The Campaign Builder's Guild

[ooc]What follows is the beginning of a series of microfictions drawn directly from my hallucinations and dreams (catharsis, y'all).  There is very little sequence to them at the moment, but I intend to eventually make a webcomic out of it.[/ooc]
[ic]â,¬Å"Do you see?â,¬Â
â,¬Å"Of course not, for you have taken my eyes and I would dearly like them back.â,¬Â
[/ic]
WHAP!  WHIP!  BLAM!  And what in fuck was that?  There is a shift.  A few loose chunks of stone come free of the ceiling and scatter on the floor.  Somewhere, someone cries, and something not unlike a dog begins barking, to the protestation of its weary master.  The room stills, as do the panicked lights.  Whatâ,¬,,¢s that smell?  Rotten egg?

Louisa stands, though I did not see her fall, and her shoulder is stained with blood.  She covers up the spot with her claw, like the wound is an admission of fragility.  Footsteps, loudly, in the Ceiling.  The egg-smell makes me want to vomit.

Lldrvbnyn?  She shakes her head.  Of course not, who would?

The other one moves to the window, his back against the wall, and peers outside.  How can he see anything?  There is nothing to see, except burning tar and mud.  There canâ,¬,,¢t possibly be anything there.  His beak clicks.  Louisa signs her comprehension.

Mrldplmn?

Turturtur.  Ah, I see.

The room shakes again.  Or perhaps it trembles, more an anxious convulsion than the frenzied acquiescence before some unseen physical assault.  More egg.  What?  Turturtur.  So it is the wounded man, again.  Hell-man someone called it once.  Turturtur.  How did you find me again, Hell-man, and where did you find such power?

Outside the window, he is, trudging through blackness and mire.  Forward.  Out of the DARK.  Smiling?  What form taketh you now?  I will not look to see, nor will I ask.  I am a coward.  I want to vomit.  I need to use the bathroom.

Fhyjdhw.  Cprntt!  Of course, I do not say it aloud.

I will load my gunâ,¬Â¦ now.  CLICK?  Maybe bullets work?  They didnâ,¬,,¢t before. Statistically speaking one experience is far from an assurance of failure.  Letâ,¬,,¢s give it a try.  Iâ,¬,,¢ll give you Turturtur.

The wall melts.  The one with the beak is on fire.  Sorry I never learned your name.  CHIRP?  His feathers burn, hiss, evaporate.  The swamp, the tar, the waste, are here with me now.  He is here.  He was always here.  Smiling?  There is no barrier twixt man and hollow hell.  Turturtur.

I cannot kill you.  You are god.  I will try.  WHAP!  WHIP!  BLAM!

The bullets eat the darkness whole.  I will laugh.  Turturtur.  And all the world is shaking, but you are clear, candescent and still.  I cannot miss.  I did not miss.  I never will again, but you still smile.  Whatâ,¬,,¢s that smell?

If you touch him now, it is all undone.
He is mine.
He was never yours.
He is good!
That may very well be.  But naught that seems good is forever so.
I canâ,¬,,¢t lose himâ,¬Â¦
There is always something lost in the acquisition of goodness.  The very nature of Paradise demands that presupposition.  For every ascent, Perdition only requires a single sufferance.  It is a small price.  Leave him, or forfeit everything.

â,¬Å"Ah, the air.  This place hasnâ,¬,,¢t changed.â,¬Â  The ant-man reclines amidst the grasping leaves, placing his mandibles upon the gobletâ,¬,,¢s cusp and lapping up the nectar with a scarlet tongue he should not possess.

â,¬Å"Hasnâ,¬,,¢t?  I donâ,¬,,¢t recall these trees, that chair or this house.â,¬Â  I gesture with a great sweeping motion that encompasses the scene before us.  Ã¢,¬Å"The skyâ,¬,,¢s the wrong colour and the sun looks like itâ,¬,,¢s sucking all the light away!  Iâ,¬,,¢d say itâ,¬,,¢s changed an awfulâ,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â

A funny winged thing flies by, rosy-pink like that sunset back in late September, and lands on my outstretched hand.  Its antennae sway suggestively.

â,¬Å"No,â,¬Â I agree.  Ã¢,¬Å"It hasnâ,¬,,¢t changed at all.â,¬Â

Seeing as nobody else has responded, I thought I'd give you my feedback.  If it's not okay to post here, this can easily be removed anyway.

My thoughts mainly follow the thread of "Holy shit, someone dreams like this!?" as I read.  What I see here is a collection of the bizarre but oddly beautiful, and I will continue to read more if you continue to post.

My personal favorite is the last one, it really gives me a sense of atmosphere similar to that which I received upon reading "Alice in Wonderland", and this piece itself has inspired me to produce some art.  If and when I get a scanner and actually get around to producing th eimage in my head, I'll post it here.

Good job Salacious!

Quote from: Natural 20My thoughts mainly follow the thread of "Holy shit, someone dreams like this!?" as I read.  What I see here is a collection of the bizarre but oddly beautiful, and I will continue to read more if you continue to post.

Agreed, although my primary reaction wasn't quite as intense. I've seen, read, and even understood lots of stuff that most people might consider truely bizarre. I think there can be some sense made out of this, even if it's not readily apparent.

QuoteMy personal favorite is the last one, it really gives me a sense of atmosphere similar to that which I received upon reading "Alice in Wonderland", and this piece itself has inspired me to produce some art.  If and when I get a scanner and actually get around to producing th eimage in my head, I'll post it here.

Good job Salacious!

is[/i] alot of whimsical fancy (some of which, admittedly, doesn't make sense), studying the books shows there's actually quite alot that makes perfect sense; If milk is good for cats, for example, then wouldn't it make sense for looking-glass milk to be bad? (and it goes much deeper then that, even)


SA, I think this is great stuff. Vivid scenery as only dreams and hallucinations can create. Congratulations!

wow, and I thought my dreaming of sea urchin/ pig hybrids was weird.

Awesome. Just awesome.

I wish I could say my dreams were as amazing as yours, at least in this respect. I like to consider my own pretty messed up, but that's because they're the random of the random and I'm losing the ability to tell when a dream ends and I actually wake up.

This stuff actually kind of reminds me of the kind of stuff I'd expect to see in those far away places of the Cthulhu universe.

This is... alien.

Only the first of the three was a dream.  The second was a conversation that went on in my head after a certain dream finished (which I'll post when I have it sorted out), while the third was entirely during a "conscious" state.

Jeez. The most interesting dream I've had lately involved having a conversation in Spanish, during which a hideous old woman kept correcting me on grammatical matters involving gender agreement between nouns and adjectives.

Your prose has improved since I started reading it on WotC back in January '06, (and I thought it was really good back then, already.)

Quote from: Sविष्णुAOnly the first of the three was a dream.  The second was a conversation that went on in my head after a certain dream finished (which I'll post when I have it sorted out), while the third was entirely during a "conscious" state.

To be honest, I kind of suspected that last one wasn't a dream; between the direct sense of involvement, the genuine suprise that things weren't "normal"... I dunno, I've known people with various mental illnesses, and it just doesn't strike me as a dream.

The conversation put an idea in my head (I'd rather keep it secret. Besides, I don't want this perspective to muddy up your writing) that I like quite a bit. If I ever do my own short story, I may use this idea. Thanks :)

It's nice to have others appreciate and comment on the machinations of one's subconscious.

As always with anything I put out on these boards, folks, if you like something you see, and are inspired by it to come up with some work of your own, by all means go right ahead.  It's open source psychosis!

A white marble pillar, doubtlessly of some incalculable age, rose up from the cathedral floor and through the ceiling as though its growth had been a sudden violent rush that shattered arches and exploded stone, ascending beyond the rooftop into the unrelenting sky.

Upon it was carved some ancient text from a comparably old and forgotten tongue.  The writing was so tiny and the pillar so vast, it seemed a whole worldâ,¬,,¢s history could be writ across its face.

â,¬Å"What does it say?â,¬Â

He sighed and shook is head.  Ã¢,¬Å"Nothing.  It says nothing.  A million years of studyâ,¬Â¦ fruitless analysis.  We still can make no sense of it.â,¬Â

I quietly stifled a cough.  For all the pillarâ,¬,,¢s grandeur, it seemed that so garish a sound would send that hallowed edifice tumbling down.

Mummer leaned towards me, like a trickster sharing secrets.  Ã¢,¬Å"But it is deceptiveâ,¬Â¦ Go ahead and stare at the words for a little while.  Watch how it all begins to look like wisdom.â,¬Â

You see, that is why you are an angel and I amâ,¬Â¦ this.  I behold my fingers â,¬' the things that were my fingers â,¬' the knives that cut the Thread and send men, such as you once were, tumbling into that hungry gap Pandaemonium.  And surcease of laughter.  They were artistâ,¬,,¢s fingers once.  Now they are the instruments of a very different opus.  These eyes that should not see; they are filled with the same rot that carries thick on my breath- listen as I sigh, do you hear it?  The song of your calamity, though I could speak the kindest wordsâ,¬Â¦ and I would, were there any sense to it, but there is not.  I will say only what I should say, in my capacity as your executioner.  And the executioner of all.  For in the part of He-The-Dark that I am â,¬' which is my only lingering part of any relevance â,¬' I am the shadow-become-death, as are We All, and you, the meek, are manifest the mountain across whose flesh we climb when eveningâ,¬,,¢s fire recedes beyond the water, to seat our starless throne upon the crownâ,¬Â¦ our dominion Unliving Glory, the Mourning Flame, and joylessly we sing.  Put down the blade.  Let us not fight, for you do greatly fear the sting of my barb and I so loathe the God-Swordâ,¬,,¢s Heavenly kiss.  Put down the blade and let us walk together.  You need not feel any pain.

The image of the pillar is very evocative in it's simplicity.

I would be interested in convincing your consciousness to follow up on what it's partner started there.

I intend to do just that, actually.  As I said, I'm planning on an eventual webcomic (or even a graphic novel) and that'll involve reconciling all of these disparate vignettes (and there are many more to come) so that there is some kind of coherent (albeit extremely surreal) plot.

I've already built some conceptual and thematic links between "Turturtur" and the very last one (God-Sword's Heavenly kiss), as well as speculating on the nature of the wounded man.  It's coming along nicely.

*anticipates*

Wow. I'm just staggered by how alike our dreams are, though you've captured it much better than I could. I can't wait to see what more comes out, for comparison. Awesome work, SA.

And the pupil expands, pressing out upon the iris until it has consumed it whole, and then the white sphere beyond.  Where once was an eye now there is Void, the boisterous cheer of day excised from that precarious spot like a gaudy tumour from nightâ,¬,,¢s umbral flesh.

â,¬Å"This is the way,â,¬Â says the First.  Ã¢,¬Å"Into the Gate, perchance to find your answer.â,¬Â

The Third steps across the threshold, breaching the ugly dark of that anti-sphere and turning to regard us from the gloom.  Her smile is reassuring; her lambent cords lend her a strange illumination, like that of a risen god.  I follow.

It is cold on the other side, but not the oppressive chill I had expected.

The great fiend stirs amid the wreckage of the metropolis, and with an agonised groan rises.  Old flesh, once condemned to rot, ignites again.  Flames erupt from weeping fissures, liquid blue coursing across tiles and cobblestones.  Each encounter is an explosion; scorched earth and fleetly dancing sparks.  Of course there is screaming also, but in the cacophony of the Great Oneâ,¬,,¢s rising, they are like the voiceless dead.

Those eyesâ,¬Â¦ not eyes at all.  Where there was one, now two, then thousands, rising in fissive multitude â,¬Ëtil the sky is filled.  Unblinking in their millions, and every one is as large as the world.

As harsh as the sun.

Webcomic eh? I must do a guest strip some time. Anyways, this stuff is awesome.

I'd be interested in drawing for it, if you need an artist.

That'd be fantastic.

I don't need an artist, per se, but assistance would certainly be appreciated.  However, I won't be getting around to that for quite a while.  Before that, I'll need a PC upgrade (my current one is a horror story), a scanner and some manner of hardcore graphics program.

GIMP!