Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Sect #1338: The Metamorphosis Society (“Morphies”)
Classification: Class III (transcendent, death-worshipping)
Adherents: 2000-5000
Leader: Decker K. Leyen (“The Conduit,” “Neotone”)

Founded as part of the wave of sects that arose in the first decade after transhumanism became mainstream, the Morphies believe that humans are, in fact, the larval stage of another creature entirely. As such, they hold that death (“the Chrysalis”) is the ultimate achievement, and that all humans should strive for “metamorphosis” along the lines of a butterfly or a frog.

Naturally, if this were their only belief the sect would be little different than the suicide cults which periodically arise and snuff themselves out. However, the “Morphies” hold that only those that have gained enlightenment may “spin the Chrysalis” and that all others who died are simply reincarnated as “larvae” (their term for all non-sect members).

This makes them incredibly dangerous as they view death before enlightenment as undesirable but little more than a setback. As such, they will not hesitate to lay down their lives, or the lives of others, in pursuit of their goals. Perhaps most chillingly, their leader, known as “Neotone” or “The Conduit,” reserves for himself to determine when sect members are ready for “adulthood.”

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It wasn’t that I hated my job. Quite the contrary; bartended kept me on my toes and allowed me an outlet for meeting people without any strings attached. Making drinks is like an instant liaison, almost as imtimate but just as fleeting. Hell, in both cases one person winds up on the floor half the time.

But as time went on, even as the money I was making was going up alongside the tips, I found myself less satisifed, less fulfilled. It’s hard to quantify. People would say to me, “Hey, Chris, you look like something’s eating you.” Or some variation thereof, in whatever lingo they thought would make them look hip.

I suppose the biggest indicator of what was going on was how well I was doing my job. Not that I was doing it badly; you can’t mix bad drinks and be employed at a place like O’Toole’s for very long. No, I just noticed that I seemed to be spending less time on each mix, not taking as much care with the ingredients. Slipping away while technically still on the clock when we were overstaffed or dead behind the counter, too. Who does that if they are truly, madly, deeply satisfied with their job?

It was sort of like a toxic codependency, I suppose. My job was my identity, and they were hard enough to come by in that economy. I hated it but I needed it. It hated me but it needed me.

Some days I wanted to quit, but then I thought about all the people flipping burgers for a living and thought better of it. So the closes I got was putting my tips into new tattoos, gradually filling out a sleeve on each arm a few hundred bucks at a time.

The dress code forbids sleeve tattoos, but not tattoos in general. So I guess getting ink meant, to me, edging toward a point where I could technically be fired. Even though I’d be more likely to get asked to wear long sleeves, it was something. My only futile act of rebellion against my life and the rut it was in, I suppose.

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Luckily, for people like Melody who couldn’t come to class–or people like Shanna who didn’t pay attention therein–the lectures were available online.

“Hey,” Melody said, looking at her screen. “The lecture video is 10 minutes longer than class takes. Did they like film people coming in and sitting down?”

“Well, it says ‘remastered.’ Maybe they added in some later stuff,” said Shanna. “Let’s see.”

The lecture video began, and immediately Melody scrunched up her nose in distaste. “That’s not his voice. He’s all squeaky, whoever’s talking now sounds really deep.”

“Look, that’s not him at all,” Shanna cried, pointing at the screen. “It’s somebody else!”

Indeed, it looked like some considerable effort had been taken with digital tools to replace the lecturer completely, body and voice.

“And what’s up with these slides?” said Melody. “They aren’t the same as the ones we saw before!”

“This isn’t a remastering of the lecture,” added Shanna. “He’s just wrecking everything that was good about it int he first place!”

Melody nodded. “Yeah. This is the last time I take a class from Professor Lucas.”

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EDMINSTER-CARR: Good evening, and welcome to Friendly Fire. I am your host and moderator, Dr. Poe Edminster-Caar, chair of the Undead Studies department at Ravensholme University. Tonight, our experts will put their delectable brains to the question of Talk Like a Pirate Day. Joining me with a perspective on piracy is William “Black Bill” Cubbins IV, pirate-in-residence at the University of Plunder Bay as well as executive director of UPB’s William Kidd Center for the Study of Pirate Culture.

CUBBINS: Arr, thank you, Dr. Edminster-Carr. It be a right pleasure to be here afore yer mast. I hope ye will permit me to reply in the piratey cant o’ me ancestors as a grog-hoist to today’s holiday.

EDMINSTER-CARR: Quite. And with a counterpoint, Ms. Matsumura-Tamaribuchi, an activist with the Occupy Treasure Island movement, the Sharper Blades, Sharper Minds katana outreach program, and the United Ninja College Fund. She is a current Distinguished Daimyo at Kaizoku University and is the Tokugawa Chair of Shinobi Studies there.

MATSUMURA-TAMARIBUCHI: The pleasure of being here cuts like a strong autumn wind through a tussock of rice paddies, Dr. Edminster-Car-san.

EDMINSTER-CARR: So, let me put the question to you right away, Mr. Cubbins: does Talk Like a Pirate Day support or denigrate pirate culture? And, that being said, does it support or denigrate ninja culture?

CUBBINS: Arr, while there be some in the pirate longboat who see Cant Like a Buccanneer Day as a reinforcin’ o’ negative stereotypes, I call that bilge. Piratey speech be a tradition o’ our people as old as Davy Jones, and the Day be a fine opportunity to reach out and educate lubbers about their pirate heritages, matey!

MATSUMURA-TAMARIBUCHI: Rubbish, Rubbish like the blades of a weed whacker cutting through a garbage scow. This so-called holiday is just pro-pirate propaganda, designed to endear them to people who are unaware of pirate crimes against ninjas.

CUBBINS: Arr, ye be tryin’ me patience with that bilge. There be nothin’ about talkin’ piraty that encorages any specific viewpoint!

MATSUMURA-TAMARIBUCHI: Like a voice through reeds, your discriminatory holiday appeals to a “golden age of piracy” that never existed and serves to buttress your claims to traditionally ninja islands.

CUBBINS: Arr, but what of ye? Yer own ninjas ain’t a-guilty of romanticizin’ their own past afore? The history books be a-teachin’ us that you’ve got bilge in yer hold as well.

MATSUMURA-TAMARIBUCHI: We are not talking about ninjas.

CUBBINS: Aye, perhaps because “Talk Like a Ninja Day” would be nothin’ but a cargo o’ SILENCE?

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In the ashes of the world that was, at the edge of a swamp slowly encroaching upon and devouring all that had been built before it, a solitary figure wandered the edge of the Mirk’s Crossing Montessori School. It was a state-of-the-art TruancyBot 2500 from Robotnix, and its fusion power core would last until the end of the world plus a thousand years.

This particular model, KL-54796, had been modified from its original purpose. Heavily armored and ponderous, the TruancyBot line had been designed to coax reticent and possibly well-armed students to attend classes as per the law. The Mirk’s Crossing Montessori School was not a public school and was, in fact, as expensive as some junior colleges, so there was no need for a truancy officer (though KL-54796 had, on occasion, been employed against parents whose checks bounced).

Rather, KL-54796 had been programmed to mediate disputes in a calm and impartial manner, especially among volatile teenagers in the Sprouted Daisies college prep cirriculum. A robot didn’t have any of the emotional baggage that the human teachers had brought to conflict resolution (when they were alive), after all. It also had the benefit of being a literal ton of Kevlar and aluminum with enough torque to crush a human skull like a grape in a flabby Frenchman’s hand.

“Now, now,” chided KL-54796. “We must learn to share our things.”

A bicycle, wrecked by the cataclysmic end of the world that was, lay near the edge of KL-54796’s patrol zone. A snake had coiled itself around it, and was in the process of swallowing a fish that had washed up from the swamp’s edge a few inches away where the land had been subsiding.

“The bicycle is just a thing,” KL-54796 continued, with its preprogrammed and committee-approved mantra. “We must remember that owning things should never result in the thing owning us. As the Dalai Lama said, <>.”

In response, the snake swallowed the fish, this rendering the conflict resolved to the mutual satisfaction of all parties. KL-54796 moved on.

“That teddy bear is not food,” it said to an alligator that had mistaken a cast-off polyester ursine for a small woodland snack. “While some cultures believe that eating a thing is to gain its power, and that belief must be respected, you must realize that the teddy bear was never alive and therefore has no power to gain.” There had been considerable debate, in committee, about whether the dinosaurs that had formed the hydrocarbons in plastics counted for the purposes of this dialogue. KL-54796 had not, however, been programmed to make the distinction.

Finishing its rounds, the robot stepped over a rope barrier that it had lovingly maintained over the years and opened a fridge. Cartons of long-spoilt and long-evaporated milk moldered within, and KL-54796 booted up its parental dietary preference program.

“Milk. Milk. Almond milk. Soy milk. No milk. Milk.” KL-54796 marched in a line past where the children would have assembled after recess, dropping empty cartons into long-vanished hands. Then, its litter protocols activated, it gathered up the cartons and returned them to the fridge.

Its job done, KL-54796 went into sleep mode until classes were released at 1530 hours. For the 10,377th recess in a row, it had done its job and done it well.

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The question was not if the battloids were effective.

They were.

The machines that had once been men, brass and steel tubing welded to shaved-bare bone, were just what the War had needed to bring it to a speedy conclusion. There was a never-ending supply of corpses, and battleoids’ remaining biological pieces were well-protected: eyes behind bulletproof glass, brainpan reinforced from the inside with steel, cerebrospinal fluids drained in favor of ballistic gel. They were immune to all but a direct hit from an artillery piece, never refused orders, never tried to forment Red agitation in the ranks.

But when the guns fell silent after the last offensive, when the Alliance sued the Coalition for the harsh peace that was to follow…what then? Battleoids could think, plan, even create. That had been the idea behind their creation, after all, and why they had broken the War’s great stalemate where the landships had not.

The question was not if the battloids were effective.

The question was what to do with them when there was no more War to fight.

Inspired by this.

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Excerpted from the Ruins & Rogues Creature Compendium, incorporating materials from the Sorcerers & Sabers Interverse Guide

WREATH WRAITH
Size/Type: Small Fundamental (Earth, Extra-Continuum)
Hit Dice: 4d8+12 (30 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 5 ft.
Armor Class: 17
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+8
Attack: Tentacle strike +8 melee (1d8+7)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Eye Beam, Hypnotize, Entangle, Short Range Teleport
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft.
Saves: Fort +7, Ref +0, Will +1
Abilities: Str 21, Dex 8, Con 17, Int 4, Wis 11, Cha 11
Skills: Listen +6, Spot +5
Environment: Fundamental Continuum of Trees
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure: Class D
Alignment: Neutral evil
Advancement: 3 HD
Description:

A creature of the Fundamental Continuum of Trees, wreath wraiths are basically sedentary creatures that feed on prey of opportunity, primarily in human settlements around the holidays. Attaching themselves to doors or walls with sticky secretions, the wraith’s woody body resembles a festive wreath, allowing it to lie in wait, camaouflaged.

Once prey is in range, the wraith will open its large central eye and lash out with its tentacles. It will attempt to grapple and immobilize prey before using its eye beam to finish them off. All creatures beholding its slit-pupiled yellow-rimmed eye must pass a Will save or be hypnotized as per the spell.

If pressed, once per day the wraith may call upon its connection with the Fundamental Continuum of Trees to summon a mass of writhing roots from the ground to entangle as per the spell. It may also perform a short range teleport to any location within its field of vision once per day; it uses this to change positions quickly or to flee battle faster than its stumpy back tentacles can carry it. However, the wraith must break off all attacks and release all grappled or hypnotized victims to teleport.

The wreath wraith exists in a number of color variations that feed throughout the year, with orange-and-black specimens prominent around Hallowseve and white-green-red ones encountered closer to Candlemas. The method which they use to travel from the Fundamental Continuum of Trees to the Primary Worlds remains unknown, as does their method of reproduction.

Note that, despite its name, the wreath wraith is not undead and cannot be turned by a cleric.

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The sector of the Hürtgenwald that Lt. Col. Lindsay Elliott’s men attacked was the oldest and deepest part of the forest, one that had lain essentially untouched for centuries. The German defenders were dug in deep, though reports from prisoners indicated that they were deeply uneasy due to nativeHürtgenwalders telling them stories about a local legend.

They spoke of an inner sanctum of the wood called das Herzwald, “the Heartwood,” where the ancestral spirits of the boughs lay in quiet repose, unless disturbed. This had the effect of the German lines routing around the deep woods said to be so protected and creating a salient until General Model intervened and ordered the area to be occupied and fortified.

Lt. Col. Elliott’s men battered themselves against the defenses for a week, carving roads for their tanks through the deep brush. But on the seventh day, fire from the German lines snaking through das Herzwald stopped. Probing attacks found the positions deserted as if in great haste…but no bodies.

Elliott sent five patrols against the abandoned lines. Field communications were lost with four of them, and men refused to be sent in after them. His solution was as expedient as it was brutal: set the Herzwald alight with incendiary artillery strikes.

As it turns out, that was a major mistake.

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While moving from perception to perception—place to place, time to time—had been as easy as walking before, now it was painful, like trying to walk with a sprained ankle or sit on a bruised tailbone. My vision blurred, my joints ached, and my stomach churned queasily. But I endured it.

I had to know more.

Nobody downtown seemed to be able to see or hear me, no matter how obnoxiously I tried to make my presence felt. Everything from stealing a cart from the grocery store to smashing a display in the bakery to throwing a package of batteries at a convenience store clerk seemed to pass without much comment.

I returned to the library when my night shift would have began, only to find Mr. Fisher, the Ancient Mariner himself, filling in for the shift.

“Hello, Mr. Fisher,” I said. “Here I am, ready for work. Hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

Fisher consulted a pocket watch. “Darn it, where is that kid?”

“Why, hello Jonas!” The older man who I had almost stabbed with a letter opener said as he walked in. “I’m glad to see a better caliber of person behind the desk as it were!”

“Don’t expect to make a habit out of it,” Fisher grunted. “I have had both of my night people up and vanish on me. Myra’s been gone for nearly a week, and now Gil. Not so much as a phone call from either of them.”

“Good riddance, I say,” the patron said. “Bad eggs, both of them. The boy, do you know he threatened me with a knife once?”

“It was an accident!” I said. “You try getting glimpses of alternate realities and distance places and not get a little confused!”

“Wasn’t it a letter opener last time you told the story, and a careless accident?” Fisher drawled. At least he was still on my side, after a fashion.

“There was definite malice aforethought on further consideration!” the man cried. “And you know as well as I do that the only difference between a knife and a letter opener is how sharp they are!”

“And the name, and how you use them, and what they are designed for!” I cried. “But otherwise identical!”

“Just like your fishing stories, this gets wilder with every telling,” Mr. Fisher sighed. “I will tell you what, though. If those two don’t start showing me some regard, I’m going to have to let them go. Too bad—good kids, need the work. Gil’s parents give us a tidy sum toward operating expenses every year.”

“There’s a word for that, Jonas. Nepotism.”

“Nepotism is when you only hire your own family members, you old bag!” I cried. “It’s cronyism when you only hire people you like! It’s in the dictionary!”

“I take it that you, then, would prefer to contribute the balance?” Mr. Fisher asked.

The other man became very quiet after that, and soon excused himself.

“You’re sure you can’t see or hear me, Mr. Fisher?” I asked one last time. “Like everybody else?”

Mr. Fisher looked up at the clock and shook his head. “Darn kids.”

It was time for me to go a bit further afield. Surely there was someone out there—someone that knew me very well—who could still perceive me.

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The two spirits trapped in the same husk argued for an age
Over who sould control the visage
That neither had sought
But with which both were trapped
In time, they came to an accord
With halting hands the husk carved and painted two masks
One for the bound spirit
One for the lost soul
They made an accord for six days out of each week
Three for one mask and three for the other
Three for sadness, anger, and hope
Three for regret, vengeance, and dreaming
And the seventh day was for the husk
Maskless to sit in memory of the flown essence
Its open face a memorial

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