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…

©️Jane Jago 2020

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.

1. How did the son of such a well-to-do family find himself in the vigiles?

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.

2. Sometimes justice and the law are uneasy bedfellows. Given a choice between the two where do you go?

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.

3. Your lady wife has a reputation for feistiness. How do you manage this side of her character without rows?

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.

4. Your wife’s bodyguard is a mountain of man, and also her best friend. Have you ever felt jealousy?

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.

5. How do you feel fatherhood has changed you?

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.

E.M. Swift-Hook

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. 

The collected ‘wisdom’ of seven decades on this planet condensed into limerick form. Certainly not philosophy to live your life by…..

When you meet someone who’s talking crap
With full psychobabble and pap
There is nothing to say
So just walk away
Or else you might give them a slap

©️jj

‘Origin Code’ by Ian Bristow is one of nineteen Game Lit stories by as many authors in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover, out today to help celebrate Earth Day.  All profits from the Rise and Rescue anthologies will go to support wildlife devastated by the Australian wildfires. 

Origin Code – Zadyn had a choice. Steal to save the world or die. And he didn’t plan on dying.

Countless merchant stalls lined the streets of Averisk’s city center, making it one of Inworld’s most visited hubs. Chatter from busy shoppers melded with the yells of business owners offering their latest deals on armor, weapons, potions, food and anything else a Quester could want.

The center of a crowded market wasn’t the sort of place Zadyn would have normally agreed to meet an informant, but on this occasion the potential prize was too great to let his usual code of conduct get in the way. And it had been made more than clear by his informant that he wouldn’t be making the rules for their meet. He smiled at that last, knowing full well his reputation for talking his way into or out of anything clearly preceded him.

A quick glance at the purpling sky prompted him to scan the busy street for his mark. She was supposed to arrive at the produce stall across the street from where he had stationed himself at dusk. It wasn’t wise to linger, so if she didn’t show soon he’d have to move on. But even as that thought occurred, a hooded figure arrived at the stall.

Zadyn waited for the signal to be sure it was her—a hand gesture, displaying only three of the woman’s five fingers—then he started toward her.

“Nice evening, isn’t it?”

The four words chosen to let her know he was the one she was meeting.

“It is. But the wind is picking up.” She responded without turning to face him. Then she set off down the street at a sharp pace.

He followed and soon she turned off the merchant-crowded street and into a vacant alleyway, her cloak billowing in the evening breeze. Cautious from his many years thieving, Zadyn hung back, suddenly wondering if this was some kind of trap. She gave a quick backwards glance and slipped into the doorway of a small building.

He’d been told this job would pay more than he could dream of. That if he did this, he could live a life of luxury. Buy any armor or weapons upgrades he desired and still have coin to explore even the farthest reaches of whatever world expansions he wanted. No more joining raids as the expendable thief just to make ends meet. He was tired of being the one who got ignored as soon as he’d swiped the all-important dungeon key or retrieved the necessary ingredients for some ungrateful warlock’s potion-making needs.

Sure, in recent times he had moved on to more high-profile work here in the city, but there was always the looming threat of reverting to darker times if these posh jobs dried up. But if he did this, all that would be part of his forgettable past.

Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover is out today, so to keep reading snag your copy now and help support Australian wildlife.

It hadn’t been in her life plan. She hadn’t intended to become the poster-person, the voice, of a cause. It was just she’d been the one there. Right there, when something happened. And she’d been the one in the crowd who spoke up.

Of course, she hadn’t known it was being recorded. Until her friends started on about how she was going viral. And how brave she had been.

She hadn’t been brave, just there.

When they asked, she shrugged and said: “Someone had to say something. I only did what anyone would do.”

“Yes. But no one else did.”

E.M. Swift-Hook

In the final days before the army of Qabal Vyazin began an improbable and historic winter march through the Great Tusk Pass, Caer found himself caught up in a continual stream of demands upon his time and energy. Having been involved in a manhunt most of the previous day, he slept briefly and rode at dawn to the mustering troops where he spent half the morning reviewing the supplies and arguing with one of the Warlord’s other commanders about the necessary provision and how best to transport it. Then he returned to Tabruth to speak with the Warlord himself; an interview which had not been very pleasant, focusing as it did on Caer’s shortcomings and his failure to find the Harkeran agents responsible for the murder of Ralik Vyazin. He had spent the afternoon looking over the apartments of Commander Brachios which had been broken into the night before. Brachios himself was with the army, but his catamite had been killed and Caer knew that once the Commander received that news he would be getting an extremely irate Brachios descending on him as well.
The Tabruthans, who should have been of the most assistance in this policing investigation, seemed to be oddly unavailable or firmly, but politely, unable to offer any insight. In the end, he took the problem with him to his own rooms where he dined alone with the woman he had desired and won on his own terms: the Caravansi Alexa, she they called ‘the Fair’.
As they were served the rich food she listened to the tally of his frustrations and humiliations over the past few days, starting with how he had nearly laid hands on the assassin, but the man had lost him in the streets of the city and then on through the catalogue of events of the day concluding with his inability to find any real clue to the identity of the second murderer. The beautiful face opposite him looked attentive and when he had finished, frowned very slightly. Alexa raised a goblet to her lips and sipped the wine.
“It seems to me,” she said pointedly, setting the goblet down on the table between them, “you may not be looking for two men but one.”
“I had thought of that,” Caer returned crossly. “But there is no more reason to suppose that is so than that there were two or even more men.”
Alexa watched him with her violet eyes.
“No? So there are two – or more – men presently wandering around Tabruth with the skill to break into and out of the castle at will and act as they please once inside. I am sure you will have been told that Brachios’ lover was well armed and that his death was no simple assassination.”
“I was also told,” Caer said feeling caustic, “that Ralik was killed by an energy pistol and Brachios’ catamite with a jewelled dagger – his own. Why would a man with an energy weapon use a blade?”
“If I were trying to suggest that there was more than one man involved in these attacks, I might choose to vary the way I killed,” Alexa told him, patiently, as if explaining something to a child. “Assuming, of course, I had the skill to do so.”
Caer was silent then, thinking.
“One man,” he said at last. “Not a group of Harkeran sympathisers?”
“One man,” she agreed, “who has the skill to kill even those trained to arms and who seems to want to speak to Commander Brachios very urgently.”
He looked at her as if seeing her for the very first time: the dark red hair in perfect loops, framing her oval face with its high arching brows and the clear violet eyes beneath them. Beauty and intelligence combined with an iron will and the competitive spirit that had made her the best caravansi he had ever served under in his days as a Zoukai. But now the tide had turned and it was he who held the whip hand and she who followed. She needed the favour of the Warlord and could only hold that through Caer. So she spent the winter with him whilst her caravan was secured in separate quarters in the city of Kharzabad.
“You think that our murderer might make a point of visiting Brachios then, if the Commander were known to be staying somewhere – more easy to get to?” Caer asked her.
She turned her head slightly to look at the darkening window. “I think you show some intelligence sometimes,” she said simply.

From Dues of Blood a Fortune’s Fools book by E.M. Swift-Hook and the third volume in the Transgressor trilogy.

The collected ‘wisdom’ of seven decades on this planet condensed into limerick form. Certainly not philosophy to live your life by…

When the poor and unloved f-bombs died
I’ll admit that I lay down and sighed
For the poor orphaned f**k
That ran out of luck
I looked into my beer and I cried

©️jj