Inktober, Week of October 28th 2016

PREVIOUSLY

Inktober is a challenge where one inks a sketch once a day for every day in October.  This is my third year on it.  I've found it helpful for building up my own habits.  And, tbh, it's why I draw a thing every day now.  It has a collective effect, albeit glacial in its pace, to improve my art. 

I've also decided to do the official prompt list too.  It's a creative challenge.  It helps me to draw if I have a puzzle to undo in the process.  Figuring out what "Lost Undead" or "Hidden Undead" will look like, are challenges I find satisfying to attempt.

On twitter and instagram I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow and get these in your feed, check those out.

NOW
Three more of these to go after this week.  Here's the last (full) week of Inktober sketches.  All undead.  
I've included deviantart links with these, in case anyone wants to buy prints of these things.

 Little.  So I went with a mouse.  This one got big on Instagram, which surprised me.  The most I've ever gotten on that platform yet, so, I guess it works on some level I can't tell.  But I did enjoy the mouse skeleton.  Very slim. 

"In that tainted place, even the smallest corpse awoke with a hunger death couldn't stop."

Slow made me think of ice.  So, a undead pirate in a slab of ice.

"To be sure, his lifeless corpse didn't stop moving because of the ice.  Slowly, One-Eyed Pete inches to coming back, to reclaim his ship and treasure."

One dozen ended with me just wanting to draw a collection of victorian vampyres in a portrait.  12 different undead designs kinda were fun to play with.

"At its height, twelve vampires occupied the halls of the Moloch Occult Club. By 1895, internal strife would drive them into conflict with one another. Their failure to collect all four Canopic Jars of the dead God Moloch remains their greatest claim. Others would outmatch the vampires. A few of them still linger, eager to see who would dare them."

The prompt word was Tired.  I was too.  So I went with a classic composition for Tired.

"Sometimes even death can be tiring and you seek something new. The golden sun always tempts one with its coin."

Box. I'm kinda proud of how I thought outside the box for this one (ha, pun!) 

"They couldn't beat her. Even after death, her best friend gave her vengeance. Seven nails thrust into her corpse, and now she boxes again."

Cats.  I shouldn't have to explain how they are creepy.

Burn.  Fire already has appeared in this batch of Inktober.  A burning witch seemed like a great thing to try out.  

"Burn the witch, but expect them to come back."

City of Curses: Night of Fire 6 (Past)

A #Crux story.  Twenty years ago, events rocked the City of Curses.  Maralda had to find out what was happening that Night of Fire, but things got complicated.  It started here, continued in Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.

The western edge of Crux ended in a massive cliff.  The Docks below it had long since taken over the cliff wall.  Cranes, ladders, stairs and all sorts of mechanical works looked busy even during night.

But that night, during the Night of Fire, the bright light and smoke changed it in Maralda's eyes.  She, Wish and the talking dead ferret looked down at what Maralda thought had to be some semblance of hell.

Gears, smoke, and metal glittered.  They looked infernal.  Like some sort of demonic machine, even though Maralda knew that the smoke and fog only hid the infrastructure of the docks below.

"The Unseen Sound,"  Maralda told herself.  The water wasn't the same.

She'd seen this view a hundred times.  The oceans far below the cliffs of the Docks and the Skullmount.  But it was wrong.  The Unseen Sound wasn't all ocean and forgotten reefs.

"Fire?"  Maralda asked.

"It's been burning in the night."  Wish gestured.  "Ever since it came back."

"The other shoreline?  That fire appeared when another shoreline appeared?!"  Maralda couldn't believe her eyes.  "What?"

"Yeah, yeah,"  Kaze Skysword, the deceased feyborn ferret interjected, "We know."

A new shoreline.  Smoke covered it.  A fire burned, illuminated a new building.  It towered over the Skullmount and even the Tinkerer's Clocktower.  Maralda learned growing up that the City of Curses sat at the crossroads of two continents.  She wondered if it now sat between three, not just two.

Thunder cracked.  Purple fire exploded in the sky.  Maralda started scribbling notes down.

"What are you doing?"  Wish asked.

"Getting this down.  You said someone had to document this.  I am."  Maralda looked around.  "I need to go over there."

"What?"  Kaza looked at Wish.  "You took my corpse to a madwoman?"

Wish shrugged.

The two of them made their way down the cliff to the docks.  The chaos around them didn't impede traffic to the docks.  Maralda used a quick bit of psychomancy to gain a dingy.  Wish and the dead ferret joined her.  Maralda didn't stop questioning Kaze for details.

"You said the Prince was dead, who killed him?"

"I didn't see that part.  There were two Aetherblooded there, an old delver friend of mine and android industrialist."  Kaze shrugged.  "And they were standing over a corpse.  They said belonged to the Prince, another Aetherblooded."

Maralda nodded.  But she remained skeptical on that count.  The Prince, an Aetherblooded and immortal. That had been one of a collection of conspiracy theories that had been gossip in Crux for centuries.  The Prince had been the unseen control over the City Watch and the myriad of Crux's old civic Guilds.  It had been a criminal empire, really.  But it had lasted longer than known history had recorded.

The history Maralda had read anyway.

Confirming that theory on the hearsay of a corpse wouldn't be easy.  Maralda needed a living witness.  People who might've known who that corpse was.

"I need to talk to this Delver friend of yours."  Maralda said.  "I need to know what happened.  Something.  This... is history.  I have to know what she knows."

"Okay.  But before I died, that fire hadn't started."  Kaze pointed out.  "It's purple and that means those two other Aetherblooded are busy being scary.  And Aetherblooded.  You don't run toward that."

"You are."

"I don't have a choice."  Kaze looked up at Wish.  "Can I back now?"

"No."  Wish retorted.  "Not until Shraxes will is done."

"Ugh."

"Right."  Maralda cast another spell.  She conjured wind, enough in the water behind them to push them forward.  She thought about using the oars, but preferred her way.

It was much faster.  At least, until an island appeared out of nowhere.  It almost landed on her, dropped from the sky as if by some gigantic hand.

Then things grew more complicated.

Inktober, Week of October 21st 2016

PREVIOUSLY

Inktober is a challenge where one inks a sketch once a day for every day in October.  This is my third year on it.  I've found it helpful for building up my own habits.  And, tbh, it's why I draw a thing every day now.  It has a collective effect, albeit glacial in its pace, to improve my art.

I've also decided to do the official prompt list too.  It's a creative challenge.  It helps me to draw if I have a puzzle to undo in the process.  Figuring out what "Lost Undead" or "Hidden Undead" will look like, are challenges I find satisfying to attempt.

On twitter and instagram I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow and get these in your feed, check those out.

NOW
Too tired to ramble on this one.  Just arts.  Enjoy!

City of Curses: Night of Fire (Future) 5

A #Crux story.  Twenty years after events rocked the City of Curses, Maralda has to help fix a problem her sister caused with one of the prime movers of that event, the Night of Fire.  It started here, continued in Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Ranza is odd.  That isn't a bad thing.  But it still is odd.

At a distance, the island looks like a small village.  Forests, fields, and squarish limestone cottages.  Herds of animals.  A massive building dominated the northern part of the island.    Next to that big building lies the airship ferry terminal.

The gigantic building confuses one further because it looks like a pub.  Then, as the airship nears Ranza, your sense of scale adjusts.

The large pub isn't some bizarre giant temple to some long forgotten god of booze.  No, it is the only normal-sized building upon Ranza.  Everything else is tiny.  Scaled for mice or rodents.  Or for humans the size of such.

The airship dock is located close to the Pub.  The Delver didn't tolerate anyone who came to Ranza looking to cause trouble.  Or to exploit the village of tiny humans.  She'd forced the dock for the ferry to be put as close as possible to her pub.  One had to pass it to see any other part of the small island.

The island was no bigger than any small neighborhood in Crux, perhaps only two or three city blocks.  But the tiny village seemed to make it feel like a different land, as if from another time.

"Do we have to do this?"  Olain sighed.  "These people aren't worth our time, Maralda."

I ignored her.  I could tell this was embarrassing her.  That and she was covering up something.  She'd come to me but hadn't been willing to admit it.  She'd make me drag her around until she would admit what the problem was.

Olain was like Father.  She couldn't just say she'd made an error or that she needed to help.  She had to be on the correct side of it and would be too stubborn to admit she wasn't right from the start.

"Aha!" A familiar voice intoned to me, small yet old.

"Hold on," I grabbed Olain's shoulder to stop her.  I smiled as I turned to the short, knee high building.  A Ranzite sat there, smoking a tiny pipe.  The black-haired, young man sat in a rocking chair, one hand tuning a fiddle.

"Early time of the month to be seein' you Miss Inculti."

"Finally earn some coin with that old chunk of wood, Saryl?"  I knelt down to see him closer.  "How are you?"

The mouse-sized man gave me a wink, then strummed a bit of a tune.  The notes sounded off.  "Bit of trouble last night.  Just a couple of kids off the Ferry."

"Not anything bad I hope?"

Saryl shrugged.  "Just scared some folks.  To be honest, the Delver scared them worse than they scared us.  One of her ferrets took a tumble, but nothing got broken."

"She can't go threatening others like that!"  Olain's eyes flared, stomping her foot.

I bit my lower lip.  Saryl, ever the cool-headed bard, shrugged.  For him, it was another tale of the Mighty Delver.  He loved those, even when they got a bit too fantastical to be true.

"Maybe Miss, but she be The Delver.  Once she turned into a Cat to stop a fairy that had been stealing children.  Another, she turned herself into a sky giant to fight off an elder god.  She protects us, and we trust her to know what is right and what is wrong."

Olain crossed her arms.  I could sense the Inculti fire in her, getting ready to boil up to the surface.  Before she did something stupid, I stepped in.

"Saryl, this is my little sister Olain.  Olain, Zaryl is a student of mine.  One of the finest Bards Ranza has ever had."  I smiled at her, pretending as though she hadn't almost lost her anger.

Olain stopped, staring at me.

"Pardon, rude of me, Miss Inculti.  Pleasure to meet you, Miss Olain!  Your sister compliments are appreciated.  But she knows I am nothing compared to my grandfather."  Saryl grinned, which was him covering his embarrassment.

"Your Grandfather never wrote his own songs.  Too confident in the things his great grandfather had written."  I shook my head.


"You come to Ranza a lot."  Olain observed, her eyes narrowing.  Anything to avoid the look of embarrassment I knew she had.

"She teaches each generation the trade,"  Saryl said.

"Trade?"

"Storytelling,"  I supplied.  "About once a month I visit Ranza to help teach anyone interested in the path.  I've been doing it ever since the island appeared twenty years ago."

"Ten generations, or how we reckon them,"  Saryl agreed.  "She's seen plenty of excellent bards from us."

"None like you Saryl,"  I smiled.

He looked away.

"Ten generations?"  Olain scratched her head in confusion.  "How?"

"Saryl, is the Delver in the Pub?"  I asked, sidestepping her questions.

"Aye, she had a long night last night.  She's been deciding whether to keep some of the troublemakers from last night."  Saryl began to pluck at strings.  Without looking up, he added, "one of them got away.  Group of kids, but you know how angry the Delver gets when it involves one of her own."

Memories of a dead ferret and an enraged Ursyklon woman flooded back to me.  I didn't ever want to repeat that experience.  But then again, without it, I wouldn't have met Saryl's ancestors, the Bardkin.  A name Ranzites had given them after spending so much time with me.  The Bard, as the Ranzites called me.

"Yes, I do,"  I sighed.  "Well, Saryl, Olain and I have to talk with her.  Thanks."

"Happy songs to you, Bard,"  Saryl nodded.  He then started a happy fiddle song.  Each note seeming to reflect the glittering sunshine.

After a step or two away from Saryl's home, Olain drew closer to me.  Her eyes looked angry.  She grabbed my left arm, tight.

"How long have you been dealing with these little micefolk ?"

I pulled her arm off me.

"Olain, a Ranzite generation is two years.  It's rare for one of them to live past three or even four years.  So, yes, I've been visiting them for what they think is ten generations.  I taught Saryl's great great grandmother how to play guitar.  They tell me their stories in turn."

"No one can learn a Path that quick."  Olain spat.  "Are you sure they aren't just puppets of the Halfling?"

"I know Father and the other Inculti tolerate enthralled Unsorcerous. So you're used to thinking of others as tools or beasts, but Olain, please."  I closed my eyes.  "You are half-Fire Vampyre and have seen some of the stranger magick this City has to offer.  And you are going to question whether or not these people are people?"

"It's convenient, isn't it?  That this Delver halfling has her own little kingdom, and that no one in the City Police comes out here to stop her?  Besides, no one can learn to be a bard that quick.  Or any of the other things he did.  To write his own songs while being, what, a year old?"

"It's more complicated than that."  I opened the pub door.  "Saryl's twenty-three months old, anyway.  Ranzites learn faster than we do.  He recognized you, and so did most of the village.  That's why Saryl was there.  He wanted to see you, to make sure you weren't going to cause trouble.  If you did, he'd have called the Delver quick."

"He..."  Olain looked back.  "I... That makes sense..."

My dumbfounded, confused sister looked away from me.  I grabbed her arm and drug her into the pub with me.  We were going to end this whole thing, one way or another.

City of Curses: Night of Fire 4 (Past)

A #Crux tale.  Starting here, Maralda goes over an event that changed the City of Curses.

Wish poured dark purple flames into the tiny ferret's form.  Maralda watched, hesitant.  She'd never gotten used to necromancy.  Wish seemed to be a savant at it now.

Those purple flames seemed to flow into each blood vessel.  Muscles spasmed.  But it wasn't life.

Maralda felt her father's blood in her.  The Inculti part knew what the fire of life was.  This wasn't that.  It wasn't a spark of life.  Wish was pouring more death into the tiny animal.  A semblance of life.

Maralda remembered her father's lesson to her on that part of pyromancy.  Fire magick could reignite a still heart, but not a dead heart.  That there was a point where something was more dead than alive.  A point where the fire magick wouldn't bring back life.  It would just begin a charnel fire, turning the corpse into a candle.

"Wake up."  Wish intoned.

The dead feyborn ferret jerked.  His muscles spasmed.  Part of his jacket tumbled off of him.  Then tiny eyes blinked open.  The corpse let out a pained moan.

"My head."  A single black ferret eye blinked.  The other didn't open.  It sounded like a male voice, with a Tomasi accent.

"Spirit, I've brought you back to-"  Wish was interrupted by the dead ferret.

"You!"  The ferret's body squirmed, trying to get up.

"You can't move, Spirit."

"He sounds angry."  Maralda took a step back reflexively.

"I ain't going to be one of your walking corpses!"  The ferret bellowed.  "I already seen plenty!  Let me go back to sleep."

"What happened?"  Maralda asked.

"Things went to Shraxes is what happened."  The ferret blinked at Maralda.  "Who are you?"

"The dead shouldn't ask questions,"  Wish interjected.

Maralda ignored the android.

"Maralda Inculti."

"The writer?  Huh.  Well, you are in the presence of the greatest archaeologist in the City of Curses.  Kaze Skysword."  The corpse smirked as he spoke his last name.

Maralda suppressed annoyance.  She'd heard the name.  But not in the context the dead animal was referring.

"No, that was your mother.  She invented the archaeologist path, you exploited it."

"You wound me!"

"Dead things don't feel wounds."  Wish chided.  "Enough.  Tell her what you saw, Spirit."

The ferret's corpse shuddered.  Kaze's snout opened, and then it gasped.  The next words it spoke seemed to each ring to her.  It wasn't the spell she heard.  History.  That was what she sensed with each word.  History unfolding before her.

"The Prince is dead.  There is a fire in the night.  Something new.  But it is something old too, made new.  The Prince is dead."

For Maralda, those four words were going to be the start of a rather chaotic night.

Inktober, Week Two 2016

PREVIOUSLY

Inktober is a challenge where one inks a sketch once a day for every day in October.  This is my third year on it.  I've found it helpful for building up my own habits.  And, tbh, it's why I draw a thing every day now.  It has a collective effect, albeit glacial in its pace, to improve my art.  

I've also decided to do the official prompt list too.  It's a creative challenge.  It helps me to draw if I have a puzzle to undo in the process.  Figuring out what "Lost Undead" or "Hidden Undead" will look like, are challenges I find satisfying to attempt.

On twitter and instagram I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow and get these in your feed, check those out.

Also, if you want to support images like this, the stories on this blog and more, check out my patreon.  It isn't necessary for this stuff, but it'd help with expanding some of my projects a bit.  I also take commissions, so don't be afraid to message me about that.

NOW

Ok, it's only been a week, but I really wanted to do that.  I haven't been able to post anything on the blog all this week either.  But I did get another week's worth done.

More undead.  Because it's great.  I enjoy drawing them, although I'm not 100% happy with them.  I've included a link to the deviantart page of each of these- if you like one of these and want a print of them, the deviantart page of them will let you order one.

Saturday: Rock Undead.

"The necromancers of Skull mountain employ burnt zombie miners, who easily carry the arcane stones the Necromancers need in their darkest rituals."

Not my best mountains.  But rocks are still hard...

Sunday: Broken.

"A broken throne. A king. A spear. A sword. An axe. Still, he breathes, even centuries long he's been dead."

I like this one.  The undead form of a long forgotten king, just seems sorta neat to me.  And it didn't turn out too bad either.

Monday: Jump(ing) Undead

"She came back, her head in one hand. Three years had passed and she still wanted to go to the dance. Even if he'd left her back there, without her head."

Tuesday: Transport(ing) Undead

"Undead pirates or undead soldiers always come to mind. Yet no one sees the ghostly #bootleggers still bringing in poisoned booze. They still think they are making a quick buck, but are just dead evil men whose own scheme took them long ways back."

Just felt nice to do something involving bootleggers for once.  Like pirates, tons of undead story fodder there I think.

Wednesday: "Worried" Undead

 "An Undead 'worried' about You.  Sometimes obsession doesn't care about what grave it was buried in."

Thursday: Scared Undead

"It fears the torch."

Fire is hard to draw in my style, I think.  It's one of those things I have to put on my list to improve.

Friday: Tree Undead.

"#Monkeys. So many of them. Rotting, dead monkeys. Grinning under the hangman tree. So many of them. Coming after us.

Run!"

Inksketches, Week of October 7th 2016

#Inktober has gone well.
My theme this year is undead.  Undead because I haven't done a lot of undead in awhile.  I like them as monsters and a theme.  It's been too long.  And Inktober is the perfect excuse for it.  

Inktober is a challenge where one inks a sketch once a day for every day in October.  This is my third year on it.  I've found it helpful for building up my own habits.  And, tbh, it's why I draw a thing every day now.  It has a collective effect, albeit glacial in its pace, to improve my art.  

I've also decided to do the official prompt list too.  It's a creative challenge.  It helps me to draw, if I have a puzzle to undo in the process.  Figuring out what "Lost Undead" or "Hidden Undead" will look like, are challenges I find satisfying to attempt.

On twitter and instagram I post these sorts of images every day.  If you are looking for some place to follow and get these in your feed, check those out.

Also, if you want to support images like this, the stories on this blog and more, check out my patreon.  It isn't necessary for this stuff, but it'd help with expanding some of my projects a bit.  I also take commissions, so don't be afraid to message me about that.

Fast Undead

What's faster than a undead unicorn?  Hmm?

Noisy Undead

Noisy.  Noisy like a trombone.  Trombones are challenging.  Or for me it was.  Having spent a portion of my youth in band, I'm glad I remember what is a trombone and not something else.

Collect(ing) Undead

Collecting.  Everyone collects something.  Sometimes they stick them in jars.  A few more undead in this one.  My total number of undead will probably not be exactly 31 by the end of the month.

 Hungry Undead

"A Draugr. I hadn't expected this. Not her. I thought she'd sailed with our brothers. Then she came back. Oh, by Odin how she came back. As a Draugr."

Sad Undead

 He didn't want to come back. But they took everything. Even his faithful hound. Through his stitched mouth he cried. A #revenant without a hound.

"Hidden Undead"

 Not all undead rot.

Lost Undead

They lost everything. Even their own names lie in ruins, unknown.

City of Curses: Night of Fire 3 (Future)

Part three of this tale of fire in #Crux, the City of Curses.  Back twenty years to the future, with Maralda taking her younger sister to apologize to an enigmatic figure called the Delver.  This started here, and continued previously here.

We climbed to the top of the Tinkerer's bridge.  Railcars bustled past.  Aethertrains and airships flew by.  I moved to a rail, scanning the Unseen Sound below us.

So much had changed in the last twenty years.  So much had happened.  So much had changed.

"People really never saw the land across the sound?"  Olain asked.  "It just appeared?  That always seemed..."

"A bit much?"  I finished.

"I guess so."

"I remember when this just was the docks.  And the highest point in the city was that."  I pointed to the clock tower atop the Skullmount.  The first Tinkerer had built it.

Before I had been born.

For decades it had been the tallest thing one could see.  But the Night of Fire cast a shadow upon the Skullmount.  Something taller on the hidden shores of the land people now called the Princeshold.  Castle Newhope looked over the Unseen Sound, the Docks of Crux and the Skullmount.  It looked like a gothic maw of spires.

"Is Castle Newhope really the ribcage of dead god?"

"I've heard crazier theories.  I wouldn't be surprised, in this town, Olain.  Gruudl is full of half-dead or asleep starships, each alive in their own way."  Brushed hair out of

my eyes.  "Or an island full of tiny folk, the size of mice.  All protected by a Ursyklon worshipped as a god."

Olain sighed.

"It isn't my fault the halfling hag has a stick up her butt."

I resisted the urge to remind Olain that for Urskylons the term halfling was offensive.  Just as offensive as any slur people used against dhampyrs like ourselves.  Palebloods.  Leechkin.

Bloodchildren.  We didn't like those names.  I resisted the urge because I knew it came from ignorance.

Going into a teacherly tone doesn't make the ignorant anymore knowledgeable.  They have to learn.  Not everyone listened.  Sometimes they had to be shown what they didn't know.

"The Delver protects Ranza.  She has ever since the Night of Fire.  She takes that seriously."

Olain leaned on the rail.

"Did she really make it?"  Olain asked me.

We gazed down at the island.  An airship from the Tinkerer's bridge ferried folk to and from Ranza.  It would still be a few minutes until the next ship came.  But Ranza was so clear to see from up here.

"That's..."  I hunched my shoulders.  "That's a complicated story.  I know only a few of the details.  The Delver has never filled all of them in for me."

"But you know how it came to be?  Why it just appeared after the Night of Fire?  It's just like Princeshold then?"

"No, it appeared the morning after.  I was at the docks when the fog cleared."  The tiny island was how I remembered it from this distance.  A few twisted trees.  Ancient homes.

Fuzzy details that seemed out of proportion with the rest of it.  Ranza was quite small of an island.  "And she was there, atop it.  She and about forty or so feyborn ferrets."

"Feyborn?"  Olain pursed her lips.  "They all acted like random animals to me."

"That's an act."  I had always assumed it was.  "The only other explanation would be they were directly connected to the Delver's brain.  At least based on what I saw them do for her."

"That explains how she knew about me."

"You mistreated the Ranzites.  She'd know of that.  She always knows when one of them is harmed by an outsider."

"Because she's half-angel?  Or god or whatever?"  Olain sneered.

I shook my head.  "Ranzites were human once.  Or their ancestors were.  Someone cursed them into the size of mice.  And the Delver protects them.  She found them.  She guards them.  She seems able to cure them too."

"But she doesn't."

"They..."  I paused, remembering the conversations I'd had with Ranzites over the years.  The mouse-sized humans had interesting insights.  None of them disliked their size.

They'd adapted to it.  "They think of it as core to who they are.  Ursyklons talk with animals.  Androids are made, not born.  And Dhampyrs retain the power and curse of their vampyre parents.  Even Tieflings seem to find identity in what others would consider a disadvantage."

"And they know what happens if anyone tries to mistreat them because of their size.  A powerful druid will stop them,"  Olain grumbled.  "If I'd known that, I would've thought of another way around the problem."

Problem?  Maybe there was more going on here.

"Olain?  Were you drunk?  Or is something worse going on?"  I asked.

But she didn't answer my question.  Instead, we boarded the tiny airferry to Ranza.

City of Curses: Night of Fire 2 (Past)

A #Crux tale.  Starting here, Maralda goes over an event that changed the City of Curses.  An old acquaintance gives her an unwanted gift.  Unwanted news comes with it.

The spring of 1788 marked a change in the City of Curses.  A night of fire.  A night where the three years of conflict with the Ithish government ended.  Things changed, perhaps for the first time in thousands of years.

Knock knock.

For Maralda Inculti Tyranus, she remembered it with annoyance.  The Dhampyr bard had been woken up by a knock on her tiny apartment door.  Groggily she got up from where she'd fallen asleep at her desk.

Maralda rubbed the streak of ink from her left cheek as she went to the door.

Knock knock.

"Coming,"  Maralda grumbled.  "I'm coming.  Hold on."

She opened the door, stifling a yawn.  The young dhampyr woman had no idea of the time.  But it felt late.  Maralda reached down into her blood.  The raw inculti blood.  Her vampyre heritage.  Maralda never embraced her father's ways fully.  But she knew how to draw out the fire from it.

The Inculti vampyre blood in her sparked into a fiery spell.  Maralda held up the spelltorch.  The spell drew in light and heat from the ambient energy around her apartment.  That left the apartment cold. Despite chilling the space, it gave her a light to see with.

Knock knock.

"Yes?"

Maralda opened the door.  Then she blinked.  She didn't quite believe what she saw.

"Wish?"

An android with purple hair and an omega sigil across her brow stared back at her.  Maralda hadn't seen the android in over a year.  She remembered when Wish used to be a tiny thing.  The abused slave of the former head of the Necromancy Department at Crux University.

The android didn't blink now.  Maralda remembered the moment when she'd taken all the lifeforce of her master.  How she walked away free.  Wish seemed colder than the scared thing Maralda first had met.

"Bard, I much to tell you.  Can I come in?"

Then the android thrust something furry, cold and putrid into Maralda's arms.  The android stepped around Maralda and walked past her.  Maralda looked down at the thing Wish had thrust at her.  Maralda dropped the dead ferret.

She didn't remember how she got to the floor, but she did.  After emptying her stomach, she left the dead animal outside and closed the door.  It wore clothes.

"Feyborn."  Maralda panted.  "Why did you give me a dead feyborn ferret?"

"Things are changing."  Wish told her.

Maralda glared up at the wax-skinned android.  She had been wandering around Crux, finding tales in its darkest corners.  Some of those tales were almost as mad as this.  But she was a storyteller, not an adventurer.  This sort of thing was why she want to favors for her father.

"What is wrong with you?  Who hands people dead animals as an opening to a conversation?"

"You aren't paying attention.  Things are changing, Maralda.  Shraxes has spoken with me.  You need to go and see it.  Someone has to see it, Maralda."  Wish's voice grew dark.  Authoritative.

"Or you could answer my question.  Why did you hand me a dead ferret?"

"Kaze Skysword told me the specifics.  He told me about the fire.  That the Prince was dead."

"The Prince?  You still haven't told me what the dead ferret was for."

"He saw the Prince die."  Wish grabbed Maralda.  "The dead creature.  His name was Kaze Skysword.  He saw the Prince die."

Maralda shivered a bit.  "Why did you hand him to me?"

"He knows what is happening.  Shraxes told me changes are coming.  That the City of Curses is on the precipice of something new.  Something that hasn't been seen for thousands of years.  Shraxes told me to let you hear him speak."  Wish tilted her head.  "So I brought his corpse here so you might hear a dead ferret speak, Maralda."

"Because I have to know?"

"No, because it has to be written down."  Wish's eyes didn't blink.  It made Maralda want to take a step back from her.  "This is going to be a Night of Fire, Maralda.  Someone has to write it down before it all burns away."

City of Curses: Night of Fire 1

Olain tossed the book aside.  "You wrote a lot of these."

"I still do."  I looked up from my parchment.

My younger sister didn't like books.  She didn't like to read.  She tapped her fists on the table.

"Olain, you're bored."  I observed.  I would've asked, but I knew that look on her face.

"Maralda..."  Olain shrugged.  "I don't know.  Papa keeps insisting I spend time with you."

I tried not to grit my teeth at that word.  I distrusted my father.  The Inculti Vampyre seemed to procreate at the same rate only some rodents could match.  Olain, yet another

Inculti dhampyr.  One with just the Inculti name, not the Tyranus cognomen.

This generation, they seemed to be shaking off the old Tomasi tradition for the sake of something new.
 

"I've noticed it."  I continued to look over my writing.  Editing.  Proofreading.  My hands looked the same as they always had.  Yet I still forgot key words in sentences.  Worse, I'd never kicked my habit of using the same verbose words over and over.

"Well..."  Olain peered
 over my shoulder.  Her darker skin reminded me of her Ramelin mother.  "There was this fight the other night."

"You do that a lot."  I didn't look up.  The girl seemed to gravitate to fights the same way I'd fled the Blood Quarter in my youth.  Except I did it to write stories.  Olain did it because the girl seemed addicted to fighting across the Bridge, in New Crux.

"Someone said something the other night, it made me think."

"Dangerous."

"Ha ha."  Olain's voice grew a bit serious.  "The Old Prince, he treated Sorcerous and Dirters equally, didn't he?"

I paused.

"He didn't do anything about it either."

"Well, I..."  Olain paused.  "A Dirter told me that the New Prince gave all the Dirters rights."

"More or less.  What are you getting at?"

"What happened to the Old Prince?  And... er...  the Delver..."

"Spit it out, Olain."  I looked up from my editing.

"You were there, right?  The Delver really can't kill anyone she wants, right?"  Olain didn't meet my eyes.  There was guilt there.

"I'm curious why you ask."

"She didn't seem very happy when I mentioned it."  Olain admitted.

"You told-"  I paused, collected my thoughts.  "You insulted the Delver of Ranza Island?  Why were you there?"

"There might've been some cider after the bout, and a dare to collect some Ranzites-"

"Olain, I never tried to get into the troubles you seem to make for yourself.  The Delver isn't someone you want to be your enemy."

"Maralda... She just seemed like a cranky halfling.  She couldn't take a joke."  Olain paused.  "And I think I ran pretty fast after saying she couldn't kill me like she did the Old Prince."

"Ugh."  I put my head on my desk.

"What?"

"Fine.  We're going to Ranza, then I'll tell you want happened."

Olain looked at me shocked.

"No!  That crazy halfling witch will turn me into glass!"

I tried to suppress my frustration.  "You want to learn about the Night of Fire, what happened twenty years ago?  Or do you want me to keep editing my papers?"

Olain let out a puff of air.

"Between the cranky halfling costing me three sphinxes and this, I kinda wish I'd stayed home with Papa."  Olain complained.

"Me too."  I added.