Part one of a two parter. Sorry about the cliff hanger, but it’s probably for the best. Again, this is me fleshing out my recent fascination with golems and magical constructs. So I apologize if it is not up to par with modern literature.

The sun had just disappeared completely from horizon as Joel hastily fiddled with his antique lantern, lighting the kerosene soaked wick with exquisite care not to spill any fuel. His father’s fields were over grown and parched, there was dried grass and bales of uncollected hay for as far as his eyes could see in the shadowy light cast by his lantern.

It was strange being home again. After all this time so much had changed in town. People used to look at him with happy, optimistic faces. But as he strolled through the deserted main street just hours before, he was met with only a couple of hollow stares. His town definitely remembered him, but it was as if he was a ghost barely in their realm of perception.

He gleaned from a couple of friends that were too poor to flee the drought that the wizard of the four winds had died just after he left. His tower had been found ruined by a fire that ground the granite walls into dust. They never found the body, but the old man claimed to be hundreds of years old. Everyone had assumed he simply burned in the fire, simply too old to escape the flames he had likely carelessly created.

Everyone had always been cautious of him and it seemed they were right in doing so. With his death he was told that the air became hot and brutal, an oppressive dusty thing that zapped the earth of life. It wasn’t long before the rains stopped completely. Grass withered, dried and ultimately died.

He had been gone little more than a year. The devastation wrought by this Wizard of the Winds was remarkable.

So lost was Joel in thought of the disaster that he did not notice the grass around him shivering in a nonexistent wind and coalescing around an especially large bundle of hay.
(Oh there is more…)

It seems I’ve happened upon a golem interest. The artisan, The Soda Can Golem, and now one made entirely of artifacts and relics of a dead civilization? I wonder where this will take me.

This is more of fleshing out an idea rather than a literary prize. So, forgive me if it sucks. It’s something.

It was moments like this that Decima lived for. Her long life had brought her many heartaches and even more joys, but she lived for the all or nothing moments her line of work often brought her across. She’d spent weeks tracking it across the ruined city scape that sprawled across the barren plain. She often abandoned sleep entirely for the off chance at picking up just the right hint of wind or the faintest bit of its tell tale scent.

It smelled dusty and old. Like ancient papyrus and stale leather. There was always the smallest bit of a gritty talcum powder that hung in the air and stuck to the back of the throat just before it fed, the smashed remnants of objects too precious and unique to ever be replaced.

It quite literally was a relic of an age long since passed into dust.
(Oh there is more…)

Aceline was severely bleeding from her compromised exo-plating as she dashed for the surface. She never thought the sting of the brutal northern winter would feel so good and homely on her chapped and weather beaten face. But it did and she savored it the best she could as she clambered over shattered military-esq relics.

How many people had sought shelter in this literal dump, only to realize at the last possible second that their only hope was a horrible, dirty place? She wouldn’t be the last.

A rusty nail, embedded in some poor sod’s mutilated and moldy forehead ripped a gash in her smart-webbing. Most of what she had in the world spilled to the ground mixing with cigarette butts and rock hard lumps of feces. There were a couple of crunches as glass and over used reactive plastics shattered. Her last grenade rolled off into the inky darkness.

She didn’t bother to check if it was live or not.
(Oh there is more…)

I’ve been fiddling with a new Dungeons and Dragons character class for a little while now. This is just a little piece of flash fiction I used as a medium to get some ideas down. The Artisan is more or less a Sorcerer/Wizard combination, a class that uses creativity and artistic talent to produce magic, not arcane knowledge and physical prowess.

Joan smirked and issued a little giggle from the back of her throat as she tinkered with my spell pouch. I wasn’t exactly sure what she was up to, but it was probably something that’d cost me a pretty penny. I had a lot of valuable things in there.

I craned my neck and tried to look over her shoulder, but the woman was enormous. My short legs didn’t help matters.

“What are you doing?”

She paused for a moment, looking over her shoulder. Her clothing was worn and faded; I could see her mottled grey skin.

“Fleesh..”

“… excuse me?”
(Oh there is more…)