a matter of Time

#32

2010-01-20T17:37:00.000-08:00

Granduncle Muldwych was annoyed. A couple of kids had wandered into the shop looking for porn, and he'd spent the better part of the day chasing after them through the never-ending shelves. When he'd found them, they'd settled down in a corner to sleep. He'd bought them some chips and told them to bugger off. When he'd gotten back into the shop, he ruminated on all the pitiful little primates he had to pander to each day. Wondering if he should set up shop in Africa again, he hobbled back behind the counter and waited for something interesting to happen.

#31

2010-01-19T10:56:00.001-08:00

When spending Christmas On A Rational Planet, it would be a shame to waste the numerous talents, one might say Infinity, Doctors' talents studying Alien Bodies. I mean, it's one thing to spend enormous amounts of time trying to repair your Dead Romance, despite its Unnatural History, but it's another altogether to cause Interference with The Taking of Planet 5, just so you can avoid the ever-lengthening Shadows of Avalon. I mean, that's as bad as blaming an Ancestor's Cell for your misfortune. Anyway, I'm going down to the Adventuress on Henrietta Street for a drink. Care to join me?

#30

2010-01-18T18:52:00.001-08:00

The two Godmothers of the Faction met in the hall by accident. They made their way towards the Little Brother's dorm, muttering to each other in worried tones and arousing curious glances.

“He won't listen to anything I say! He just sits there with those little things. All day, all night; I'm not sure he even sleeps anymore!”

“I know! I went to one of the Godfathers about it; do you now what he told me? He told me to stop worrying over nothing! You know what he said they were?”

“No, what?”

“Something called 'Parablox'.”

#29

2010-01-17T19:30:00.001-08:00

“And suddenly, as if out of nowhere, appeared two men. Well, beings, really. One was as a god of death, clad in resplendent bone and blood, the very shadows at his feet dancing around him as if alive. The other was as a god of rage, twisting and writhing, growing back an even more menacing weapon whenever one was cloven form him. The two daemons danced their dance of death and destruction, sometimes wholly disappearing form our site, only to appear as if they had never left moments earlier than they arrived...”

~words from the mouth of the mad~

#28

2010-01-16T11:25:00.001-08:00

So here's a thought for all you academicians of game logic: How would time travel work if time was not in fact linear, along the so-called 'thread', but circular, as the Aztecs believed? My personal theory is that instead of 'ships' to 'navigate the river', we'd have a sort of stasis chamber type setup, so that we could just wait for the moment we wanted to get off at came around again. Of course, then your chamber would just be sitting there, so perhaps you'd want some sort of additional element that shielded you from the outside world? Who knows...

#27

2010-01-15T12:08:00.001-08:00

It is a little known fact, but Don Quixote was a participant in the War. The story itself as published by Cervantes is just an interpretation of the events he bore witness to. The windmills were actually disguised timeships attempting to blend in. The sickly mare was actually an alien that bore a striking resemblance to an unhealthy horse. The Don himself was a sleeper agent for one of the major powers attempting to make the best of a bad situation. Sancho was, of course, just Sancho, being a native who just happened to get caught in all the mess.

#26

2010-01-14T15:34:00.000-08:00

So, really if the Great Houses can force regeneration upon themselves and if they can affect the way in which they change, what's to stop them from becoming, say, a bunch of trees? They could all turn into living rocks. Or ponds. They could become beings of pure energy.

Actually, what's to stop someone else from sculpting the regeneration to their will? Or triggering it for that matter? Could they make them become whatever they want? Could the Enemy walk up and effectively turn a Homeworld operative into a frog? Are all accounts of such witchcraft actually just this happening?

#25

2010-01-13T11:35:00.000-08:00

Where do all the conceptual entities go when no one is thinking about them? Where do they go when no one can see them? Where do they go when nobody knows that they are there? Do they disappear? Are they still there? Do they remember not being there if they ever go away? Do they even know that they have gone? Have they really gone at all? How does their consciousness work without the synapses to carry it? If they die, does anyone notice? If they die, does anyone even remember? How? How can they be? How can they be....?

#24

2010-01-12T10:59:00.000-08:00

When a ghost cluster goes off, the effect on the recipient is only ever observed from the outside. It would be difficult to get an inside view of the effects it has on its target, by its vary nature making any written accounts not worth your time, so to speak.

Miraculously, a first-hand account has been found of a Renegade Homeworlder who was caught in the blast that 'destroyed' one of the Houseworlds and somehow managed to restore the planet. His accounts of memory loss, weakness, and shifts of perspective are being dissected for any military value they may hold.

#23

2010-01-11T13:20:00.001-08:00

The Homeworlders were rather tired of acronyms. They used to use them all over the place, but near the start of wartime they'd begun phasing them out. Now they got to laugh at the humans, with all their ridiculousness.

UNIT
PROBE
MEOW

The list goes on. Ridiculous really. Instead, the Houses were now thinking up new and interesting names for things. Like Ghost Clusters. Or Nechronomancer Patrols. That, that was a cutting edge name. Sleek, shiny. Rolls off the tongue. Not like the old names. The Demat Chamber. No style. Oubliette of Eternity sounds so much more intimidating, you know?

22

2010-01-10T09:52:00.001-08:00

When the Lords of Steel managed to escapefromt within the void, they came hurtling back into base reality at a tremendous speed. They were intercepted by a mobile Remote colony who had picked up their signals and were most intrigued.

It is said that for a whole day the two leaders stood staring at each other from across an enclosed room, each putting out and receiving signals like lightning rods rooted in a storm.

Within a year the two factions had traded and melded so much that it was nigh impossible to tell which any given member had originated from.

#21

2010-01-09T08:51:00.001-08:00

“Word is all the Godparents are in a bit of a state! Seems that a Guardian took one of our best so he can go off on a crusade for some temporal key...”

“Word is the Houses are trying to bring back their best. They've already located the first Head and Ohm, but they still don't know where the other one is.”

“Word is the Shub-Niggurath lost their throneworld due to the war, and are infiltrating human society in preparation for an invasion. Might want to stay away from the storefronts a while...”

~Words From The Street~

#20

2010-01-08T09:27:00.000-08:00

When the Horizon of Time was revealed to Humanity in the late seventeen-hundreds, the Faction could hardly ignore its presence. Some of the more scholarly members were rather intrigued by the similarities between the 'Kingdom of the Beasts' and their own Eleven-Day Empire, and wished to know the connection, if any. It was to this end that Godmother Din established a Mission near the Horizon's version of Medmenham Abbey. She has since developed a great fascination with the Black Sun, and spends her off time training her recruits in the art of guerrilla warfare. Or should that be babewyn warfare?

#19

2010-01-07T08:10:00.000-08:00

The world of the Babewyns is a ghostly version of our own. Something is off, the colors are a bit wrong, and you could swear that there are creatures peaking out from around the corners.

It is also completely uninhabited. By classical standards, anyway.

But, if it were, I imagine that the culture would fill out from the center of one of the major ghost cities, leaving the suburbs and borders and bit nastier looking than the rest, shadow beasts prowling on the edges of the mind.

I wonder if this is the true origin of the Eleven Day Empire?

#18

2010-01-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

Little Sister Abigail had been only six when she was taken into the Faction, and now, hundreds of years later, she had still never bothered to progress up to the rank of Cousin. Many merely disregarded her as an annoyance, but one thing they couldn't fault her for was her unwavering love of the Dark. She had walked through it, playing with the dead, having tea with the forgotten; some said she'd even found the Pythia herself. So it came as no surprise to anyone that, when asked, she said that it was there that she had found the gauntlets.

#17

2010-01-05T08:33:00.000-08:00

One thing that the enemies of the Great Houses speculate upon is how many lives the Lords live? No longer being limited as they once were, do the Houseworlders have need for their birthing machines? If none ever truly die, why have a way to weave new life? And what of the talk that the Homeworlders have surrendered some of their birthing engines to other races? Do these new players in the game now posses the virtual immortality of the gods? Unfortunately, as in many cases of War, the speculation on an involved race's natural lifespan is purely that, speculation.

#16

2010-01-04T09:32:00.000-08:00

“M?”

Cousin Irvine was getting desperate. He was down five letters and could hear the Homunculus trundling its way round the corner of the corridor, preparing another barrage from the sounds of it.

His shadow clapped her hands in silent glee and marked out an 'M' on one of the slots.

Irvine lip-read the lines again, mentally attempting to fill in the missing letters.

“My... name? My Name Is Patricia?”

She jumped up and down excitedly, giving him a thumbs up and dancing on the wall.

“Well that's nice Patricia now GET US OUT OF HERE PLEASE!”

#15

2010-01-03T08:59:00.000-08:00

Cousin Allison was noshing fast food while idly flipping through the Book of Olde Time. Most of it was quite boring, all 'And The Great Whosit Banished The Terrible Zodin To The Lands Of No-One Cares' and so on. She'd just gotten to the bit about the Matriarchy and was beginning to get some devilish ideas.

She was very much surprised that Granduncle Muldwych had just let her take the book.

What had he said? “Well it's all going to wind up in here anyways, so I'll be buggered if I have to be responsible for the damned things!”

#14

2010-01-02T19:57:00.000-08:00

In the time-bubble that the first Homeworld was currently trapped within, the First and current Head of the Presidency received court summons. This was odd in and of itself, seeing as no outsiders could have gotten into the room, let alone the planet, in order to deliver the summons in the first place.

The summons had a long litigation from the Homeworld's former interventionist agency leaders. The letter seamed to say something about the fact of the Houseworlder's recent endeavors involving certain Renegades and the planet Earth.

In short, it read “STOP STEALING OUR IDEAS, IT'S ALL WE ARE.”

#13

2010-01-01T14:34:00.001-08:00

Apeiron waited in the Darkness. The Pythia was late. They played Chess every second Tuesday. Or whatever approximated for Tuesday here.

The Mad God Ohm watched his wife through the window. He could see her in real space, but he was trapped in the epicenter of a black hole. He wouldn't mind so much, but they had to use quantum uncertainties to play bridge.

And the First Head of the Presidency waited at the end of the universe for the War to end so he could get out of the damned bubble of urTime he was sharing with these cretins.

#12

2009-12-31T09:34:00.000-08:00

The Reverend Cwej Wiktor stepped down from the podium and maneuvered towards the door to greet attendees as they exited. He had been ministering the Esoteric Order of Seven for nine years now and was feeling fulfilled with his roll. Wiktor was absentmindedly shaking hands when he was approached by a strange little man with a question mark cane. The man had listening attentively to the entire sermon from the front pew. He had looked worried on a few points, but overall had looked pleased.

He said just one thing as he left.

“Everything seems to be in order.”

#11

2009-12-30T09:44:00.000-08:00

Cousin Irvine desperately wanted to be somewhere else, but his shadow wasn't having any of it.

“Please! Just... take off or whatever it is you do!”

His shadow just shook it's head, bent over and began making marks on the wall. It made several little dashes, and then what looked like a box with the corner missing. Then it stood back up and appeared to wait expectantly.

Irvine was confused.

“What in the name of the Grandfather... Hangman!? You want to play effing HANGMAN? Now?! Really?”

The shadow clapped excitedly and waited for him to guess a letter.

#10

2009-12-29T17:34:00.000-08:00

The Twins are an interesting Faction recruit. One, upon recruitment, was sent back in time to kill an ancestor, as is customary, and failed. Upon returning it became clear that at least minimal changes were made, as there was now a version of them of the opposite gender running around in base reality. They were immediately recruited retroactively at the same point in time as their counterpart. As far as the Faction ledger is concerned, they are the same recruit, and are referred to as such by Godparents, which may sound nice but is actually problematic most of the time.

#9

2009-12-28T00:00:00.000-08:00

Cousin Allison enjoyed visiting London because it was one of the places one could enter Muldwych's from. She wasn't sure if he was actually part of the Faction, but he was a 'Granduncle', so there was some connection, surely.

As she entered, she could here snippets from Muldwych near the window, “...you little bastard! I've...”

He was probably talking with a customer. She sidled through the never-ending bookshelves, waiting for Muldwych to finish so she could ask him a favor.

That was when she saw The Book of Olde Time, just lying there on the shelf.

“Oh dear.”

#8

2009-12-27T10:14:00.001-08:00

“...And so it was that Apeiron of Durac saw the need of his people and gave to them, with the help of an Other, the power to Live Again...”

“...but when the Lords became aware, they sought to ease his pain; and it would take them thirteen lives of men to imprison the Lord of Durac, for he could no longer sleep the sleep of death...”

“...and the citizens rejoiced, for they knew not of this travesty, remembering their Lord Apeiron of Durac as the hero that he was...”

-Excerpts from The Book of Olde Time

#7

2009-12-26T09:01:00.000-08:00

Allison Craw was a Witch. There really wasn't anymore to say about it. She had bones hung in the drawing room, jarred blood in the cellar, and an assortment of other taboo substances littering the rest of her household.

So she wasn't really surprised when she came to and found herself tied to a stake. What she did find strange was the people at the back of the crowd wearing skulls on their faces. And that everyone else seemed frozen in place.

One of the masked men stepped forward.

“We have an offer that we think might interest you.”

#6

2009-12-25T00:11:00.000-08:00

Cousin Irvine was unique among the Faction. He wasn't particularly impressive in any normal regard, but due to an unfortunate mishap, his shadow was rather unusual. Instead of it holding a weapon or tool, his shadow was a complex space-time event in the form of a bipedal humanoid. In other words, it was a Homeworlder's timeship. With it, he could literally sink into the shadows and pop out anywhere or anywhen else he needed to. But he was a coward at heart and not that good at anything really, so it was a bit of a waste, all things considered.

#5

2009-12-24T11:06:00.001-08:00

In the heart of Cardiff there lies a book store, musty and mysterious, seemingly containing a copy of whatever might care to be read, from new printings of ancient family works to old and battered copies of the best seller that hit the shelves last week. The shop is run by a portly old man, a bit too much meat on his bones, who claims that this shop has always belonged to someone of his name. It is called Fiction Paradox, and the patrons claim that it's almost as if it were bigger on the inside than it is without.

#4

2009-12-23T07:18:00.000-08:00

“Please, call me Charlotte.”

“Certainly. Now, Miss Charlotte, we believe you the most suitable to deal with the situation at present.”

“'The Situation At Present'?”

“The City recently collided with a bubble of urTime. The inhabitants claim to have been trapped there by members of the Houses during the Anchoring.”

“Ah, yes, that lot. And?”

“They wish to enter negotiations for some kind of living arrangements, within the City.”

“I think I can see where this is headed.”

“Quite. If you would be so kind...?”

“I'll see what I can do.”

#3

2009-12-22T00:02:00.001-08:00

“Please, Counselor! If I could only just– “

“Enough!”

Cousin Thaddeus was cut off by the sudden outburst. The counselor fumed along the length of the boardroom, broodingly, before turning back to the Cousin.

“Here on the Needle live the people displaced by this horrendous War of yours. We don't need your filth doing any more damage than you already have. Now get out.”

Resigned, Thaddeus nodded understanding, his expression kept hidden behind its mask. If he couldn't talk sense into the lower officials, he'd just have to arrange a more... private meeting with the Empress herself...

#2

2009-12-21T10:34:00.000-08:00

During the War against the Yssgaroth, bodily regeneration was a weapon, and an unstable one at that. So when Apeiron Ræ Al Durac ripped out and ate the heart of a Mal’akh in triumph of his victory, no one was surprised when he changed in the way he did.

It was only later that the more cynical among the Houses began to suspect that there may have been more to his actions; that he may have limited the lives of the Great Houses, not out of necessity, but as a way of easing the inevitable escape from his eternal prison...

#1

2009-12-20T22:17:00.000-08:00

Granduncle Muldwych cackled incessantly, the storm lamp flickering angrily as he continued, “Now you listen here you little bastard, I've been here a long time, and these apes, they're not going to give in without a fight!”

“Then you will not help us?” The gaslight pleaded.

A twinkle lit Muldwych's sunken eyes as he settled back into his chair, arm folded over his chest. He looked around his cramped little book shop, turning his gaze to the window, and the cobbled, filthy streets beyond, a handsome's horse-drawn clopping past.

“Now, I didn't say that, now did I?”

Welcome, welcome, one and all

2009-12-20T22:08:00.000-08:00

So, I've decided to do a drabble a day, in order to hone my writing abilities. For those of you who don't know what a drabble is, it's a one hundred word story. It was suggested that I do this as a blog, so, here it is. Not much more to say on that front.

I decided to do drabbles about Faction Paradox because it's a good way to get all those tidbits of story out of my head and into your heads, yeah?

Incidentally, this post, in and of itself is also a drabble! Yes, lame, I know.

Anyway...