Two Women and Some Books
The collected ‘wisdom’ of seven decades on this planet condensed into limerick form. Certainly not philosophy to live your life by…
I can’t understand people that
Don’t see that the world must be flat
If the planet was round
It would bounce round and round
It’s a big spinning bowl – on a rat
‘The Simulation’ by Ricardo Victoria is one of nineteen Game Lit stories by as many authors in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover. All profits from the Rise and Rescue anthologies will go to support wildlife devastated by the Australian wildfires.
“How the hell did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” Jay replied with a shrug. He was short and chubby and felt like he hadn’t slept in weeks.
“What do you mean you don’t know? This thing didn’t create itself. It is… too complex,” the tall, thin guy said with exasperation. Lou was his name, and he was pointing to a hologram projection. It was a planet, brimming with life, cities, people, animals of different kinds, some vaguely familiar, some brand new to the pair.
“That’s the thing, I don’t remember doing it. Not like that.”
“You were missing for weeks. It’s clear you were busy coding this. What do you mean you don’t remember doing it? Were you consuming again?” The tall guy gave him a disapproving look. He knew addictions were a sore spot in their friendship.
“Err… yes?”
“Is that an affirmation or a question?”
“Both? Look, man. I just know I started coding this so we could have our roleplaying sessions with a holographic projection and save us the hassle of consulting the rulebooks. I just wanted more fluidity in our gaming sessions.”
“And to stifle power gaming,” the tall guy added, smirking slightly.
“Well, yeah. Things have become… unruly to say the least. Starting with you,” Jay replied seriously. While he liked to tinker with the gaming system, he was getting tired of the players’ power gaming – so much so that their story had become an unwieldy mess recently. Especially thanks to Lou’s mean streak.
“And I already apologized for that. Still, I can’t believe you don’t recall coding a perfect simulacrum of our roleplaying setting, down to physics and magic rules, history and the whole set of rulebooks. Heck, you even included a time progression of the family trees of each of our player characters. It has their genetic codes, and are those quantum interactions? Again, how the hell did this happen?” Amazement brimmed in Lou’s voice.
“Look, I’m asking the same question. I just remember I started coding, using as a base an old AI template code I found lying around from our school projects. But it looked different,” Jay offered, although he knew that, even for him, the absent-minded genius was a lame excuse.
“Different how?” Lou asked, intrigued.
“Slightly more complex, like nested matrices recombining themselves all the time as if it were a kaleidoscope. I started pouring the data into the matrices and they replied with more complex data and it started to grow up from there. I just kept working non-stop and the thing kept growing. It was odd.”
“In which sense?”
“I didn’t get hungry, barely thirsty. I was in the zone, man! Then one day I finally fell asleep and, when I woke up, this whole new universe was there, taking up all the memory, processing power, and system energy.”
“Did you try to turn it off?”
“It wasn’t necessary. Before you arrived, the whole block had a blackout.”
“And?”
“The hologram simulation kept running. I think it is self-sustaining now. If that makes sense.”
“Not really. It shouldn’t be possible. And yet here it is, a whole world, nested in who knows which parallel dimension. All of it based on our roleplaying campaign,” Lou stroked his chin, caressing his badly-trimmed beard.
To keep reading snag your copy of Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover now and help support Australian wildlife.
A Bite of – Ricardo Victoria
That’s a tough question. But I probably would say that, providing I can get the appropriate combat training, Final Fantasy. Most likely 6,7,8 or 10. That’s because the things I usually dream feel like that videogame series. I like the aesthetics, the merge of magic and technology, the weird clothes, the freedom to explore and have adventure.
Time? Probably afternoon or night, when’s less hectic. As for place, if I could write in the shower I would. That’s where I get my better ideas.
Since I stopped drinking hot chocolate (for dietary reasons), I’m enjoying cappuccinos with almond or Irish cream syrup. I like it warm and in a tumbler so I don’t spill it.
Born in the frozen landscape of Toluca, Mexico, Ricardo Victoria dreamed of being a writer. But needing a job that could pay the rent while writing, he studied Industrial Design and later obtained a PhD in Sustainable Design, while living in the United Kingdom and working in a comic book store to pay for his board game & toy addiction. He is back now in Toluca, living with his wife and his two dogs where he works as an academic at the local university.
He is the author of Tempest Blades: The Withered King and has short stories featured in anthologies by Inklings Press and Rivenstone Press. He was nominated for a Sidewise Award 2016 for the short story Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon, co-written with his arch-nemesis, Brent A. Harris. He also won a local contest for a fantasy short story during college. But hey! That one doesn’t count, does it?
You can find his rants and other work—both fiction and opinion pieces—on his own website/blog and follow him on Twitter.
Today, with her marriage, the truce would become full peace. There was no time to make the preparations, but standing with her commanders to meet the delegation, she realised that no preparations would have helped her anyway.
Their leader was young – younger than herself, but then this war had taken many older nobles.
“I come to fulfil the honour of my Clan, to bind the peace by marriage.”
She stepped forward trying to hide her true feelings.
“Then I welcome you – as my third husband.”
It was a slow way to expand her Empire, but it was proving remarkably effective.
Maybe by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook . Sometimes we walk the edges of realty…
Annis stood, still holding the gun, her young face puzzled, shaking her head.
“No. No, You must stop it. Jessica. You must.”
The Old Ones moved to a single command, an ancient voice from primordial times. The voice that had once summoned humanity to leave the ways of the gatherer and hunt for flesh. Dark and potent, it summoned now the myriad aspects of itself, the feasters on fear and the eaters of blood, drawing them back to the place where it would Be once more.
“No!” Annis cried aloud, her body being pulled out of shape as if by an unseen pressure.Her face changing, as if under the distorting brush of an artist.
“No,” Jessica heard her own voice, but it was not her own. It was more than a cry of desperation, it was a cold assertion of denial and as she spoke the single syllable, the world seemed to slow. Someone stepped out of her and then turned to face her, kirtle, belted at the waist and long hair braided. A mirror image. She picked up the ugly knife that lay on the stone and in her hand it gleamed silver, catching and reflecting the light above the throne and casting it into the shadows. Then she held it out on an open palm.
“I can’t do this, Jessica, it has to be you.”
The eyes, so familiar, held nothing but expectation.
Jessica reached out and took the blade.
In a single movement the other, had stepped back and lifted the sprawling body of Roald into her arms, her touch transforming him again from monster to man. His eyes flickered open and widened.
“Hild?”
The woman shushed him as she might an infant, then looked back to Jessica.
“This is not my time, it is yours. Do what you must.”
Then both were gone and time reprised. It was like a dream within a dream was over and Jessica was plunged back into the nightmare, but this time alone. Annis screaming, the Old Ones creeping back to become once more the single malevolent, life-destroying, malice that they had been, which grew in strength and power with each moment as it flexed its presence and reached out, turning its focus upon the figure that stood at the confluence of every point of its progression.
JESSICA!
The name shivered through the underworld like a curse.
Alone and vulnerable, defenceless. Feeling again the hard blows, the brutal, pounding body, the shrill and silent scream of panic, as bound and gagged, she was hurled from the car to roll on the rocks.
That is who you are. That broken, beaten and weak creature, Stand aside and I will spare what remains of you. Resist and you will relive that for eternity. I can trap you as I have trapped the others, locked in your own private nightmare, playing it through, forever.
The knife in her hand gleamed, it’s obsidian blade as sharp as any metal, carved from the congealed blood of the earth itself. Jessica stared at it, images of blood and fear and agony, twisting her thoughts. She could refuse and know that in neverending darkness, or shed her own blood and bind herself to oppose it.
And then she knew.
“No,” she said quietly, her voice simply determined.
She gripped the stone knife and raised her hand, then with a single blow she struck the blood-drenched stone and it shattered as if hit by a pile-driver.
Part 16 of Maybe will be here next week…
Gimme coffee, coffee, coffee
Gimme coffee, coffee, coffee
Gimme coffee, coffee, coffee
Just give a cup to me!
I need coffee, lovely coffee
I need coffee, tasty coffee
I need coffee, sweet, sweet coffee
Don’t palm me off with tea!
Want more coffee much, more coffee
Want more coffee, please, more coffee
Want more coffee NOW, more coffee
I need it can’t you see?
What d’you mean you’re out of coffee?
You just can’t be out of coffee!
I so need a bloody coffee
Oh screw it, I’ll have tea.
From ‘Return to Wrathburnt Sands’ by E.M. Swift-Hook
It had been a quiet few days in Wrathburnt Sands. The months since the Expansion had been very busy for Milla in her new role as a quest giver so she appreciated the break. It gave her more time to go beachcombing with Ruffkin, her little dog, and chat with Pew whilst she strung the shells she had gathered into necklace charms to give out as quest rewards to those Visitors who returned from the pyramid dungeon to claim one.
Pew – or more correctly Firecaster Pewpowerpwnsyou – was, she supposed, her boyfriend. At least he seemed to think he was and Milla was not entirely unhappy with the idea, even if there were times she wanted to shake him. But the other residents of Wrathburnt Sands made no secret of their feelings.
“He’s not a proper ryeshor. He’s not even a Local.”
“He don’t belong here.”
“Folk like him drag trouble with them. They’re cursed with it.”
“You be careful young’un, he’s a Visitor. He’ll only break your heart.”
Those last words were still ringing in Milla’s head as she walked along the beach in the morning sun, Ruffkin bounding ahead of her. One Eye Rye had said that yesterday, when she went to buy some fish for Ruffkin from his shop by the pier. He was her truest friend amongst the villagers. He even liked Pew. She knew he did because he sold Pew provisions from his shop at a discount those times when Pew was down on his luck and One Eye never did that for any other Visitor.
“Visitors never stay for long,” One Eye added, “and they always have other lives.”
“Not Pew,” she had told him stoutly, “He promised me he’s maining on his ryeshor toon and has stopped playing all his other alts.”
One Eye’s snout wrinkled at that.
“I start to worry about you, young’un. You’re even talking like a Visitor now – ‘toons’, ‘alts’ and whatever the bluesky and ocean that all means.”
Milla shrugged and had left quickly after that. The truth was she didn’t entirely know what any of it meant. But Pew had said it with such fervour that she knew it was something that mattered to him for her to know. She understood at least that it was his way of saying he wasn’t going to go away like the other Visitors always did. That made Milla happy as when she tried to imagine not having Pew around, life began to feel very flat and empty.
Walking along the beach in the early morning, she paused to pick up a shell. The pendant she always wore around her neck, swung forward, glowing with its hidden magic. She tucked it away in her simple tunic and was disturbed by voices on the pier. She couldn’t see them as the pier was above her, but she knew from what they were saying that it was Visitors.
“I hate this fragging fishing quest. Must have done it a million times.”
“You and me both, bud. You remember when we were in Epic Legends with that crazy guy, what was he called? The one who loved crafting and spent all his time harvesting?”
“You mean Buffalott?”
“That’s the one. I heard his wife left him for their guild leader in the end. She always just wanted to raid. Best MT on the server she was too.”
“Yeah? I thought that was Aggrowhore?”
“Just because We Rulz is the top raiding guild, doesn’t mean they have the best MT.”
“S’ppose. Anyway, I’m done fishing, have to go turn it in and then I can do the pyramid questline.”
Milla sighed and made an effort to keep the frills on her crest from flattening. Not for the first time she wished she didn’t have to be a quest giver. Life had been so much simpler before she became one.
Sure, enough she had barely got home, given Ruffkin his breakfast and made a fresh pot of fruit tea, before the Visitor she had overheard on the pier was banging on her door. She didn’t bother to welcome them, focusing instead on pouring some of the fruit tea into a pottery bottle and sealing it up.
“Come in. It’s not locked.”
The figure who entered might have stepped out of an ancient tale. She was clearly an elf, the pointed ears, elaborate hair and lofty expression of superiority spoke to that. She wore golden armour that gleamed with its own radiance and even lit up the room more brightly. One hand rested on the pommel of a sword, shaped to resemble the skull of a dragon with hollow socket eyes that gleamed darkly and a jagged blade representing flames coming out of its mouth. On her back was a bow, Milla could see it over the elf’s shoulder, which looked like it was made of a milky white wood, set with tiny gemstones.
This was clearly the kind of Visitor Pew called a poser.
“Hail fair lady. I, Blessedknight Gloryjammer, have need of your wisdom.” The elf managed to make it sound as if she were doing Milla a favour by allowing her to help, instead of it being the other way around.
Putting her hands on her hips, she wrinkled up her snout and glared at the elf, and Ruffkin gave a low growl from his bed by the hearth.
“Really?”
The elf looked a bit puzzled and cleared her throat.
“Hail fair lady. I, Blessedknight Gloryjammer, have need of your wisdom.”
“Yes. You said.”
“Uh…?”
“I don’t know how things are in the Melifulous Glades where you elves all come from, but here in Wrathburnt Sands we have these things called ‘manners’. You might even have heard of them?”
The elf had changed colour and looked a little grey.
“I…Uh… B-but this isn’t in the walkthrough.”
“Please,” Milla told her helpfully. “You say please.”
The elf swallowed.
“But it isn’t…”
“In the walkthrough?”
The elf shook her head.
“I don’t think that’s my problem,” Milla said and tapped her foot impatiently.
The elf looked close to tears.
“Alright. Please. Please will you give me the fragging pyramid quest?”
Milla sighed and picked up the bottle of tea and held it out to the unhappy-looking elf.
“You’ll need to get some flyberry cookies from One Eye Rye as well, so save yourself the time and get some flyberries before you go to see him.”
The elf took the bottle and stared at it uncomprehending.
“I already got some berries, but what’s this?”
“Fruit tea. The drakonettes who guard the pyramid love it.”
“But that’s not…”
“In the walkthrough?”
The elf shook her head again.
Milla resisted the temptation to shake hers and instead managed a fake smile. Not that the elf would think it fake. Visitor’s never noticed such things. Except for Pew.
‘Return to Wrathburnt Sands’ by E.M. Swift-Hook is just one of nineteen Game Lit stories by as many authors in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover. All profits from the Rise and Rescue anthologies will go to support wildlife devastated by the Australian wildfires.
A war
Of words
Like
Throwing turds
Hate
In every syllable
Wondering
Is he killable
A battle
Of the sexes
Between
Soon to be exes
A war
Of words…
Welcome to the Hotseat of Truth, a device in which your protagonist is trapped. The only way to escape is to answer five searching questions completely honestly or the Hotseat will consume them to ashes!
Today’s Victim is Dai Llewellyn, one half of the husband and wife team who solve the Dai and Julia Mysteries in a modern-day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules, written by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.
It was something I wanted to do. I was the younger son and not going to inherit the family lands and business anyway and I had no desire to be any kind of farmer, which was the expectation my family had – well, my older brother. He wanted me to stick around to help run things and ideally marry a local landed heiress.
He didn’t like me joining the vigiles. It wasn’t the kind of job someone like me was supposed to do, in his opinion. And when I was assigned to a post in Londinium, that was the final straw. We fell out badly and only really patched that up around the time I met Julia.
I’ve never had any problem making this choice. Justice always comes first. But in my working life I often find that justice has to take a back seat to the law – or to other factors like the way the Vigiles are financed. That is something that always frustrates me.
The Roman establishment has an odd view of justice. In their view, justice is only justice if it serves their ends. I’ve never been comfortable with that. Sometimes it literally makes me see red. I lose my temper so badly I am not really aware of what I’m doing. Thank the gods for Bryn Cartival or I might have murdered some smirking arrogant Roman long ago.
I don’t. We row. One time so badly Julia left me for a time. I think that scared both of us a bit and since then we have been torn apart by circumstances neither of us could control on more than one occasion. I think that has made us both more careful – it certainly has done so for me. Sometimes it’s only when you have lost – or come so close to losing – someone, that you see things in proportion.
Of Edbert? **laughs** Well maybe a little in the very early days, but then it was more that he knew her so much better than me. Nowadays I think of him as nearly as much my friend as Julia’s.
Where to begin? It has changed all my priorities in life. It has given me a much longer view of all I am trying to achieve. It’s no longer enough to try to change things for the better in an abstract ‘for the people’ sort of way, it has suddenly taken on a very personal and immediate form.
I want Aelwyn and Rhodri to grow up in a world where being Roman and being British are both things they can take real pride in – and in a world where they don’t ever have to choose between the two.
Spring was getting going which meant The Owners took longer walks so Bowzer and Bubbles could too.
Bowzer checked the peemails on the oaktree which he hadn’t got to visit since the end of summer.
“Ohhh, Daisy had another litter,” he told Bubbles.
“Anything from Old Pogle?”
Bowzer sniffed.
“Nothing in a while.”
“Guess that means…”
“Mebbe.”
They trotted on, lost in sad speculation. Pogle had lived the other side of Muddy Wood, they’d only met on long walk days.
“Pogle liked spring.”
“I’ll miss him.”
“Wait!”
Bowzer caught a familiar scent on the breeze and ran forward barking happily.
From ‘Rules of Engagement’ by Jane Jago
I came abruptly awake, and squinted in the bright sunlight. Sunlight? I thought. Just hold on one minute. It was November and I lived in London. Where the smegg was the sunlight in that equation? I sat up carefully and looked about me. Not London. Definitely not London. Instead I seemed to be in a sort of leafy bower in the crown of an oak tree.
“Chloe,” I said to myself, “you definitely ain’t in Kansas.”
I was dressed in some teenage boy’s idea of heroine/princess-in-need-of-a-knight garb. It was skintight and sort of snakeskin-ish with a teeny weeny skirt and hopelessly impractical sandals. I also had rather a lot of blonde curls and a whole heap more chest than I had any use for. Whoever had given me this avatar wasn’t playing by the rules at all. I sighed and set about braiding the hair into something more sensible while I had a think.
Evidently someone was messing about with my head, and I could even hazard a guess who. But that was for later. For now there was stuff to be done and decisions to be made.
First job was to confirm my suspicions. I blinked slowly twice and, sure enough, a set of Virtual Goggles activated.
“Status.”
The answering voice was scratchily unfriendly. Which was wrong on a lot of levels, not the least of which is that VG is designed to be absolutely neutral. I stopped trying to figure it out and listened carefully.
“Single female. Fighting skills: -2. Magic: -1. Charisma: -10. Weaponry: one dagger one short sword.”
Which was mostly bullcrap. Even if this was a new Game my skill levels were far above those. But I chose not to react. Instead I determined to use any advantages I might have.
“Boots.” I said firmly.
Nothing happened so I spoke again.
“I requested boots. I am entitled to one request. I want a pair of sensible leather boots.”
The boots appeared on my feet although I sensed a certain reluctance on the part of the hive mind. Somebody was certainly smegging about with this Game. But they were in for a nasty surprise.
“Location.”
“Information classified above player level.”
I grinned. We’d see about that. Later. But for now.
“Locator devices.”
The quiet lasted about thirty seconds then the voice replied (sounding as reluctant as it’s possible for an algorithm to sound). “Beacons in. Left sleeve. Handle of dagger. Cloak. Backpack.”
I blinked slowly three times and closed the goggles.
By the position of the sun it took me the best part of an hour to find all the beacons. I stuck them one by one into the bark of the tree before taking off my boots and climbing quietly down to the forest floor. I put the boots back on and looked for a suitable tree to hide in while I considered my options. The first two possibles were too possible – screaming trap with every wave of their leafy branches. The third candidate was a gnarled and elderly specimen of undefined species, but it looked climb-able and wasted no energy on allurement. I went up, climbing lightly and using my real world skills to move this stupidly pulchritudinous avatar in the most energy-efficient way.
“Rule infringement.” The voice in my ear was harsh and judgmental. I ignored it and kept on climbing.
Once seated in the crown of the tree I opened the VG.
“You have infringed the rules. You will lose your…”
“No rule was infringed,” I snapped out. “It is permissible to endow your avatar with your real-world skills.”
“Climbing is not in your real world skill set.”
“Says?”
The silence went on rather a long time before the AI got back to me. And when it did, it sounded like the words were dust and ashes in its insubstantial throat.
“Apologies. Data was corrupted.”
‘Rules of Engagement’ by Jane Jago is one of nineteen Game Lit stories by as many authors in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover. All profits from the Rise and Rescue anthologies will go to support wildlife devastated by the Australian wildfires.
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