Mu looked into his companion’s eyes as the light left them. He shed a silent tear for him and looked about at his remaining friends, Dave, Hilda, Daric and Helfgott Hoffman, wondering where they would go from here. They had come through so much death and loss but had achieved the impossible. Surely they could more return to their old dull lives in their village than Guðlaf could return to life of any kind. Perhaps this ship would take them on to more adventure. He managed to express all this in a single elegant syllable as the sun blazed down upon him, “Mu.”

Sailors on the Starless Sea Part 1

The Peasants are Revolting

Here’s my fictionalisation of our first session of the classic DCC 0-level funnel, Sailors on the Starless Sea. Six of us, members of Tables and Tales gathered last Sunday evening to play through the first half of the adventure. We had an absolute blast, both with the adventure and the DCC rules.

I may have taken a few liberties and used some artistic license here and there but the major beats are all as they occurred. Spoiler warning if you have not played or read Sailors on the Starless Sea and you want to be a player in a game of it, stop reading now!

The Keep of Chaos

The villagers gathered before the rusting gate of the ancient keep, as a blasphemous banner snapped above the crumbling, ebon walls. Behind the shivering mob, Betsy released a single, unenthusiastic moo as she shuffled in her protective circle. They had made surprisingly short work of the vine choked corpses on the causeway below. The burgeoning corpses of their fellows had shocked some into sobriety while only awakening a greed and opportunism in others that they had previously, perhaps, just imagined they possessed.

Only the half-raised portcullis stood between the no-longer inebriated gang and the rescue of their abducted friends and family. Edgar Hayward Blackburn Hathaway IV, assuming a leadership position, urged his fellows on into the black keep, while the gnoll-reared urchin, Bear scampered in and out, as though possessed by a great desire to poop. Stopping for nothing, most of them marched through, all but the three dwarves doubling over or crawling beneath the spiked portcullis. A few waited on the outside, curious perhaps to see how this entrance worked out for the majority. These were, perhaps, the clever few… just as the final row crossed the threshold, someone above released the portcullis to fall the rest of the way, pinning two of their number beneath. The renowned and beloved corn farmer, Maize, died instantly, skewered by one of the rusty spikes. The survivors would, for ever after, recall his broad, smiling face and his impaled body whenever they munched on a sweet, buttery cob. His little goat ran, unfettered and bleating into the be-brambled courtyard, as the remaining villagers heaved the portcullis up to release the cheesemaker, Gorgonzola, who had somehow survived the portcullis trap. Meanwhile, a bell rang out from above the gatehouse, pealing briefly, but alarmingly. The final few peasants, who had waited out front, joined the mob as they began to explore their hateful new surroundings.

Several of them circumnavigated the overgrown clearing contained within the castle’s broken and burnt walls. But two explored the well. The well seemed to call to Dáinn, his curiosity growing to almost physical strength, pulled him to it. Meanwhile, his companion pulled on the well’s sturdy chain to see what might be lurking below. Dáinn could not resist a peek over the edge, and, before he knew had pitched, headlong, into the darkness below! His companion scrambled to catch him, but it was too late… Luckily, Dáinn came to his senses as he plummeted and managed to grab the chain before he hit the undulating ooze at the bottom. The others pulled him up, but he was not exactly himself anymore… he now sported the flapping ears of a pinkish pachyderm.

Meanwhile, other villagers discovered part of the old wall in the back had utterly collapsed. They decided to leave it alone, nothing a potential for further collapse and possibly fatal accidents.

Nearby, an ancient capstone of some sort, runed and glowing slightly, was discovered. It had been concealed, deliberately or otherwise by thorny vines and scrubby grasses for years. Uncovered, the group’s scribe was able to take a look at it, but, unable to decipher the meaning of the rune, they decided it was best left as it was.

As this occurred, Mu, the monosyllabic Dwarven mushroom farmer, investigated the forbidding portal of the nearby chapel. The terrifying visages of hundreds of demons, screaming and howling had been hammered into its heavy bronze doors, which had been barred from the outside. Mu, heedless of possible dangers, tossed aside the ancient wooden bar and swung wide the doors. Inside, resting impossibly on a floor carpeted in crackling, glowing embers, a half-dozen skeletons still roasted, slowly, in their blackened chain hauberks. A charred chest, padlocked and tempting stood to one side of an elaborately carved fountain. The hellish amphibian likeness of a stone frog belched forth an endless spring of tarry ooze from a mouth seemingly filled with precious gems. Gwydion, the elven artisan, fascinated by the construction of the fountain approached, heedless of the embers. The ooze reacted, raising its undulating bulk up and over the lip of the fountain. It landed on the fiery floor and burst all into devilish flames as it flung a pseudopod, greasy and burning, in the direction of the elf! But Edgar Hayward Blackborne Hathaway IV, always on hand to defend his companions, leapt into the chapel and attempted to fling a dart at the fiery monstrosity. His aim failed him, the strength of his arm directing his attack, instead, to his own unarmored wrist as it escaped his grasp in the worst possible way. His blood gushed, hissing and dancing over the hot embers as he collapsed, lifeless into the sizzling coals. A moment later, despite several fine hits from the other gathered villagers, the ooze’s pseudopod finally connected with his elven target, immolating him. As Gwydion fell, the others fell upon the tar ooze, dousing it and destroying it. Weary now of all the senseless killing, the peasants armed and armoured themselves in what they could recover from the dead ones in the chapel and discovered a curious item of some chaotic deity, a blackened censer and several bales of unwholesome incense that had been locked in the chest. They stowed them for later use and proceeded with their explorations.

A sinkhole dominated the northeastern corner of the courtyard, spewing forth vapours that formed terrible shapes of writhing beasts and men in the air above it. Perhaps this was the way forward? Attaching a rope to the chain retrieved from he well, Darik the hunter braved the uneven and dangerous ground about the edge of the steaming pit to get a better look, his fellows holding on to keep him safe from falling to his death. The ground, indeed, collapsed below him and he dropped seventy feet into the poisonous spume, seemingly still nowhere near the bottom. His investigations revealed nothing of the bottom nor the source of the vapours. He climbed back out and the villagers continued on to the tower in the south east corner, the only area left to investigate…

Sir Chopsalot, the woodcutter, finding the door to the tower guarded by hideous gargoyles and locked tight against their attempts to enter, hoisted his axe and got to work. He worked up a sweat and brought down the portal. McTavish, the blacksmith, his blood up, charged into the tower and was a confronted with a sight and stench of charnel destruction unlike the worst tanner’s pit. The discarded hides and skins of beasts and humans covered the sticky, malodourous floor. Mites and flies buzzed about, biting and swarming over everything. High on the walls of the tower, hanging by their tied wrists from spikes, some of the abducted wriggled and thrashed when they saw him enter, eager for freedom. But he did not have time to act, From the steps above his head, an enormous brute of a beastman, cursed with the head and sharpened horns of a great bull, jumped onto McTavish’s back, crushing him into the ground with his dreadful battle-axe. Then he turned to the villagers arrayed outside and snorted while his beastmen approached from behind. The remaining peasants quickly formed a plan to distract the beastmen while Mira ran to the chapel to fill a steel helmet with scorching embers. Combined with the oil from a flask they had brought, this could cause a conflagration in the tower, destroying the arrayed abominations. As she ran to gather the coals, Sir Chopsalot, the woodcutter, found himself in the way of the charging, bovine beastman champion and was impaled on his great horns. Another monster, with the hideous head of a beagle, speared Gorgonzola, the cheesemaker, finishing the job the portcullis had earlier begun. Mira returned just in time to prevent the rest of the beastmen from emerging into the blood-soaked courtyard. She flung the embers into the awful tower where they set alight the lantern oil. The villagers took some satisfaction in watching the demons burn.

Victorious, the survivors doused the flames and rescued several of their neighbours from their captivity. They searched through the detritus in the tower and were able to discover a map to another keep along with a letter of employment, stitched into the hem of some poor unfortunate adventurer’s cloak. But, before long, they knew it was time to proceed once more. This time, the only way on was down a set of ancient, worn stone steps, down into the darkness below the keep…

Flash Fiction Challenge Week 5: Subscribe to Life!

Enshittification

I think we all know the feeling, right? Like, whenever the word-processing software you bought for a flat fee decides to switch to a subscription service so you can’t save any files on it without shelling out 7.99 a month? Or when you need to sign up for a free delivery service from the worst company in the world just so you can watch the latest season of Star Trek? Yeah.

Anyway, that’s what this week’s flash is about. There is no hidden meaning or anything. It’s just straight-forward anti-enshittification propaganda. Enjoy!

This is a flash fiction challenge where I challenge myself and anyone else who cares to take part to write a 500 word flash fiction piece every week. I generate five random nouns and five random verbs for each piece. Part of the challenge is to include all the words in the piece. Here are the words for this piece.

Nouns

Session
Nature
Wood
Guest
Membership

Verbs

Dominate
Slow
Forbid
Get
Dictate

Subscribe to Life!

By Ronan McNamee

You roll up to your spot in the Elysian Woods Outdoor Living Simulation Centre and unroll your tent. You hit the Temporary Habitable Structure Instantaneous Construction button on the remote you received in your first Kampzite subscription box and your tent lies there, a useless, Permanent, Uninhabitable Chaos Slowly just existing. You check your phone. In your latest fit of anti-capitalistic pique the night before, you canceled your Danube subscription. It seems, when you did that, Kampzite, Bafftime, Fudz and even Lurollx went with it. You attempt to construct it with your hands. You receive a text message from Kampzite. It is a friendly reminder that interfering with Kampzite property is an offense and that any further tampering will result in the police being summoned and a hefty fine. A moment later you get another text, this time from Danube, this one much less friendly.

A week spent in the wondrous glory of nature. Too much to ask.

You attempt to restart your Danube subscription right then but you had bravely deleted all account credentials from your phone when you cancelled your subscription. You lock yourself out completely, trying to log in with incorrect passwords. You use up the last of your data subscription credits in the process. There are no Elysian Woods colleagues anywhere.

You fold up your “tent” and pop it in your boot. Frustrated, you ask your
EV to take you to the nearest hostelry so you don’t have to sleep in the car. Sleeping in your car is outside the fair use policy you signed up for in your EZ-EV subscription.

You slow, passing the sign. Gaia’s Gardens: Subscription Retreat. Maybe you’ll be eligible for a guest membership. Your EV chimes. You have exited the area covered by your EZ-EV contract. The car lights dim and it rolls to a halt. Wondering how you found yourself in a life utterly dominated by which services you subscribe to, you slide out and onto the road.

You begin to dictate this story to an app on your phone. The app refuses to save it on your free plan.

Gaia’s gates forbid you entry. There is no guard house, there is no intercom. There is only a camera. You peer through the fence into paradise. Forest gives way, beyond, to cold brew coffee houses and hot yoga sessions, to silent discos and loud wind sounds, to glamping. Desperate, you climb that fence, rattling and trembling as you summit before plummeting to the piney floor below.

You awake to pain. Your back. It’s bad. But there’s your phone on the floor nearby. You call emergency services. “Danube Heightened Experience Response Services. Your account number please.” You laugh into the receiver. “Your account number please,” repeats the AI voice. Another voice from the trees, “Hi there, our facial recognition cameras can’t seem to identify you. Would you mind telling us your Gaia Gardens Subscription Credential Code?” The Emergency Services voice says, “Danube Police have been dispatched, please remain where you are.”

Next week

I have been running this challenge for five weeks now and I feel as though I have gotten enough out of it. It has spurred me to write more fiction and has gotten those creative juices flowing (isn’t that a dreadful idiom?) Anyway, I’m going to focus on writing more RPG related posts for a few weeks and I might come back to the flash later in the year.

Flash Fiction Challenge Week 4: He Told Us

The news

Art is political. I might struggle to call what I make “art” most of the time but I guess, whether it’s good or bad, it’s still art. Some of it is more overtly political than others. You can certainly see the politics in NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth novels. It bristles and boils up and breaks the world, but it is still veiled by its fantasy setting. When you read her Great Cities books, based, as they are in her very real home of New York City, the place and the politics are the real deal. It’s right there on the page; the shit that people deal with every day even it is couched in fantastical occurrences and the antagonists are disguised behind cosmically horrific metaphor.

Usually, what I write lies in the former category but, today’s flash is jumping right out of the headlines. It came unbidden, I will say, but here it is. Take it for what it’s worth.

Nouns

crusade
cluster
drawer
railcar
turkey

Verbs

permit
stop
spring
control
fuck 1

He Told Us

by Ronan McNamee

He told us to permit no Rykerites. Neither should we tolerate a Jellicho to live amongst us. For we were the people of the one true god! Kark!

We joined together in a great convocation. We occupied Scotte Station and created of the railcars an impassable barrier. That’s how the Rylerites came to our great city, like diseased cells through the arteries of a body. We watched the trains burn from the terminal.

He told us to take back control so our crusade abandoned the useless railway and spread to the spokes of our great metropolis, the bridges. Those who could, exploded them, the rest of us smashed them, rammed them, blocked and burned them. No more Jenwayers coming across those bridges.

Finally, together on our island of freedom, we beat down doors, beat on drums, beat those damned heathens, the Forgistas. They didn’t belong here either.

He told us to clean the city and that’s what we did. We sprung traps for all the unwanted. We clustered them all in Liberty Gardens and watched them bobbing around in there, like livestock, like turkeys. We fenced them in and went home for dinner.

He told us to eat what the city produced. So we opened our pantries and explored the recesses of our drawers. We ate ketchup and pickles until our tongues fizzed and stung. We drank old soda and energy drinks until our teeth throbbed and our brains balked.

We looked across the barricades and threw obscenities at the filthy outsiders beyond. We returned to Liberty Gardens. The Rykerites and Jellichos had run out of condiments and own-brand cola. They lay in the dirt and we licked our lips.

He told us not to stop until they were gone. So we started and did not cease until we picked our teeth. We were free of them then. Or were we? Some of our crusaders continued to subsist on mayo and sherbet. They refused the “turkey.” They went back to their lives. Sympathisers. Vegetarians. Fuck them.

He told us to find the traitors and destroy them, hang them from the bridges and the tallest skyscrapers. And we did, though we kept a few to make up for the last of the city food. Great Kark would not begrudge his favoured people a good meal.

The eyes of the traitors looked down on us, as we basked in the streets, satiated. And I heard him tell the others to take us for anti-city behaviour. We ran and cried but finally obeyed the leader. We gave ourselves to the great people of our city and they fenced us in, fed us stale donuts and old olives until we lay in the dirt, doing what we were told until they came for us with belief and hunger in their eyes. Had Kark abandoned me? Was I no better than a Forgista now? I always did what I was told. Was this a reward?

He told us what he was, but we never listened.

Next week’s words

Here are the five nouns and five verbs to fit into next week’s piece:

Next week’s nouns

session
nature
wood
guest
membership

Next week’s verbs

dominate
slow
forbid
get
dictate

Happy writing!

Flash Fiction Challenge Week 3: All that Glitters

A little horror

I don’t think it’s particularly worthy of a trigger warning, to be honest, but, just in case, this week’s flash features insects, skeletons and flesh eating, not necessarily in that order. Also, it’s got a foolish academic. It’s a wee bit Indiana Jones, a dash of Pirate Borg and a smidgen Cthulhu.

This here flash fiction challenge is to write a 500 word piece, including the five random verbs and five random nouns that I generate each week. Here are the words that I randomly generated last week:

Nouns

expenditure
entertain
tablet
morsel
leader

Verbs

announce
stand
reverse
sue
decline

All that Glitters

by Ronan McNamee

A weevil squirmed fervently behind his right eye. He entertained the idea of a blink. Couldn’t justify the expenditure of such effort. Instead, his eye flicked to the tablet, nuzzling his thigh. Its script illumined impossibly in his guttering torchlight, shifting and slithering like his eye’s new neighbour.

“Stand aside, ignoramuses! Do you suppose I endured my long sojourn just for some roustabout to bear premier witness to the treasures and magics of these fabled burial chambers?!” With ears they comprehended nothing. The Professor’s wild curtain-parting gesture however, banished the obscuring cloud of labourers to reveal a twilit window into antiquity. Almost. Their leader, stout and mono-manual, remained. She pointed with her hook. “Gold, first,” the demand landed at his feet with her spittle.

Inside, he felt his decline. He could see it on the outside. The insects dwarfed the average weevil, or even cockroach. They peeled off morsels of flesh, in strips. His singular orb witnessed it, the other dribbled into his beard. He heard himself draw a ragged breath. This could never be reversed. The tablet…

“My lady, you’ll be remunerated upon the fulfilment of my expedition.” Even standing a full head taller than her, she surveyed him as a disobedient hound. “Pay now, Professor. (such insolence!) Not coming back.” She gestured at the stylised, be-vined, skull guarding the cavern entrance, flanked by glittering, gluttonous beetles. She hooked around at her people, eyeing each one. She announced a single word in her own language. Three syllables rippled out through the contingent, in a shivering susurrus. The mob nodded as one. The Professor quavered a moment, then scoffed and pushed past.

So glad, he was, that he felt nothing more. No pain, at least. Something wriggled fitfully in his brainpan. That tickled? A last gob of meat, dislodged by his dinner-guests, plopped from his tibia to the tablet. A sickly, emerald glow pulsed from the artefact. He felt ready to stand again. He rose with a clamorous clacking, new power making up for the loss of muscles and sinews. He turned towards the broken, sun-bright steps. Outside, they awaited his return. Bloated, distended, still starving, his companions flew up into the last tangerine light of the day. It glinted off their golden shells. “You wanted gold,” he chattered.

The Professor ignored the mindless caterwauling above. She bawled at his back as he descended, “You owe us! Professor!” He rolled his eyes in his sockets. And grinned. The chamber was disappointingly low but the contents! A vast figure crawled skeletally across the far wall in bas relief, a hand raised before a plague of golden insects, suing for peace perhaps? A rugged altar, stained in centuries of sacrifice held a tablet. It shone with a wan inner light. Untouched, as it was, by the ubiquitous dust, he read the first word, startled. It was the word the hook-hand had used… He heard the creatures flitter out of the walls as he collapsed, tablet beside him. The Professor whimpered.

Next week’s words

Next week’s nouns

crusade
cluster
drawer
railcar
turkey

Next week’s verbs

permit
stop
spring
control
fuck

Honestly didn’t know that the random word generator was capable of expletives but… let’s go, RWG!

Flash Fiction Challenge Week 2: Securing Destiny

Bloggies News

A couple of things before I get to this week’s flash. If you read my last post, you’ll know that thedicepool.com was up for a Bloggie for best debut blog of 2024 in the TTRPG space. To those who voted for me, thanks so much! Your support means a lot. It honestly motivates me to keep working on this site and it’s obviously nice to know that someone enjoys what I write. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Murkmail won by a country mile, and deservedly so. You should go check out their blog. I came in seventh place, lower than I’d hoped but higher than I expected. For the full results, here’s a link to sachagoat’s blog. While you’re there, go and vote in the current round! It’s the Advice category right now and it’s down to the last 8 entries. They are all well worth your time to read if you’re interested in RPGs.

I redecorated

There were a few things missing from the very minimalist theme I was using. I really always wanted a sidebar. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned. Anyway, I switched themes so I could have one. I like it because I can keep useful stuff there, like my archives, lists of categories and tags, a blogroll of other blogs that I like or am subscribed to. That sort of thing. What do you think of the new look, dear reader?

Week 2

This one started with my head in a very contemporary office space and ended with something in a much more far future space space, if you know what I mean. I gave this a bit more time than the last one, but I’m not convinced it’s better for it. I’m happy with the plot I got in there and even the level of character development, but I’m not as satisfied with the quality of the writing. Here are the random words I challenged myself to fit into this 500 word piece:

Nouns

measurement
consequence
desk
winner
employer

Verbs

echo
influence
enquire
mix
pin

Securing Destiny

by Ronan McNamee

“Let’s put a pin in that.” Mr Grogan locked eyes with Terry and dared him to voice another concern. Terry, shook, broke first. “And move on to the next item, shall we?” Timpani thundering in his ears, Terry inhaled through his one unblocked nostril. A trick of his Mum’s, to calm him. The meeting continued, the others focusing on Grogan’s drone. Terry exhaled through an o. His pressure regulated with the cabin’s.

Why? His ghostly face, reflected in the void-dark porthole by his desk, echoed his confusion. Why had he opened his mouth? If his employer worried about the security of the life-support system, he’d have addressed it. Right? His mum beamed at him from her little holo-plinth. She winked conspiratorially. Secrets were her strength. She always said, say nothing and let the fools sing. Good advice, he always thought. So why had he ignored it today? To reassure himself that he wasn’t paranoid, he re-checked the firewall. There: a weakness. A hacker would need to know what they were seeking, but, surely, a weakness is a weakness. The consequences of such a key ship system being compromised defied measurement. Catastrophic.

Maybe Mr Grogan hadn’t wanted it discussed openly at the stand-up. Terry mixed up a lunchtime bowl of blue kibble on the mezzanine, and nodded. Made sense. But why? Security reasons? The other staff were trusted. Too distracting? It was a serious issue. So why? There was his mum again, with one of her sayings. Who stands to gain from it? Grogan? A play for control? Would he gamble with the lives of everyone aboard the Destiny? Did he think he could come out of that eventuality a winner?

Terry overthought everything. Everyone said so. He was pushed to enquire, he struggled to come to decisions, he had a tendency to catastrophise. Of course he did. Every scenario ended in catastrophe on a long enough time-line. That’s why his job was security for the engineering crew. It was why he was trusted, too. He took that trust seriously. Over a thousand souls depended on him.

In the depths of the ship, later, doing his rounds, Terry still debated his options. Grogan found him there, wiped his upper lip and drew close. “I know you think it’s me,” he had to shout his secret over the din down there, “the captain says there’s too many mouths to feed. Wants an… accident. She has… influence over me.” Terry nodded. He had heard rumours about Grogan’s indiscretions. The man sweated before him now in the greasy, red dullness. Terry told him he wouldn’t open his mouth.

Terry stayed late. Got in the back way through the firewall exploit. He selected the captain’s quarters and Grogan’s. Glanced at his mum before hitting EXECUTE. When he took the job, he told her he worried about this sort of situation arising. She’d said, if they don’t deserve your trust, then they don’t deserve Destiny. He tapped the button and listened for the klaxon.

Next week’s words

Random nouns and random verbs to attract those muses.

Next week’s nouns

expenditure
entertain
tablet
morsel
leader

Next week’s verbs

announce
stand
reverse
sue
decline

Please do let me know if you have been writing along with me, dear reader. I’m going to do this anyway, but misery loves company and all that.

Flash Fiction Challenge: Habitant 1306

Week 1

Predictably, I spent absolutely no time thinking about this challenge until yesterday and then I knocked out the five hundred words in an evening. No matter how I did it, though, I have a sense of accomplishment. It’s been such a long time since I wrote for the pleasure of it, I forgot what it was like. That slow unfurling of the story in my mind, the careful (or not so careful) selection of the words, the freedom to make it what it wants to be. I enjoyed it.

Anyway, the random words certainly helped get me started in this case. I had some images from other media in the forefront of my mind as I wrote. Aveena, the holographic assistant from the Citadel in the Mass Effect games was the first thing. But instead of a mysterious space station, it was the assistant for something like the arcologies in Appleseed, a manga that I read more than 30 years ago. I remember almost nothing about it except for the arcologies, which I thought were a pretty cool concept. Habitant 1306 is the result. Here’s the list of the random words that I managed to fit into it first.

Nouns

Development
Surgery
Union
Shopping
System

Verbs

Execute
Finish
Approve
Undertake
Take

Habitant 1306

By Ronan McNamee

“The System is here to fulfil all of your needs, Habitant 1306.” The hologram flickered and flashed, blinding me momentarily. Why had it designated me Habitant 1306? I thumbed my eyes and walked on past it. It felt like a haunting, but not the one I would want. The vastness of the Development’s central atrium bloomed around me, twilit and dripping. I pulled Aunty’s scarf tight.

Maybe it knew me? The cracked and mossy statue of a habitant, gaily swinging their shopping bags winked at me, I’m certain. Did the statue know me too, somehow? Spiders crawled up my spine. I whipped about but caught only the brief flicker of the hologram, awaiting the next habitant. It might wait forever.

What if it mistook me for someone else? Perhaps Habitant 1306 looked like me. What if 1306 was the designation, not just of habitant, but also habitation? An “i” towered, gallingly tall, above a booth, hunkered between ATM and escalator. A gentle glow beneath an encrustation of grime drew me in. With a wipe I discovered a map on a screen. Below, the development delved deep. Caverns occupied by industry, commerce, leisure. Above me, the habitations stretched high into the night sky.

Developers had undertaken the doomed project; the union of all aspects of life in a System-governed space. Self-sustaining, self-regulating, self-populating… 1306 was far above. There were elevators but I didn’t trust them not to take me where they wanted. A stairwell, housed in a tall glass tube, spiralled into the heavens. I stretched, knowing Aunty would approve, and started the climb. Every few landings, a gap in the Development’s titanic cladding allowed the Free City streets to shine out below. My home, where Aunty found me as a nipper, clad in my birthday suit, exploring, unworried and unhurried, she told me.

13 sounds doable, but each floor encompasses cities. Peach streaked the horizon as I finished with the stairs. 06 was on a low inter-level. The halls’ walls and ceilings had partially collapsed. Utility cabling and piping barricaded the way. The Development’s arteries blocking my path to the heart. I had surgery to perform. I hefted my idle crowbar and scrubbed in.

Shocked, soaked and stinking, I left the patient bleeding behind me, crawling to the end of the hall. Forty winks, Aunty found me. She scowled with that smile hiding behind. Only ever in the electrified darkness inside my eyelids, these days. I thumbed my eyes to clear them again, rose and stretched.

1306 said the door. “Everyone left you,” I said to the Development or the door, maybe. Touched, it swung sullenly open. Illumination blossomed. It was a home. Unobtrusive conveniences skulked, observing my steps. But still, a sort of habitation to be sure.

A closet? Located dead-centre, it buzzed and gurgled. Inside was a tall mirror. No, I switched the light on and saw me, in my birthday suit, watching Aunty. The pink water bubbled. A single word question blinked on the tank’s surface, “Execute?”

Next week’s words

And here are the random words generated for next week’s challenge.

Next week’s nouns

measurement
consequence
desk
winner
employer

Next week’s verbs

echo
influence
enquire
mix
pin

I’d love to hear from you if you took part in the challenge this week, dear reader, or if you wrote anything you’re satisfied with in the last few days, even. Get in the comments!

Short Fiction Challenge

These are not resolutions, okay?

Yes, I wrote all the way back last year, that I don’t really believe in New Year’s resolutions. So much so that I then proceeded to list five of them, with the proviso that they were “gaming resolutions,” not real ones. So, I may as well continue along Self-Delusion Avenue into 2025, I thought.

So! There are a couple of non-RPG things I’d like to try to do more often:

Practice my Japanese and improve my fluency before our big trip to Japan in the autumn
Write more fiction that is not related to games

The cover of the book, Read Real Japanese Fiction, Edited by Michael Emmerich and featuring the writing of Hiromi Kawaguchi, Otsuichi, Sinji Ishii, Banana Yoshimoto, Kaoru Kitamura and Yoko Tawada. It also features the illustration of a small, angry, barefoot child with a light blue dress on.

日本語の練習は大変だけど楽しいです。最近　Read Real Japanese　Fiction　という本を読み始まりました。その本の中には日本の著者六人のすばらしい短編小説が読めます。一文ずつ、英語の説明もあるから分かりやすいです。それ以外、Netflixで日本のテレビ番組をよく見て日本語のリスニングの練習もできます。日本語を話すことの練習もできればいいな。

A double-page spread from the book “Read Real Japanese Fiction.” This shows a page of the short story, Kamisama by Hiromi Kawaguchi and the opposite page with explanations in English for each sentence.

For the second point, I thought I might use this very blog, dear reader… and perhaps, dear fellow writer…

Random Word Generator

In a now defunct writing group I was once a part of, we often used a random word generator to get our minds working on new short pieces of fiction. In fact, some of the short stories and flash fiction I posted here came from that group. I think we can all agree that I had mixed success. But, there is no doubt about one thing: it got me writing. I always found that, when my brain was working on the practical problem of fitting those randomly selected words into whatever it was I was writing, I was not focusing so much on the fact that I didn’t have any ideas. I let the words guide me into something resembling a story. After a while, I found the ideas for short fiction coming without the aid of the random words and so I would have to shoe-horn them in, which is an interesting exercise in itself. But the random words were the kickstart that I needed.

So I decided to use the same method again. Here is my first effort. I used this random word generator to come up with five nouns and five verbs:

Nouns I used

Engine
Clothes
Thought
Employer
Investment

Verbs I used

Summon
Chase
Determine
Cheer
Assess

This time, I thought I would challenge myself to write in a format I don’t think I have ever attempted before, a hundred word flash.

Present Imperative

by Ronan McNamee

Swim. Up to the air. Breathe. Curse your clothes. They catch every eddy, urging a return to drowning. Locate your employer. She bobs there on the surface; regards the depths. Consider her investment in you. Learn from her mistakes. Recognise the ice of the sea in your bones. Move. Chase survival, success. Stroke past her and her solitary Chu. Welcome the deep-freeze motivation. Summon your future. Allow it to cheer you, sustain you. Pause, paddle. Resist the chill in your blood. Hear the engine enter earshot. Determine the direction. Assess difficulty and distance. Chatter a grin. Swim.

Next Challenge

Five verbs: execute, finish, approve, undertake, take. Five nouns: development, surgery, union, shopping, system — The Randomly Generated words to use in writing the 500 word flash fiction due on Wednesday, 15th January, 2025.

Here’s the plan. I’m going to generate five more nouns and five more verbs right now. I am going to take these words and come up with a 500 word piece of flash fiction. If you’re interested, dear reader, I would invite you to do the same. I’m going to post my piece on this here blog next Wednesday. If you want, you can leave yours as a comment under this post or under my post next week or on your own blog and link to it, or you can write it in that little notebook you keep just for yourself, or you can write it on the wind so only the birds and the gods can read it.

Here are the words for next week:

Nouns for next week

development
surgery
union
shopping
system

Verbs for next week

execute
finish
approve
undertake
take

And this is the best part: I’m going to do this every Wednesday until I decide I’ve done enough. Feel free to join me in this weekly writing challenge, dear reader. Or maybe just try it this once and see if you like it. One way or the other、よろしくお願いします。

Flash Fiction: The Hunt

New year, old fiction

Happy new year, dear reader! I hope your 2025 is better than the year just passed. And thanks for your occasional glance at my humble blog in the last few months. If you are new here, although the dice pool dot com is normally an RPG-related blog, I also like to sometimes share the short and long form fiction that I have produced over the years. Since I have a splitting headache today and not much in the way of good ideas for original blogposts, it seemed like a good opportunity to post this piece of flash fiction. It’s exactly 500 words and came out of some randomly generated nouns and verbs as an exercise a few years ago. I hope you enjoy it.

The Hunt

by Ronan McNamee

I always think of my ambition as the gun I bring on a hunt. Continuing the analogy; job interviews, important proposals and meetings are everyday hunting expeditions.
But on today’s safari, we’re after really big game.

There he is, the prize: Dr Khan. I’ll call him the Great White Rhinoceros; I’m going to mount his head on the wall of my soon to be much larger corner-office. He is just as I pictured, minus the pocket protector; an irredeemable nerd; nervous,
slightly slovenly, side-parting.

My smile and greeting are genuine. I have never been so happy to meet anyone, to be staring down my sights at such a magnificent beast. My trigger finger twitches and I almost shoot early! He had been explaining his discovery, and I interrupted
like a rookie.

I check that my gun is correctly loaded and resume ambush position. He continues his boring explanation. I do glean a little important information, though. The
product he just developed, the product he is just about to sell to my company, enables the user not just to experience the world from the perspective of a bird or a tortoise or a duck-billed platypus, but to live it. No mere virtual reality headset, this.
This invention of Dr Khan’s will revolutionise humanity’s understanding of the natural world by literally allowing its users to become a part of it. It will also make my
company a metric shit-tonne of cash.

His explanations and interminable techno-babble proceed unabated for the entire walk through the university Physics Department until we are in his lab. I continue to nod and make the right noises. The hands holding my gun are becoming sweaty and my patience with the Great White Rhinoceros grows thin.

He stops talking, I level the barrel at him and fire.

I assure him that we would never try to influence him to use his invention for any purpose but the one it was meant for. I convince him we share his values; the welfare of animals, the preservation of Mother Earth, yadda, yadda, yadda. I watch the smile creep across his face when I mention remuneration, a seven figure sum. He nods excitedly. He shakes my hand as I wonder what to carve into that wonderful, big hunk of ivory.

Khan leaves me in the lab as he rushes off to spread the good news to his trophy team. I receive a text. Unknown number. “I’ve seen you on Facebook with that elephant’s corpse,” it reads.

My gun clatters to the red dirt of the savannah. I hear the door being locked. I rise and approach the window to the next room. The Great White Rhinoceros is in there. His finger is poised on a button. His phone is in his other hand. I receive another
text: “Time for you to see how it feels.” He pushes the button.

I run and run and hide, heart hammering, legs aching, tail bleeding. Another gunshot. I bleed.