Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The Caldera’s massive eruption entered into folklore around the world, with many temples to the faiths the Black Year founded and vanquished built within. But the lands nearest to the great crater hold a very particular set of stories to be true.

The tale goes that the volcanic massif that collapsed into the Caldera was the site of an advanced but evil civilization, one skilled in the art of magic and the manipulation of their world. They embarked upon a great project that, it was felt, would harness the Deep Fire of the earth to generate intense and unlimited power–enough to make every member of that civilization, known from what few fragments survived as the Lihas, into a god.

Jovan was a general of the Lihas, and decided that the scheme, which would destroy the planet through a release of all its innate magical energy, was genocidal madness. With what few followers he could muster, Jovan was able to sabotage the Lihas’ plans through fierce combat and at the cost of his own life. Cast this way, the eruption of the Caldera and the destruction of the semi-mythical Lihas, was a blessing and a small price to pay for the continued existence of the world.

Jovan has since been hailed as a deity himself, and many temples dot the Caldera and the surrounding regions. It has never become a major faith, being outcompeted by many others in the settled lands to the south, but remains strong in Vallia, Ulat, and certain denizens of Welkor’s Light and Morinth’s Delving.

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Scurrying back to her refuge, 41\11\113 laid out the prizes of the day’s scavenging.

A servo from a 114 series, which would fit her with a little modification and could serve as a backup to the failing servo in her left arm. Three torsion bars from a 101-series, which could also be jury-rigged to work or melted down to cast new parts in 41\11\113’s homemade smelter. A pile of scrap, also for the smelter, along with some fuel. Some preserved crackers to feed to the rats and roaches.

But the greatest treasure was one that 41\11\113 kept closest to her body, wrapped in layers of plastic bags and burlap. It was the destroyed head of a 113-series, like her. Half of it had been torn away by an explosion, but the lifelike latex was still partially intact around its left eye and jawline. Better, though, was the sheer number of intact or lightly damaged parts to add to her stockpile.

Carefully, gently, 41\11\113 disassembled the relic according to her self-repair schematics. Each part was carefully sorted, and the ones that were bent were tapped back into shape. Then, reverently, she sorted the parts into the old toolbox that she had repurposed, alongside all of the others she had been able to accumulate.

And beside them, in a locked safe…

41\11\113 opened it and removed her original head. She was wearing a much more plain unit, a pair of optic sensors and a speaker, from a 109 series. They swapped out easily, since all the major components were in her torso. She let her anthropoid fingers play lightly over the sillicone, lingering where there was still paint or eyeshadow.

She’d been built, and programmed, to imitate a human female in situations where one might put people at ease. And as she locked that original head in place, and peered out from replica eyes into a mirror, she couldn’t help but wonder at how beautiful she still could be, though none were left to see it amid the ruins.

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Like the Fancy Rat had been, the ISA Cornelius was a Diocletian-class modular starship, with a detachable spaceplane front end that could lot into an orbital quantum drive section.

The Vyeah had been attempting to turn it into an escape vehicle of their own, and its dock was littered with human and alien technology that was in the process of being yanked out, integrated, and otherwise made to work nicely together.

Jai was able to get the drop on the pair of Vyaeh techs working frantically on it. He had a notion of inviting them to pilot the ship in exchange for their lives, but they both grabbed for their weapons, which forced Jai to drop them both with his own.

The cockpit was a mess, but main power appeared to be operational, with the reentry shutters nominal, suborbital thrusters responding despite the control surface being written in Vyeah script, and the docking lugs stirred when Jai put a little power through them.

Outside the hangar, the sky was broiling an angry red–the last and most intense sunset the planet would ever see, and the temperature outside had already begun rising to an unfathomable degree. Jai whispered a few words of prayer, the first he had uttered in many years, before bringing the Cornelius to life. It responded, shuddering upward on its thrusters and sealing the hatch.

“Five minutes to orbit,” Jai murmured, pushing the craft as far as he could without ratting it apart. If his drive unit was still there, and the docking lugs still worked, there was a chance.

Not a big one, but a chance.

“The sky used to be blue,” Jai said, looking out the window as he closed the blast shield. “With a little luck, I’ll see a blue sky again.”

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They were always short-staffed at that particular branch of the Hopewell District Library, so it wasn’t unheard of for Mary to enter the building, alone, around 7:30am to open the place up. It was a three-day weekend, so in addition to no fellow staffers to help out at the library desk, no patrons were waiting by the door to be let in when it was unlocked.

Mary felt bad about what had happened the previous day, even though she kept on telling herself that she had no reason to. It was Adrian’s fault, after all, for invading her personal space. It was his fault for creeping on her and constantly pestering her for her work hours and requests for dates. She had nothing to feel bad about, she kept telling herself, but the feeling was still there, gnawing away, as she busied herself with checking in items from the overnight book drop.

“Are you familiar with the Egyptian book of the dead, Mary?”

Mary cried out and pushed back from the desk. It was Adrian; he must have quietly entered through the front doors despite not technically being allowed on the premises anymore. Mary wanted to do more than scream; she wanted to pick up the handset and dial the police.

The Glock 17 in an open-carry holster on Adrian’s belt dissuaded her.

“N-no,” she said. “I’m not.”

“Really? I’d expect a librarian to know those things.” Adrian was behind the desk now, approaching at an easy pace. “According to the Book of the Dead, or at least the version written on the walls inside of the Red Pyramid, the dead are forever dependent in the afterlife on their killers.”

Mary’s eyes widened. “What?”

“That’s right, Mary. I could take care of you forever; we’d always be together. I may not be able to give you what you need in this life, but surely I can in the next.”

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HERE LIES
Boris, the Evil Horse
Killed fighting a half-orc and a full-orc
Egged on by escaped prisoners
He died with his horseshoes on
Though not without an EXP penalty for acting out of alignment

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Wall of horrors without form
I see ony tendrils and eyes
Place-holders for the unseeable
A landscape alive with malice
Howling down, a storm of flesh
Make my escape, strangely calm
Seated on the back of a horror
That once was my best friend
Bone, chitin, membranes, eyes
Loping on impossible appendages
The face alone recognizable
Amid a terror scarcely less
Than the one I flee for my life

Inspired by this.

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In order to manifest itself upon the mortal world, Iazgu the Flayer had forced the artificers of Beamcog to craft a soul-gem housing its true essence. When its schemes fell apart, and its bid to take control of Beamcog by subtlety and force failed, the soul gem was captured by the canny hero Gora.

Soul gems being what they are, Gora had a choice: she could shatter the gem and banish Iazgu to the Darkness Beneath for all eternity, or she could issue it a single, binding command. The choice had to be made in an instant, as the demon raged at her in an attempt to reclaim its lost soul.

Gora’s solution?

She opened up an inn with the proceeds of her adventures, but like all inns it had need of hard labor in turning down sheets, serving drinks, and the like. Now, people come from miles around to the inn in order to watch, and mock, the once-mighty demon that is now condemned to serve as a chambermaid for all eternity.

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A land of unusual warmth for its latitude, and as notable for its hot springs as for the many miles of caverns that snake beneath it, the Caldera is the site of an ancient catastrophe. Millennia ago it was the site of a violent volcanic eruption, the cause of the Black Year written of in many chronicles, and the culprit behind the collapse of more than one ancient civilization. The cataclysm resulted in a crater-shaped depression surrounded by jagged peaks that are difficult to traverse in the summer and all but impassible in the winter, with only Screefall Pass to the south being open year-round.

The warmth and incredibly rich volcanic soil of the Caldera led to a period of intense settlement after memory of the eruption had faded. Colonies of humans, dwarves, and elves were all established, with the settlements of Vallia, Morinth’s Delving, and Welkor’s Light dating to this time. Pilgrims were also attracted from many of the faiths that had the Black Year as a centerpiece of their cosmology, and many ephemeral temples rose and fell in the area through time.

Perhaps the most notable figure to emerge from the Caldera was Minaka the Conqueror, who was born in Vallia and was able to use the Caldera as a base to carve out an empire for herself. Her tomb, carved into living volcanic rock, is the centerpiece of a great abandoned necropolis–the Valley of the Dead–that houses the bodies of many of Minaka’s most powerful friends and advisors. Unfortunately, Minaka the Conqueror died without an heir, and her incompetent nephew led her realm to dissolution within a generation.

The Caldera has largely remained a backwater since Minaka’s empire fell, attracting a steady number of visitors to its hot springs and a diminishing number of religious pilgrims to the crumbling sites of fading faiths. It has largely wound up being in thrall to whoever has occupied the large walled city of Ulat to the south of Screefall Pass, and the population has been in decline as its remoteness has grown with the turmoil of the world.

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The sliver enlarges the wasteful ice, yet the blow volunteers that same ice. When does the weather enhance the freezing wood? The vessel prepares the moldy regret.

The oil enlists the fire. The way influences the flame. The mature peace crystallizes into the burn.

The balance hangs on the meal. How does the meal modernize the ordinary person? Why does the rapid attack execute the grain, but not the spit-roasted meat?

The ray conveys the wave, the thunder leads the increase. All is extinguished, but the flames.

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I see them there, every time I pull up: the three stacked traffic lights at the intersection of Van Buren Avenue and Lewis Street. People drive by them every day, twice a day or more, without noticing.

But I do. I know their secret. I see it every time one goes dark, imperiously stopping me or sending me on my way. Tiny skulls, in shadows of amber, crimson, or jade, leering out of the glass.

I’ve tried pointing them out, bringing people into my confidence about the evil that has overtaken that intersection. But they all laugh or cluck their tongues, saying things about LED lights and optical illusions. But I am not fooled; I know better.

Those lights are the locus of all that is evil in the world, a poisonous seed spreading tendrils throughout a tranquil garden.

I know what I must do.

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