Category: Fiction

Scenes, narration, poems, and short stories set in the World of the Everflow

  • An afternoon with Shelmigarii, mistress of cables

    An afternoon with Shelmigarii, mistress of cables

    It’s a crowded day. New groups from Fort Ooshar are coming, fleeing the Fox and Crow, they are rushed and harried. The journey is not long. The families are large, mixed with halflings, goliaths and humans.

    Work gets harder with these large groups. The gondolas are large enough for a few horses, maybe a cart. These families are multigenerational, at times there are dozens of animal companions. One may have only geese, another family with dogs. There was one with oxen — they took ages. The mulgobs don’t like when they need to come up.

    An 8-bit style image of a small dragon about the size of a large cat that is the color of bronze-ish ale with blue buggy eyes. They are flying over a small person, likely a gnome, with a blue head covering and dark nearly black robes. There is a magic spell coming out of one hand. They are on an stage that looks like autumn ground cover with a small golden leaved tree behind them. The names below or Oolia Estererlia and Brewst Grisselle
    Made with reroll

    But seeing so many descend into a home without judgement, with an opportunity to build, with an opportunity to meet elves and dwarves with their magicks, with an opportunity to meet women from Mehmd and men from Crinth, the opportunity to meet the ratchets and the alchems and others from the Queen, the opportunity to meet Brewst Grisselle the ale drake and learn that not all dragons are Proctors hoarding knowledge with threats of violence — Brewst hoards alcohols and is getting along quite well with the alchems guild.

    Every day there are new people. Every day another conversation.

    Shelmigarii and Lukhchizh do not charge for their service. They’ve earned unfurled flags and banners from the Free City. This means the other goblins (all the Kon) in the area support them. Shel’s recent ratchets development and springwerks mean the mulgobs don’t work as hard. Lukh is working on employing some beasts rather than mulgobs, which is only possible because of the Free City empowers all thinkers rather than the caste system the Queen’s Lyfe demands.

    At the top of the cliffs, summer heat bears down harsh on the Grand Entry. Those pilgrims working down the ramps and steps will be full of sweat, but not as much fear. These Kin don’t understand the sky-cables. Many shake in fear as they ride down the thousands of feet through the fog into the bog-city past and through the ruins over the brackish waters and abandoned orchards.

    Shel never laughs.

    She’s scored of all the beasts. The weather and the cables aren’t scary. These are knowable things. These are math.

    Beasts and peoples don’t act according to math and strangers aren’t knowable, even known friends aren’t knowable. She loves Lukh, but calling him knowable isn’t accurate.

    A long sip of cool coffee. The next gondola up from Chupmolea better bring more. That bean is a blessing, much better than the teas in the Queen’s Land (Tsavancoast). She once again ponders if there is a way that the bean can replace tar-tree pods as fuel — the switch of smells from oily smog to roast would be worth it. She doesn’t have the knowledge. But maybe the lesser power could be made up using gears and springs…

    Her mind wanders sometimes. Operating the sky-cables is boring and routine.

    Thoughts are for new things… maybe the fruits could become oils. Lukh’s been chatting with another hob freed from service to invention who won’t join the guilds, but is working on new ways to harvest steam.

    There’s an unlatched safety bar she doesn’t notice.

    Shel keeps thinking about this. Less power, more gearing, some springs, maybe using that fruit that’s waste now, then a steam box, could maybe the airxip props help the gondola and then we wouldn’t even need muls or beasts.

    She sends the gondola with a halfling family and their dogs.

    The windsock swings fast. An unexpected storm? She checks the broadsheet forecast section. Oh, no. This is on the schedule. It’s going to be a rocky ride for those hin.

    She looks as they descend. Notices the safety bar free. Notices the sway. Notices the storm. Notices the danger.

    Wandering thoughts are a blessing, except when they are a curse. She curses the queen. She curses herself. She curses the sky and for good measure she curses the gods of this land even though she doesn’t believe in them.

    “Urp! Stop loading. See if you can bring that gondola back. Use everything you have.” She rushes to the head wheel to help.

    There is a nasty screeching noise as the metal cables halt to change path. Then there is a scream of terror as the gondola rocks off the cables.

    Another noise, this time a squawk, rises above the terrors and shouting, the breaking metals.

    Panic. It’s all panic now.

    Beasts and peoples all learning that their fears are real. The sky-cable isn’t safe (they’re wrong).

    None feel empowered, none capable.

    That squawk is a massive beast. A raptor the size of an airxip swoops overhead and dives at the sky-car. There’s a tiny man on the bird, hard to judge size at this distance with the massive bird unravelling understanding of perspective.

    As the car jumps off the cables the bird rushes to it. The car starts to roll to a side dozens of feet under the cable.

    A sharp command, sudden and cutting through the winds and terror is heard. There’s some Kirtin-ish to the tone with a bit of the Crinth rounding.

    The immense bird grabs the cart, carries it up to Grand Entry.

    Shel doesn’t want more coffee. She wants to hang out with Brewst after she fills out an after disaster report to establish a new checklist, one that involves two peoples in case her mind wanders again. That’ll start when she’s done shaking.

    This narrative slice of life was an attempt at Tuesday Afternoon, a technique to test world building to see if the created world makes sense for normal people.

    The image features an abstract composition set against a dark background. A network of jagged island shapes outlined in gold creates a prominent visual centerpiece. These shapes vary in size and orientation, resembling a natural or geological formation. The area surrounding this central structure is filled with bold, textured colors, including vibrant blues at the top representing the ocean, contrasting shades of green to the left representing the hills, deeper black tones framing the right and bottom, and hints of rust-colored brown towards the lower section. Below the gold outline, a small, stylized blue waterfall appears on the lower edge of the graphic, providing scale and enhancing the sense of depth within the artwork.
    Bog-city of Sheljar in abstract paint

    The Free City of Sheljar was the result of my first campaign in the World of the Everflow.

    Once a city destroyed by dragons and later an empire destroyed from within by The Necromancer with their zombies and Tunneling Nightmares, Sheljar is now a Free City, open to all thinking peoples who respect other thinking peoples. Its leadership is the first group of PCs. A bog-city of a thousand islands each little piece of land offers a place for a family to return, a neighborhood to emerge.

    Shelmigarii is one of the Queen’s women, a member of the ratchet guild. She and her husband run the sky-cable gondolas at the Grand Entry with its faster path to the city center or to Chupmolea (the goblin neighborhood) than the thousand-year old steps and ramps down the cliff. Shel is a tiny goblin and her husband a large hobgoblin. They have no companions nor children. They hired mulgobs (bugbears) to operate the ratchets, declining to use alchem nor magicks. Her background would be a cabbie, if playing D&D.

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  • An afternoon with Prva Metzr caretaker of the Everflow

    An afternoon with Prva Metzr caretaker of the Everflow

    Prva rows in the heat of a summer swelter. The water isn’t choppy. He’s still struggling a bit. Deep, pulling cuts to get to the Font of Two Paths quickly.

    Most of the other font-kids stay in when it’s this hot. Prva knows he can make a few coin, and safely because Vrda his river otter companion will splash through the lake to make it more comfortable.

    Most thems with birds and dogs won’t get the splashies. Vrda is the reason Prva can work a day with this sun.

    A quick j-stroke stops the boat, right near the Font. He tosses a knotted rope to the otter who chomps a big knotted end. Then the work of getting the jars ready starts.

    The image portrays a hand-drawn map on graph paper placed on a wooden surface. The map features various locations marked with labels and lines connecting them. It appears to depict a fantasy or fictional setting. On the left, "General Market" is written near several labeled areas including "Fallen Cottage," "Watch Tower," "Training Grounds," and "Barracks." A "West Road" branches out below these areas. In the center, there is a drawn area marked with wavy lines labeled "Inner Harbor of Tolse," surrounded by "Lake," "Forest," and a "Quarry Rubble." To the right, "Upper Telse" is written beside some abstract shapes. Additional labels scattered across the map include "Old Bridge," "New Mine," "Farm," and "Slaughter."

    Already set in order. Lids off. Getting them ready for pure waters of the Everflow direct from the Font as it falls from cliffside. An attempt to stay stable underneath kind of works, mostly because the little otter is pushing the small boat back towards the fall.

    Prva bows his head. His lips moving.

    That big rush of noise under the fall with the rough waters would obscure his words if anyone was close. No one is close though — the heat.

    They wouldn’t hear him anyway. He’s performing, not praying. He learned long ago that Quar didn’t care about prayers or belief. The pure waters heal.

    But he still pretends to pray. It’s a job. The performance matters.

    All the jars are full. Flip caps are on.

    Then the row back to Quar’s dock, where the acolytes hand the harvested Everflow off to the Orthodox Church of Quar. It’s a trip he’ll make a few more times today. There’s a small bonus when he’s willing and other ain’t.

    Boat isn’t his. That’s tied off for the next one to do the work, the jar racks now empty.

    Vrda crawls up the quay side. Dripping the waters of the lack behind them. They’re off for some fish and a chilled tisane of pine and limon from Daoud.

    Legendary magic was big and powerful, life changing. Modern magic is a cold drink on a hot day after heavy labor. Modern magic is also the ability to make oneself just a little big wet during the worst heats.

    This narrative slice of life was an attempt at Tuesday Afternoon, a technique to test world building to see if the created world makes sense for normal people.

    The image features a hexagonal grid map depicting a diverse terrain. The landscape includes mountains, forests, rivers, and bodies of water. Mountain ranges stretch across the northern, eastern, and western areas of the map, characterized by sharp, brown peaks. Forests, in varying shades of green, are spread throughout, with dense patches in the central and northern sections. Rivers snake through the terrain, connecting to blue coastal waters that line much of the western and southern borders. There are patches of reddish-brown terrain, suggesting arid regions or desert-like areas. The map is bordered by white space, emphasizing the land's irregular shape.
    Telse and the Western Wildes j

    Telse was the center of my first 5e campaigns. It is the source of the Everflow, the healing waters that feed into the Font of Two Paths. The Church of Quar controls access to the lake, the Font and the Everflow. That mercantile-faith is the origin of the common tongue in the World of the Everflow.

    Once part of the empire of Sheljar, Telse is now a free city like most of the Western Wildes. Both the Orthodox and Reformed Churches of Quar are based in the town. Despite being a small city or large town, Telse has embassies from the other kingdoms and free cities due to its healing waters.

    Prva Metzr is an acolyte of Quar with a river otter bonded companion named Vrda. Metzr is a human in their mid-20s. He considers his faith a job more than a duty or calling.

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  • An afternoon with the cooper Sudes Rudes

    An afternoon with the cooper Sudes Rudes

    Walking past Idarak’s I grab a fresh peach off one of his trees. Nightbridge tends to have more of the old fruits and Idarak’s family keeps a small grove. Plus Edarra wants a white bucket soon, with some falls from the Dead Forest (obviously not the red oak or black maple — other trees seem to be seeding too).

    Visiting the Dead Forest now is this weird mix of Council Guard, elves, dwarves, Daoudians, Kirtin-ish — crowded and uncommon. We Rudes need to go there because our buckets and casks are expected to have staves and finishes from the Forest. That may not last. Craft has to change and if dragons come back I do not need that risk. Maybe something from the island or up toward Kirtin proper.

    A neighborhood map of a lakeside medieval fantasy city in dull tone

    Anyway, I’m off to see if it’s safe.

    This is a daily assessment in Kirtin-on-the-Lake. There’s so many competing interests. The old neighborhoods and walls don’t mean as much. If dragonken settle in a few blocks that’s a new neighborhood — with magic everywhere.

    Refugees from the destruction in Kirtin-in-the-Sky are trying to move in with cousins they ain’t seen in decades. Kirtin is a mess.

    The peach is good, though. Really good.

    Yaffy’s cackle-call echoes through the street from behind. Yaff hates visiting the forest, because those trees are not for him. He’ll always find a way to dilly-dally on the way. I think he ‘reads’ the neighborhood more than Kyrik, my little ratting dog that stays home, always.

    I’m not of the born generation. I don’t have magicks.

    The forest seems to refuse us and accept the youngsters with their elementalisms, enchantments and energies. This works in my favor. A few copper to the youth you have these abilities for each of the sticks I can turn into staves.

    That peach is already gone. It’s three bites for an old stoney like me. Apple’d be two, but the pit gets in the way. I toss the pit to Yaffy as I sit down on a bench.

    Casking for someone up in The Rise means gathering stick for art, proper wood carving ‘ll be needed too. I’ll see if maybe I can convince a dragonken to do it, mayb an elf. Edarra will pay.

    Blues and whites without paints thanks to the woods from those trees come from a few kids. Those dragontrees seem to be shedding. There will be new dragons soon.

    I shudder.

    In-the-sky went from mighty city to flooded caverns with most bridges fallen into the waters.

    Douad ain’t to protect us. Kirtin is a fighting force over on the Slope, but without leadership. Is it going to fall like Sheljar to the Necromancer? Broadsheets say the West is many cities without a kingdom now.

    I need another peach. Or tea. Or ice cream (magicks are great for a few new discoveries). Or a game.

    My mind wanders under this constant pressure of not knowing how this city will fall further into disrepair or if maybe it can rise like Sheljar under the Free City movement.

    I stick the staves and falls into my basket. Yaffy leading the way to church. Quar’s followers have the Everflow — that’s better than wine, it’ll heal, even a broken soul.

    Then it’s back to work.

    This narrative slice of life was an attempt at Tuesday Afternoon, a technique to test world building to see if the created world makes sense for normal people.

    Kirstin-on-the-Lake was the center of the Uprising & Rebellion campaign. It is the former winter capital of Kirtin, but was conquered by Daoud for most of the past several centuries. It is now controlled by neither nation with influences of both, with the new council system taking over governance while the Dragons come back to the Dead Forest, goblins land at their airxip tower, and the visitors from Sheljar.

    Sudes Rudes is a cooper. His animal companion is a green woodpecker named Yaffy. He also has a non-bonded ratting dog Kryrik. Sudes is a goliath with Kirtin-ish heritage (stone) whose beard is tinged with the blue-greys (wave) more common in Daoud.

  • Potential

    Potential

    I write. A lot.

    I don’t publish a lot (at least not ‘a lot enough’). My life is full of fractional stories, plotless narratives. These are bits and pieces of the tales I want to tell, someday.

    I Tried to Finish a Dead Man’s Novel nearly destroyed my soul today.

    One of my greatest fears in this life is my family handing someone else this curse and responsibility of finishing my briefcase-novel. It’s not fair to them. It’s not fair to me. But it’s my fear.

    It is both a gift and a curse to be handed a briefcase containing a life’s work

    I have two tales in me. One was dealing with the traumas around my time in the military (these were traumas of the soul and not traumas of violence as I am a peacetime vet) and one is the tale I currently tell mostly through D&D. That second one is captured in some of my fiction here as well.

    But these stories are all over the place. Like Jim, the stories are bits and pieces. Scraps of notebooks, dead computers, hard drives that I’ve carefully removed and then ignored.

    Picture of a Field Notes notebook, a wooden S2000, a sailboat coin, a pen and a laptop

    They’re all over the place. In closets, end tables, night stands, old bags, boxes. There’s probably a fragment in my dresser, and definitely many in a closet/storage room bin. Like Jim, they’re unorganized. Unlike Jim there’s an outline to both tales.

    Correction: Both tales have outlines, plural. They’ve stopped and restarted at various points of happiness and sorrow.

    I started writing a long time ago. As far back as I can remember doing things I can remember writing.

    Quite old photo with me and my brother climbing down an icy glacier.

    Compared to the general public I’m a rather prolific writer.

    Sounder at Heart has in its archives thousands of stories I’ve written about soccer. TacDefiance and WeAreTacoma and SoundersFC and other sites have even more. There’s some stuff on The Guardian and Top Drawer Soccer and MLS too.

    I’ve written about baseball for Inside the Park and FanHome.

    One product on DMs Guild contains a few of my backgrounds and even how to do sports in Dungeons & Dragons. This site clearly has more of that type of thing.

    My current role involves writing a lot of email and even some blogs about news-as-security.

    While I love all of that writing, none of it causes me fear.

    Fiction makes me afraid. Fiction makes me dread sharing my deepest soul and fiction is only excellent when you do that.

    Much like how the unfathomable expanse of our universe might be traced back to a pinpoint, the briefcase novel originated in a single cigarette. Jim started his novel in 1974 as a way to quit smoking. “He needed something to do with his hands,” Laurene explained. “He’d go to a restaurant and sit for hours.”

    Quitting smoking didn’t last for long, but the book stuck around. By the time Jim was diagnosed with stage four esophageal cancer in 2013, it had been nearly forty years since he started his novel. – Richard Kelly Kemick

    I didn’t start writing to get away from something. I started because I couldn’t stop.

    Portions started to pile up. School helped me put out some works. They were good enough to turn in, decent grades. Nothing accepted. A now-abandoned Hotmail address contains a folder called “rejections.”

    This didn’t dissuade me.

    Every box I pickup from either parent includes at least one notebook, legal pad, sheaf of papers with things related to the two tales I want to finish — this papers are from before I discovered the stories’ meaning.

    Lists of names. Tables. Plot outlines. Novel structures (in the Army when standing in line I would focus on a bit of the camo and think “what story would be structured like that pattern”).

    And I just keep writing unfinished thoughts.

    I may in fact be an essayist. That might be why the Propagandist is my favorite personally developed subclass (it may also be because I like Cawti, Kelly, Val, Peter, Bean, Paine).

    Maybe I’m not a fiction writer. Maybe the fiction just kind of happens in fragments because the fiction helps tell the reality — that’s how fiction shows up at Sounder at Heart!

    Maybe I’m a storyteller.

    Burning fire along a hillside with a full moon in the background.

    That’s probably why I currently tell most of my fiction via D&D.

    D&D is a lot like the oral tradition of fireside storytelling. It reacts to the audience, builds in real time and doesn’t follow formulaic narrative arcs. It is from a time before such a thing.

    But it also means that without a fire pit, without a bar rail, without a D&D table my tales may never be finished.

    Honestly my tales may never be finished even with those things.They aren’t finish-able. They exist and shift and change via the day, the month, the year, the decade, the LIFE.

    That’s how I’m the most like Jim. It’s not that his briefcase-novel lacked genre or voice. Every element of the briefcase-novel was a moment in his time. Jim wasn’t a surveyor. He was a storyteller. Those scraps and notes were part of the tale.

    Scraps and notes are part of our tale.

    I’ve been watching The Magicians quite a bit lately. We won’t get into the whys. The final two seasons have a consistent thread about how we each have our own story. Our friends (and our enemies) help its telling, but it is ours — alone.

    We own our own story.

    We write it. If that means it is spoken, written, played out on stage or screen, via short-form text, or micro-videos, at a D&D table, in a big damn novel or in a briefcase full of loose pages like a specialty tea — that’s writing.

    That’s Storytelling.

    I am so very afraid that my family is going to pick up those notes some day and try to figure out who I was. It’ll be quite confusing.

    One page will mean something to one of them. Another notebook will remind a friend of what we did together without mentioning them. An abandoned blog will cut through and release emotion locked behind a veil.

    Small dagger slide through a notebook as if the book was a sheath

    I’m simultaneously Jim and Richard.

    I’m always Dave Clark, the full moon storyteller. My complicated self who found a medium via dice, friends and paper. I’m me, the person who can’t finish a novel, but will never stop trying.

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  • Storytime as Moons Rise – a short story

    Storytime as Moons Rise – a short story

    Sweat dripping from my brow, I head back towards home. Dinodas bounds towards me, shifting to walk on the customary left side as we stroll. My hand reaches up to scratch that comfortable spot behind his ear. It’s an instinctive move now, for both of us.

    We’re kin for many years now, this massive hound and little me, a halfling from Kirtin, just off Slope.

    A wolfhound running towards you
    Drew by Airwolfhound (CC BY-SA 2.0)

    On certain days in the field he’s closer to me than others. On rising full Glibbon he knows I’m going to cut wood and brush. The physical exertion helps me focus, or unfocus — whatever. Those things that happened down Slope, and the years after, normally sit back in my head, but since the Hornjaws started visiting on full moons I’m unable to avoid the thoughts.

    Don’t know how they got me to open up — probably something to do with how well they treat Dinodas. He likes them, so I like them. It’s typical for a bond. Meeting Belni and Terdu was good for him, probably good for me too.

    I don’t like thinking about those times. I don’t want to remember the decision I made.

    So that’s why when a moon rises full I cut brush and start a burn pile. Because this evening I’m going to share some stories. Daytime cannot be about Down Slope and regrets. That’s what moons rise is for.

    I think back to the week-moon Feylf’s rise in Autumn. Belni was at the door. I didn’t have the rituals then, no stories. Just a drink from second mug. First mug is for caf in morning; second mug is ale in evenings. I lost third mug a while ago, that’s the one that Serg’nt gave me with the bottle. The fire was blazing, a bit too hot for this time of the year. Din’s at my feet when the knock comes.

    Wrong time of day for a visitor.

    A hatchet settled into a stump, with a burn pile in the background
    Fire and sickle by Enrico Francese (CC BY-ND 2.0)

    Out here in Cold Creek things are pretty spread out. Down by Iron Road they be more city types. Here we’re alone at night, and that’s why I live by Creek.

    “Ho. Door’s open.”

    I set second mug down. Looking towards the door, one eye on the dusty sword that hangs to its right. Dinodas lifts one ear, one eye. The old hound is apathetic.

    “Sir, ‘s Belni. I been looking for Terdu. He late from bonds-day.”

    I helped the older Hornjaw look for his younger brother. They human, Belni with a solid herding dog. Good size to his bond, smaller than Din.

    We searched for a few hours, the light of Feylf helped, and a few hours after sunset the month-moon Glibbon rose too. That made things easier. We found Terdu crying in a briar. He was embarrassed. His bond were two little sheep — two little fluffy wool sheep.

    So I talked and talked and talked. I told tale to Terdu of all the kin and their bonds I met Down Slope. Many dogs, horses too. But when you’re on the northern front you see a bit of everything. Cold Creek doesn’t have a lot of people. Most of their bonds are herding dogs, we’re a herding community and then Iron Road nearsby has the ford. Still mostall the bonds have purpose.

    Telling Terdu and Belni about the bigger world helped. Terdu was willing to go home. Belni, his dog, the two floof-sheep and the now prideful Terdu waved away. On that first night I didn’t know they’d come back. They’ve been back five Glibbons now.

    Winter on the Slope and Rise gets cold, so the fire rages and the Hornjaws started to bring their friends.

    There’s a first-timer tonight. Someone from Iron Road? Not from Creek, that’s certain.

    He’s with a pony, carrying a lance and shield. Oh, and the helm of a new conscript. Older than the Hornjaws. Hmmm.

    A campfire on the side of a cliff with a moon well off in the distance.
    Island Rock Fire and Moon by Michael Rael (CC BY 2.0)

    Feylf and Glibbon are both rising now, full. Kin is three-quarters too. It’s a bright night, but bitter cold. The Dragon is tucked behind a cloud and years from being full.

    “Terdu, is this everyone you invited?”

    “Yessi.. I mean, yes.” They’d stopped calling me sir. I’m just a man, and a dog, and a past that interests them.

    There’s three girls, not the same families, as one is a goliath. She’s got a flutter of sparrows round her, several braiding her beard while she sits and waits.

    “Belni, serve the cider. Tonight I’m going to talk about Fer and his bull. Fer came from out east. Getting to know Fer was probably the best thing about serving Down Slope. Warm soul who knew warm songs, and would always smile.”

    The new one is clearly disinterested.

    “It was Fer who taught me talking-drum. I never picked it up the speed he could do, but didn’t matter. He made me practice. Made me good in the head. Hitting that little drum meant not thinking about the lines across the river with the people of Az and Sel, their mastiffs, their rage…”

    New kid stops muttering to himself and just interrupts.

    “How was he at fighting?!” He shouts.

    “Fer would sing too. Not a deep voice, not falsetto — just that type of voice that is confident in itself and willing to share…”

    “His fighting! Was he a master at the sword, or bow, or an axeman?” Another interuption.

    It’s going to be one of those nights. This isn’t the first time a near-child has wanted the focus to be on the violence in the front. It most certainly won’t be the last.

    “Others may tell you those stories. My tales are of the friendships made, the acquaintances held close, and the connections lost. I no longer swing a sword or throw my spear. But I still think warmly about the women and men with whom I serve.

    “They are what I miss. They are my regrets. The people and their bonds are the only thing worth my time, for any other thought is sorrow and pain.

    “Maybe you’ll find another to tell you your tales. Here, at my fire, under the full moons, my stories are of them, because these are the stories I have.”

    Chided, the man-child laughs and storms off. No one joins him.

    “Another custom Fer taught me…” I continue with my tale of my friend, the story I have.