Moe Lane's Blog, page 464
November 16, 2022
10/16/2022 NaNoWriMo, BANSHEE BEACH: 1254/35145.
Not as much wordcount today, but I’m not behind.
The leader of the Saffrons was a big guy, stripped down to bare chest and ken loincloth. The rest of his clothes were set out around him, because why spend money on laundry when the sun can bake out all the stink for you? That being said, he did have a bucket full of soapy water, which he was using to clean himself. He also sported an impressive number of bandages, which he was gingerly removing from his torso as we walked up.
This time, Lucas spoke up, first. “No stinks this side, bra.”
The Saffron looked at him. “You brown in all the Orange places.” He said it mildly. “You just posing, or you mean it?”
“I earned the tan, fair and square,” Lucas told him, also calmly. “We’re not in the north, though. Nobody I hung with had a flap with the Saffrons, and none of you had flaps with us. You’re in the Southlands now.”
“Don’t I know it,” the Saffron leader grumbled. “What about you?”
“Me?” I shrugged. “I just live here. But I do kinda have — what’s a ‘flap,’ Lucas? Beef, lawsuit waiting to happen, blood vendetta?”
“Yes to all three. It’s one of those useful words.”
“Thanks. —Yeah, I kinda have a flap with you guys. That coach you guys buzzed? I was in it. It wasn’t a fun time. Wasn’t for the coach driver, too.”
He started to puff up a little, I guess in indignation; but then he visibly stopped, and deflated. “Yeah, that was a dumbass move. Bad time, bad place. Look, I’m ‘Denny the Jumper.’” From the way he said it, it meant something, at least to him and his people. I just hoped it didn’t suggest a tendency to throw himself out windows.
Adventure Seed: Wages of Butter.
The Wages of Butter
It was a surprise to the nations of Earth to discover that the substance known as ‘butter’ turned out to be an almost perfect stimulant/dietary supplement for the alien species known as the Monisan. One standard stick (cow’s milk butter is the best for the Monisans’ purposes) could keep a single Monisan swarm-soldier going at 120% alertness and reflexes for two days straight, with no psychological or physical side-effects (as long as the Monisan didn’t go out and immediately eat another stick of butter). Since the Monisan Empire consists of roughly eight hundred worlds, with one or two being added via conquest every decade, this surprise was not entirely welcome.
Fortunately for Earth, the Monisan consider our planet to be highly radioactive, horribly bright, and dangerously variable in its mean temperature. They are reflexively reluctant to conquer us outright, which cleared a path for trading for our butter at a reasonable price (‘reasonable’ at first being as defined by them). There was some resistance to selling combat drugs to an aggressive race of sapients, but eventually Earth gave in. The alternative was… unpleasant.
Also, it cannot be denied that the arrangement has been mutually beneficial. Every remaining nation-state on the planet is heavily involved in butter production; even so, the demand is so high that most humans use non-cow’s milk butter now. There’s always a shipment being picked up for offplanet distribution, which has triggered a dramatic rise in our space infrastructure. For that matter, the money and military surplus the Monisan give us for our butter (to say nothing of our ongoing relationship with them) has made Earth rich and secure in a slightly dangerous galaxy. There is a vested interest in maintaining that state of affairs. There are many vested interests. Butter is now an extremely valuable substance, in other words.
Which leads to the current problem. There’s a briefcase full of butter samples that has gone AWOL. It was supposed to go to a Monisan facilitator for analysis and assay, but elements of our organized crime network stole it instead. It is believed that they plan to sell it to elements of the Monisan organized crime network, presumably as a combat drug. The Monisan are no more (or less) willing to tolerate criminal behavior than Earth is, and this heist was particularly brazen. Track down the briefcase, secure the samples, bring in whoever you can for arrest.
Also: ignore any rumors or protestations that the butter is actually going to go to Monisan revolutionary groups, as part of their ongoing rebellion against the Monisan Empire. For one thing, they’re probably lying. For another, the Monisan revolutionaries are even worse than the Monisan Empire. Interstellar combat drug smuggling is hardly the worse thing they’ve ever done.
The Extremely Dangerous SPACE 1889: AFTER TTRPG Kickstarter.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. This is bad. This is very, very bad. I did not need to be told about SPACE 1889: AFTER.
That’s seventy bucks for a copy of the game, that is. I don’t have that kind of money. I’ve already blown my Christmas money on something else, too. Still, an updated version of the game… no. No, no, no, no, no.
ARTEMIS 1 launches.
Pretty much without a hitch, this time: “The historic Artemis I mission took flight in the early hours of Wednesday morning after months of anticipation. The milestone event kicked off a journey that will send an uncrewed spacecraft around the moon, paving the way for NASA to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in half a century.”
Footage of the launch itself:
We are going.
For the first time, the @NASA_SLS rocket and @NASA_Orion fly together. #Artemis I begins a new chapter in human lunar exploration. pic.twitter.com/vmC64Qgft9
— NASA (@NASA) November 16, 2022
November 15, 2022
Early night tonight.
Up at 6 AM this morning, will be up at 6 AM tomorrow morning, and that may be the new schedule for a while. So it goes, and I should go to bed.
11/15/2022 NaNoWriMo, BANSHEE BEACH: 1832/33902.
Almost 34K words! Huzzah. 56.5%, too. Every little bit helps.
Lucas looked down at the club. “Nasty piece of work,” he said, his hands carefully behind his back. “And what is this along the edge, glass?”
“Yeah. Don’t touch it. It’s sharp as hell, and smells a little like it, too.”
“Does it?” Lucas focused on the club. “Okay, yeah, now I can smell it, too. If I was a mage—”
“Which you’re not.”
“—which I’m not, I’d be saying that this thing has some kind of weird-ass charge on it. A nasty one, too.”
“Necromantic? Demonic?” I’m not an expert on flavors of magic, and I hadn’t seen my go-to guy on that subject for almost a year. I hadn’t gotten a letter from him in the past three months, either.
“Necromancy isn’t so bad, depending on what you use it for. And it smells wrong for demons. I’m mostly just getting blood off of this.” Lucas looked sick. “Not fresh blood, sort of like… the idea of blood, or maybe even the memory of it.”
Tweet of the Day, This Is My New Favorite For Best Cringe Of 2022 edition.
You read it, and you wait to see where the bit starts. But there’s no bit. This is all real.
this is the type of content you can't get on mastedon https://t.co/D2YE1HYXHz
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) November 15, 2022
Rejoice, my droogies. Rejoice. Why? Because you’ve never written this.
CONAN THE BARBARIAN will be back in theaters next month!
CONAN THE BARBARIAN is having its 40th birthday this year, and Fathom Events’ bringing it back to the big screen on December 12 and 13. Bonus content has been promised, but I wouldn’t hold out for new footage. Probably it’s just an interview or two. Still, it’s something to consider.
#commissionearned
PS: I don’t need to write out the quote. You’re already thinking it!
November 14, 2022
‘Paradise City.’
#commissionearned
