December 7, 2018
“It’s the perfect environment for curating the art,” said the Russian in perfect English. He was well-dressed, tuxedo-clad, and docenting an exhibit of precious jewels in a friendly manner. “The salt mine means basically no humidity.”
“Of course,” I said. “It all makes sense.”
“So,” he said. “I know you have come to buy one of these priceless items. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. So what can I sell you today?”
December 6, 2018
The light streamed upward from the salt mine, filtered brilliantly through the amber halite and taking on a hexagon pattern from the reinforcing girders for the elevator and the mine itself, below.
“So here you are, on your way down into a Russian salt mine, looking for who knows what,” she said. “It may be time to reevaluate your decision-making process. If you died here, they’d just list you as missing and bury a coffin full of bricks.”
“I know,” I said. “But I’ve come this far.”
The air rushing upward smells like the ocean, and the light is intense. We are moments away from the bottom.
December 5, 2018
“You know I’m not really here, right?” she said. “Your subconscious inserts me into places I shouldn’t be, places you wish I was, like a person airbushed into a photo. But even then, I’m only saying the sort of thing you think I’d say. Always an extrapolation, but never the real thing.”
“I know,” I said. “I wish I could forget.”
“And I wish I could be forgotten,” she said. “What a maddening existence, being a half-thing not fully imagined or realized.”
December 4, 2018
The college administration building was a tower, ten stories tall but rather narrow. The base was concave, giving the whole first floor a strange recessed affect not unlike the inside lip of a frisbee. The design made sense in the 60s, I’m sure, but now it’s known more for its odd appearance and echoing effects than anything.
That must be why the school orchestra started playing there. By spacing the members out and playing, the echo effect made for a rich, resonant, and loud experience. But they were quickly taken in by the echoes and fell out of sync with one another. There’d be a moment of harmony as you walked by, a violinist playing in tune with the echoes you could hear, but it quickly fell to dissonance as the sonics fell off.
July 14, 2018
A memory, or sensory, stone is a gem which is enchanted with some or all of a thinking being’s memories. Normally, only the being that imparted those memories to the stone can retrieve them, but it is possible to “unlock” a stone to allow it to be shared with anyone, though this is a complex and arcane process if not done by the memory-holder or the stone’s creator.
Sometimes, natural memory-stones will be created during traumatic and/or exceedingly magical events. These stones have no single creator and gather together numerous memories from beings nearby, and as such are impossible to read under normal circumstances. The unlocking ritual is necessary to reveal the secrets of these rare and valuable stones.
July 1, 2018
The polymorphed minor devil hopped over to the adventurers, twitching its nose and ears. “I WILL BOIL YOU ALIVE IN THE URINE OF A BILLION MURDERERS ON THE FIFTH PLANE OF THE NINE HELLS,” it screamed in a squeaky voice, “AND MAKE YOUR FLAYED BONES INTO A THRONE FROM WHICH I WILL RULE OVER A MILLION DAMNED SOULS.”
“It’ll open up a portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire if you take the gem across the seal!”
“Womp Rat” looked at the gem, shrugged, and swallowed it.
“Are ye ready to go back tae the mines and hunker down like we always did, alone, as a family?” said Pops.
“Yeah, I think I’m going to leave, Dad,” Ybba said. Turning to the mine entrance she looked out. “Wow! The world outside the mines is a formless voice of eternal night? I had no idea!
June 3, 2018
“I am appearing before you, ‘Womp Rat,’ because you have strayed into the ways of chaos and away from law,” the ghostly blue silhouette said.
“Is this because I cooked those githyanki and served them as stew?”
“We can start with that, yes.”
“GHOST!”
Thrombonius launched himself at the shade. Being insubstantial, she was no impediment to his movement, and he slid through her form, chilled to the bone before faceplanting behind her.
“I’m sorry for my companion,” said Bryn. “He’s kinda…dumb…where ghosts are concerned.
“If her memories hadn’t been scooped out like a hollowed mellon,” said Ybba, referring to the dark elf the others had dubbed ‘Suzie,’ I would kill her and eat her to avenge my dad.”
“You have been living alone with him for a long time, haven’t you?”
The woman looked like Myles in every way except that she was clad in black and was also surrounded by dead dark elves who had been crispified by her fire spells.
“She is like an evil Myles,” said Bryn. “What should we call her? Maybe Kilometers, or Kilo for short?”
May 20, 2018
Things We Found in the Mine by The Adventuring Party:
-Modrons (two kinds!)
-A trap that shot out a poison dart but we caught it and put it away
-Dark elves (boooo!)
-Devils
-A tripwire
-A dwarf girl whose dad got kidnapped
-An easily intimidated elevator
-The skill to smack Oreos out of someone’s hand
May 13, 2018
Using the explosives the Yellow Planeswalker had distilled from the essences of the slain githyanki, Digger was able to craft some high-quality explosives. Some to bring down the prison roof, and some to blow open the wall in order to let the other prisoners escape.
The demons, the modrons, and the drow all looked at Faris, who sat on his throne, a sly grin on his face. “I’m sorry that you’re surprised,” he said, “but all of you, including my old friends from Valia, will have your agreements honored. If, that is, you are able to find the bauble before anyone else.”
“WHO’S YOUR DADDY!” the strige screamed, shaking young Denny like a ragdoll.
“Fine, fine!” he muttered. “Aiden…Aiden Jenison. That worthless old tin pot.”
May 11, 2018
Let me tell you of a vision that has been haunting my sleep of late.
On a barren plain, more lifeless than an alkali flat, I see a skeleton approaching me stark against a rising curtain of katabatic wind. There is a malevolence to that chalky wall, and a hint of fire deep behind it, that leads me to believe neither I nor the fleshless traveler approaching will long survive its coming.
The skeleton is garlanded with flowers, a chain upon its bleached brows and a bouquet clutched in one ivory claw. The blossoms are ancient and dried, though still colorful, and with the first stirrings of wind they were beginning to shake out their death-rattle. Only moments separated the flowers from scattering as butterfly dust on an isotope breeze.
I am rooted to the spot, too terrified either of the spectral traveler or my own impending annihilation to move. The bones turn to regard me as they pass at an easy walk, mummified blossoms rustling. “Do not be afraid,” it says, in a voice as thin and bleached as its double row of jutting ribs.
“I’m going to die here,” I say. In the dream, it is not so much a supposition as a certainty. “I have so much left that I wanted to do.”
Past me now, still making its slow saunter away from armageddon, the skeleton speaks some final words over its shoulder. “You and I have both existed,” it says. “We must both be content that, though we be cast down and forgotten, our existence was real.”
I wake up before the blast wave can strike.
How typical–how human–the need to be important to someone. To be remembered. Yet as I lay there, shivering between my sheets while rain smashes gently against the windows, I know that I have no answer to the specter’s assertion. What is there that I have done, who is there that will remember, when I am a generation in the ground?
Excerpts From Nonexistent Books 