Kevin L. O'Brien's Blog: Songs of the Seanchaí, page 17

Laws and Rules Tropes

Some tropes seem to be expressions of underlying laws of fiction . By that I don't mean a law such that the violation of which constitutes bad writing. Nor do I mean something like a scientific law, in that the convention is considered a law because it describes some fundamental aspect of fiction that cannot be avoided. These are neither Omnipresent nor Universal tropes, and being Tools they can be Played With or even avoided like any other trope.

The term "law" should not be taken too seriously in any event, because, being tropes, many of them are a bit tongue-in-cheek, and because they can contradict one another. For example, you have Beauty Equals Goodness, and you also have Beauty Is Bad. Both can be legitimately used straight, just not in the same story unless Played For Laughs.

Following is a list of Law Tropes that appear in my stories:

All Myths Are Real -- In fantasy settings, myths, legends, and folklore are accurate descriptions of reality.

***** Medb, Team Girl, and Sir Differel encounter vampires, werewolves, ghouls, zombies, the Daoine Sidhe, demons, ghosts, mummies, CHUDs, the Cenobites, Deep Ones, dragons, unicorns, manticores, basilisks, wolfen, the Greys; you name it.

Arkham's Razor -- In fiction, the oddest answer is often the correct one.

***** All my stories are predicated on this. Well, almost; I do have few Meddling Kids! twists.

Attractive Bent-Gender -- Genderbent males make attractive girls.

***** Inverted with Sir Differel; she sometimes disguises herself as a man, and gets women swooning at her feet or throwing their underwear at her.

The Bechdel Test -- At some point, do two named female characters talk to each other about something other than men?

***** Men are Lady Margaret's favorite topic, but she and Differel also talk about monsters.

Bellisario's Maxim -- Don't examine this too closely. Another way to put it is, we could plug the plot holes, but that would cost too much.

***** I try to avoid plot holes like the plague, but sometimes they slip through. In any event, I don't intend for people to analyze my stories too closely.

MST3K (Mystery Science Theatre 3000) Mantra -- "It's just a story."

***** Anytime anyone reading one of my stories starts to think, "What kind of crap is he trying to pull here!", he should repeat this mantra until the spasm passes.

Moff's Law -- In criticism, someone is going to bring up 'Why can't you enjoy it for what it is?'.

***** Anyone seeking to critically analyze my stories should ignore any statement like, "Chill, dude, it's just a story!"

Chekhov's Classroom -- Information in a lecture will become applicable later on in the work.

***** In my story "Far-Sight", Dr. Jeremiah Arkenton gives a lecture on the theory of tachyons. Their properties become important in the climax.

Clarke's Third Law -- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

***** Dr. Mabuse's mad scientist inventions. Plus, any alien technology.

Conservation of Ninjutsu -- In any martial arts fight, there is only a finite amount of ninjutsu available to each side in a given encounter. As a result, one Ninja is a deadly threat, but an army of them are cannon fodder.

***** Played straight with the Caerleon Order. In "Man Friday", the monster decimates an entire platoon of soldiers, but one man kills the monster by himself. Somewhat justified, though, in that he thought outside the box and came up with a novel plan.

Cool of Rule -- Cool things are cooler if they don't break the laws of The Verse.

***** Everything in my stories obey the laws I set forth for my Verse, even if some of those laws require a certain amount of hand-waving.

Finagle's Law -- Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

***** The primary reason Eile and Sunny get into so much trouble.

Infant Immortality -- Babies don't die.

***** Played straight in the Waking World; justified in the Dreamlands in that no Dreamer under the age of consent can be harmed.

Law of Cartographic Elegance -- The world is always easily represented on a map.

***** Averted, especially in the Dreamlands; maps of the Dreamworld must either be published in atlases or printed on sheets larger than dining room rugs.

Law of Conservation of Normality -- No matter how weird things get, you still have to go to work.

***** Played straight in the Dreamlands, being as things there are pretty weird already. Also, until they became rich, Team Girl had graphic design and adventure company clients to satisfy.

Law of Inverse Fertility -- The fertility of a couple is inversely proportional to their desire to have a child.

***** Differel's son Henry was conceived the first time she and her future husband Victor had sex, before they even discussed having children. After he was born, they wanted to conceive another child, but failed despite their best efforts.

Law of Inverse Recoil -- Weapons have recoil inversely proportional to their real life equivalents.

***** Averted in "Man Friday" and "The Beast of Exmoor"; Holt is the only normal human strong enough to handle the recoil of a heavy anti-material sniper rifle, and Differel rejects trying to use it herself because she knows she can't.

Law of Inverse Romantic Interest -- The interest of other characters in a certain character is inversely proportional to the character's own interest in romance.

***** The more Differel tries to avoid romantic entanglements, the greater the number of men seeking to woo her.

Lord British Postulate -- Invincible characters will still be subject to attempts to kill them.

***** Played straight with Medb and Vlad Drakulya, who have certain specific vulnerabilities, but you still have to get past their defenses to exploit them. Subverted with Differel: she isn't invulnerable, but people or monsters still keep trying to kill her as if she was.

Magic A Is Magic A -- Magic is consistent; the same magical causes will have the same magical effects.

***** Played straight in the Dreamlands; as long as it's done right, magic always works the same way every time a specific spell is cast.

Magnum Opus Dissonance -- Soulless moneymakers will be more popular than the painstaking masterpiece.

***** I am constantly surprised by which of my stories are popular and which are not.

Never a Self-Made Woman -- A female character can only be part of the story as a relative or Love Interest to one of the male characters. If she holds skill or power, it should be attributed to the influence of a man.

***** Zigzagged to death. Medb, Team Girl, and Differel have adventures for their own purposes, not through the auspices of some man. However, they were trained by men but also women, as well as being self-trained in certain skills. Differel depends upon men in the Caerleon Order to do her job, and she must answer to men in HM Government, but her power comes from her family and her control of Vlad Drakulya. Ultimately, all four women have achieved their success through their own ability, but they had help along the way.

Nominal Importance -- If you're not named, you don't matter.

***** Averted in "Man Friday"; the nurse is never named, but she is the antagonist Differel must confront.

Rule of Personification Conservation -- Non-humans should be non-human for a reason.

***** Played straight in my stories; no Yogi Bears or Bugs Bunnies need apply. (Though the Princess in Orange can change all that with a snap of her fingers.)

The Schlub Pub Seduction Deduction -- Hot women talking to average guys in bars means they have ulterior motives.

***** Played straight in "Redshirt" with a vengeance.

Schrodinger's Gun -- Only what has been revealed to the audience is fixed, everything else can be changed.

***** I plan out many background Verse and World Building details, most of which do not make it into my stories. However, those that do become canon, while those that don't are subject to change without notice.

Science is Bad -- Science destroys all that is good and beautiful about the world.

***** Played straight in the early Dr. Mabuse stories, but averted after she becomes a friend and ally as her inventions save the day.

The Smurfette Principle -- There will be only one female character in animated features not marketed solely to girls.

***** Inverted; Medb, Team Girl, and Sir Differel are more likely to team up with other women and have a single token male.

Theory of Narrative Causality -- Things happen because the plot says they should.

***** Duh. Or, put another way, THIS IS FICTION!!!

Truth in Television -- When a story depicts something that actually happens in Real Life.

***** This applies more to the tropes I use than my stories. The thing that needs to be kept in mind about this trope is that just because a Real Life spy might wear a tight-fitting jumpsuit, fear closed-in spaces, and once traveled through a crawlspace doesn't make the Secret Agent in the Spy Catsuit with the debilitating handicap of Claustrophobia crawling through an Air-Vent Passageway Truth in Television, because stories often exaggerate such things beyond what is possible in the real world.

Underdogs Never Lose -- The plucky disadvantaged guys come out on top always.

***** Played straight with Team Girl. Downplayed with Differel, who isn't really an underdog but often is disadvantaged. Subverted with Medb, who is rarely if ever at a disadvantage.

The Villain Makes the Plot -- The villain is the basis of conflict and therefore creates the plot.

***** My stories follow Villains Act, Heroes React, so duh. However, subverted in the Dreamlands, where Team Girl often initiate their confrontations with villains, though rarely deliberately.

What Measure Is a Non-Human? -- To what degree is killing a non-human the same as killing a human.

***** Zigzagged. Team Girl rarely kill anything, even after they become cynical and world-weary, and treat everything with kindness and respect until it proves undeserving, but they will protect themselves and defend the helpless. Medb has no qualms about killing any adversary, but will treat any friend in an honorable fashion. Differel will not hesitate to destroy any monster that poses a threat to Queen, Church, and Country, but she will ally herself with monsters willing to live in peace and obey British law, especially as she gets older. For the most part, my characters judge this question on behavior and practical needs, not ideology or philosophical tenets, though they tend to observe the Golden Rule.

Then there is the question of whether Dr. Mabuse's robots are human, and to what degree.

=====

There are other tropes that begin with the "Rule of ...". As with the Law tropes, the term "rule" does not mean something required or unavoidable. It is simply the way this group of related tropes was titled. Having said that, these tropes are all described in the same way:

"The limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to the degree by which it meets this trope."

In other words, the willingness of a reader to suspend his disbelief is determined by how cute/funny/glamorous/creepy/etc the story element happens to be. The cuter/funnier/more glamorous/creepier/etcerer the element is, the more likely the reader is to accept it without too much thought. In fact, these tropes are often used to dispel arguments among fans over implausibility in fiction.

These tropes are entirely subjective. Whether they work is up to the reader to decide, and two readers may not agree. As such, I could claim that Vlad Drakulya wading through a horde of monsters ripping off heads and arms and yanking out hearts and guts is WAY COOL!!!!, but no one else may believe me. Nonetheless, I do write stories with some of these tropes in mind, so what follows is a list of Rule Tropes that apply to my stories.

Rule of Cool -- The more wicked awesome an element is, the more likely readers will forgive the way it takes liberties with reality.

***** The aforementioned Vlad Drakulya, especially when he blows away monsters with pistols that can destroy battle tanks. Along with a female barbarian that can take on whole armies by herself, two girly girls who can put Indiana Jones to shame, and a lady swashbuckler with a honkin' huge sword.

Rule of Drama -- If the potential for conflict exists, it will always occur.

***** I don't write comedies, or romances, or New Age feel-good stories. I write stories about a female Conan, two adventurous girls, and a British aristocrat who hunts monsters. Damn right there's drama!

Rule of Fun -- The more fun/bizarre/weird an element is, the more likely readers will forgive the way it takes liberties with reality.

***** The last thing I want is to bore my readers to death. So I try to introduce excitement along with awesomeness and drama.

Rule of Scary -- The more an element creeps out the reader, the more likely he will forgive how illogical it is.

***** I don't find written horror scary, so I don't know how to write to frighten people, but I do try to creep them out.

Rule of Sexy -- The sexier an element is, the more likely readers will accept it no matter how outright impossible. Pertains to erotica rather than pornography.

***** Medb fights in the nude (justified in that heroic nudity is a cultural convention, and she is Nigh Invulnerable); Team Girl sleep in the nude (Girl on Girl Is Hot!), and wear Spy Catsuits, Latex Space Suits, and Form-Fitting Clothing; and the Princess in Orange likes to subject Sir Differel to Breast Expansion, Clothing Damage, and the Impossible Hourglass Figure, and dress her in Stripperiffic styles or Chain Mail Bikinis.

So, duh.

Next week, I will discuss tropes for Garnishing the Story.

Dreamlands Bestiary: The Ghoul

Ghouls are a Waking World race derived from Humans. The exact nature of this relationship is not fully understood, but it is known that Ghouls eat Human corpses (hence their name), Humans and Ghouls can produce fertile children, and Humans can transform into Ghouls. The exact agent of this transformation is unknown, even whether it is an environmental toxin or a sexually transmitted disease, or a combination of factors. All that is known is that the agent has a very low infection rate, much like leprosy, and one must live with the Ghouls for years in their warrens, practicing their lifestyle, including consuming cadavers and mating with them, for the transformation to take and become permanent.

The transformation produces a number of physical changes, such as greater strength and agility, but perhaps the most significant other than the change in appearance is virtual immortality. While Ghouls can be killed, they do not appear to be vulnerable to poisons or get sick or age, and some have been known to live for centuries. However, there is no evidence that it stunts or otherwise affects their intelligence. Despite adopting a different language and mode of behavior, Ghouls are every bit as smart and clever as Humans, and evidence a rich culture, if one devoid of technology.

A large part of their longevity, however, may be due to the fact that, while Ghouls forage in the Waking World, they live in the Dreamlands. The tunnels of their warrens delve deep into the Earth, and most connect with similar tunnels excavated in the Underworld of the Dreamlands. How this connection is made is not fully understood, but it is generally believed to involve either natural gates or the crossing of some kind of interdimensional boundary.

Ghouls live in extended family units that can include Human adoptees, especially children they kidnap to provide fresh blood to invigorate their genetic pool. These families often congregate into "tribes", but they otherwise govern themselves, though if there is one among them they respect, they may adopt that Ghoul as an informal, ad hoc leader.

Ghouls can make non-violent contact with Humans, as long as the Humans do not run from or attack them, or enter their warrens uninvited, and they can be friendly to anyone who openly displays an ankh. However, they will defend themselves, their families, and their territory. Men are likely to be killed and eaten, though female Ghouls may adopt handsome young men or teenage boys. Even if a man survives, the bite of a Ghoul is highly infectious with a host of gangrenous diseases. Women are more likely to be raped, even kidnapped, and Ghouls will even proposition non-hostile women, though depending upon their personality they may not take no for an answer, but the quickest way for a woman to gain their trust is to consent to have sex with them. Children are treated with special kindness, and while those who are lost or orphaned may be kidnapped, most are wooed away from their Human families with promises of a better, or more interesting life.

There are Humans, women as well as men, who traffic with Ghouls without living with them. They protect the secret of their existence from other men, and provide them with aid when they need it, including women and children or themselves for breeding purposes. To these collaborators Ghouls give treasure found in graves and tombs when they rob them of their bodies.

Bodies stolen from cemeteries, mortuaries, even morgues, are taken to the Dreamlands, where they are consumed, and the bones thrown into the Vale of Pnath. After millennia, the vale is close to half-filled. However, Ghouls do not consume Dream-corpses; these are left for the Wamps. Ghouls outnumber Wamps nearly 25:1, but individually Wamps are more powerful than Ghouls. Also, the bite of the Wamp is the only thing that can poison a Ghoul. So the Ghouls let the Wamps have the Dream-bodies.

In the Dreamlands, Ghouls are allied with Nightgaunts and are on friendly terms with Cats. They largely avoid Spiders and Leng Men, and will only meet with the latter in large numbers. They have alliances with Kuranes and the Prince of Dylath-Leen, and can provide aid to Dreamers they respect, even foot soldiers for fighting.

Synopsis: Carcosa Senshi (a Dribble and Maggot adventure)

Featuring the return of the Princess in Orange.

Sir Differel is driving her Aston Martin DBS Volante on the M4 with the top down. With her in the passenger seat is Lady Margaret. They’ve just past Reading and are heading to Bath. It’s March and Differel is feeling depressed over the anniversary of Victor’s death, so she decided to spend a few days in Bath shopping and visiting the Thermae Bath Spa. She invited M to come along, for company, for a sympathetic shoulder, and to explore their tumultuous relationship, perhaps even settle once and for all the question of whether they should be lovers.

As they approach Swindon, they’re arguing over what music to play. D wants to pop in a CD of Queen, while M disparages her dinosaur band and would prefer to play the latest album by Brunts, the popular all girl electronica-heavymetal-punk-rebel-rage band. Meanwhile they have the radio on. It takes them awhile to realize that the voice coming out of the speakers is talking to them. As soon as D recognizes it, she slams on the brakes and swerves to the side of the road, nearly causing an accident.

It’s the Princess in Orange. She commiserates concerning the sad anniversary, then asks where they’re going. When D replies, the PiO answers that that sounds boring and offers to set up something more exciting. Before D can object, a “view” slides from in front of them to behind them, replacing the countryside, road, and car for outer space and the cockpit of some kind of futuristic spacecraft moving faster than the speed of light. Though they’re bodies haven’t changed, they’re now wearing costumes that resemble Sailor Scout uniforms but with a cosmic lingerie design, complete with frilly G-strings, see through chemises and micro-skirts. The PiO appears as a holographic image of the computer’s AI program. She explains that they are members of the elite interplanetary law enforcement group known as the Sera Senshi, or simply the Scouts. They are on a mission to Trons’l Vanya to extradite the celebrated space pirate, Black Tie. They are the seventh pair to be sent on this mission; none of the others returned. But it will take 12 hours to get there, and she has everything well under control. She suggests they enjoy themselves, and the wall behind them splits down the middle and slides apart to reveal a bedroom fit for a goddess. Not having much choice, they go inside and the wall closes shut.

M wonders what the PiO’s game is. D just shrugs; for all she knows, the PiO just wants to see if she would screw M with all the abandon she did Victor, only it doesn’t feel quite right. Regardless, unless the PiO reveals the solution, all they can do is play along and hope they stumble on it. M doesn’t like the idea of being a pawn for someone else’s sick “fun”, but she understands they have no choice. She volunteers to sleep with D, just in case. D confesses that part of what she wanted to do this trip was hash out her ambivalent feelings for M. M in turn admits that she’s been feeling just as confused. Perhaps they can finally figure out once and for all just how they feel about each other. They undress and get into the bed, but as they lie next to each other trying to get up the nerve to start, the gravity gradually decreases until they are in free-fall. After the surprise wears off, they experience a kind of euphoria as they fly and tumble around each other. D starts feeling amorous, and it isn’t long before they embrace and go at each other like rutting weasels. Her excitement builds and they become more energetic, and it isn’t long before she is in the throes of rapture more intense than anything she ever felt with Victor. Their sex seems to go on for hours as they experience orgasm after orgasm, until finally D blacks out.

When D wakes up, she finds the gravity has been restored, and she and M are lying in the bed. The Princess hologram appears, waking M, and reports that they are one hour out from Trons’l Vanya, enough time to clean up, dress, and eat. They get up and take a shower together, but discover it is fully automatic. D finds the devices meant to scrub her body disconcerting, though M seems to enjoy it. Afterwards they dress in their “uniforms”; except for spacesuits, nothing else is available. Finally they eat. As they do so, D asks the Princess hologram about their mission.

The ruler of Trons’l Vanya, V’Lad Tipish, gives Black Tie sanctuary in return for a cut of his booty. As an associate member of the Federation Galactica, he cannot interfere with them, but neither is he required to help them. The previous teams never reported back, and so are assumed to have been neutralized. There is no information on the kind of society supported by Trons’l Vanya, and once they enter the system all long-range communication will be blocked, so they will be on their own.

As they approach the system, they are warned off, but they meet no opposition, and they land without incident. There is no check-in or customs; they are free to enter the city without restriction. They realize that without official help, it will be next to impossible to find BT, so they will have to get creative. They discover the city is a Ferengi’s dream: a capitalistic paradise where anything can be had for a price and caveat emptor rules every transaction. It’s also sordid and edgy like a low-class red-light district. Despite their uniforms, or because of them, they are approached by people propositioning them, some of whom are more subtle than others. One offers to show them a rare and wondrous thing. They realize how the other teams must have been neutralized; they were naive enough to be lured off the street, where they were killed or enslaved. Even so, that gives them an idea of how to find BT, or rather for him to find them. They locate a bar that doesn’t seem as seedy as the others and enter to try their luck.

They circulate, showing an image of BT, but no one admits to recognizing him. Finally someone claims he can take them to someone else who can tell them where to find him. He leads them into a dark alley, where a gang tries to kidnap them, but they beat them off. They then force their informant to take them to the person who wanted them kidnapped. It turns out to be a tentacle monstrosity that owns a bar/slave market. It speaks through a naked woman with a tentacle up her pussy. It admits that it wanted them caught; Senshi sex slaves are in huge demand. It also states that it buys whatever captives BT takes in his raids on ships. However, it also reveals that it has just sold them, and they are paralyzed. They are stripped naked, then taken into a backroom and laid on a bed. BT enters, saying that he heard they wanted to see him, so he arranged this meeting. He gives them a powerful aphrodisiac before cancelling their paralysis, then takes off his costume; he looks like Victor Plunkett. As the sex drug takes effect, he has sex with both of them.

Afterwards he does not try to restrain them. They tell him he is under arrest, but he refuses to go with them, nor can they force him to go. They try, and he just disappears. When he reappears he explains it was due to some tech he picked up early in his career. When they try to catch him again, they are shocked into submission. On top of that, they won’t be able to leave the bar except in his presence. He disappears again, and when they try to leave the room they are again shocked. He returns and explains that if he leaves a third time without them, he will sell them back to the monstrosity, who will whore them to its customers. However, they can leave with him, if they promise not to try to capture him. They then would have three choices. If they are willing to forget about him, he will escort them back to their ship and they can leave. Or, they can partner with him and become pirates themselves. Or, they can join forces with him to stop V’Lad from destroying the FG home system, in exchange for a pardon and future immunity. They agree to postpone placing him under arrest long enough to hear him out.

He provides them with stripperific clothing along with their arm implements, and they head for a bar. He explains that for the past couple of years V’Lad has been commissioning him to attack specific transports. He is free to take whatever he wants from them, but there were certain items from each that he had to take regardless of worth. Those he turned over to V’Lad for a “finders fee” and he sold off the rest of his booty. BT swears he had no idea what V’Lad wanted the materials for, but he has since learned that he intends to create a nova bomb, which when set off inside a star would cause it to eject its outer layers while its core collapses into a white dwarf. The ejected material would destroy the inner part of the solar system and render the outer part uninhabitable for millennia. He can only make one bomb, but he intends to blackmail the FG, and after they have paid, to detonate anyways for payment from the Dark Empire. The destruction of the FG home system would throw the galaxy into chaos and allow the DE to step in and fill the power vacuum. He has no vested interest in seeing the FG destroyed only to be replaced by the DE. Granted, with the FG gone he could become rich and powerful, but the DE would destroy him; the FG would only imprison him, and he could still make a living if they didn’t catch him, whereas he couldn’t under the DE.

However, there is still time to stop him if they act fast. He hasn’t assembled the bomb yet, and there is one critical material he must have or the bomb would be no better than a 100 meg nuke. It was a fluke it was even on a civilian transport; normally it’s carried by a military vessel. If they steal it, he would be unable to obtain any more. He also has a plan for how they can steal it, but it would require them to do something extraordinary, well beyond the call of duty. He could then take it while they distract him.

He takes them to V’Lad’s lair, disguised as harem dancers, and offers to sell them to him. To display their “wares”, they dance, steadily denuding themselves, until they are virtually naked. Then V’Lad realizes BT has vanished. He has them taken to the bomb, and they discover that it has been assembled, but the critical material is missing. They then realize BT double-crossed them and plans to sell the material. V’Lad orders them killed, but then a representative of the DE appears and countermands his order. It offers them their freedom if they will retrieve the stolen material. D agrees, but V’Lad insists on keeping M as hostage.

Once on the street, the PiO hacks into the planet’s Internet and discovers that BT has a ship and where it’s located. She also reports it’s being readied for takeoff. As D heads off, the PiO also explains what she found out about the DE on Trons’l Vanya.

V’Lad has M tied to a couch, and she watches as he disrobes. As he pours wine for himself, she asks him about the DE. He casually explains that it has had a presence on Trons’l Vanyafor some years now, and that the city has become completely infiltrated; everyone is either a member of or works for the DE, including him, though some, like BT, still don’t realize it. It is used as a base to infiltrate spies and saboteurs into the FG, to monitor transmissions and hack into databases to steal information and money, and once the FG home system has been destroyed, it will become a naval base. He drains the goblet and approaches her. As he fondles her in preparation to raping her, he gloats about how he will enjoy both of them when her partner returns. She states that D will not come back; that she will get the material off planet and out of his hands for good. Besides, she knows that the DE rep will never let them live to warn the FG. He replies that if that is the case, he will make her death as slow and excruciating as he can manage. Though terrified, she replies that she is Senshi, and if necessary she will give her life for the mission. He states that for now all he wants is her body, and he penetrates her.

D manages to get to BT’s ship before it can take off, and downloads the PiO into the system so she can shut down the launch sequence. She then goes looking for him, but he ambushes her and they fight. The PiO activates a body shield that protects her from being shocked, but his ability to disappear and reappear at will gives him an advantage. He subdues her, but offers to take her with him. Once he sells the material they will be fantastically rich. They can go wherever they want, live whatever lives they want. She feels tempted, and the PiO urges her to accept. Then she asks about M. He replies that he has no interest in her. He remembers how much they enjoyed each other when he had sex with both of them, and he doesn’t want competition for her affection. She then realizes he doesn’t love her, he just wants to own her. She refuses, and he states she won’t have any choice once he knocks her out. However, the PiO has learned the secret of his built-in tech, and when they grapple she burns it out, leaving him helpless. D forces him to give her the material, but then leaves, giving him a chance to escape.

On the way back she asks the PiO why she helped her. The PiO explains that she is acting as a Senshi AI, as part of the game; to not help her would be cheating. However, she has to make her own choices. D asks if there is a way to use the material to sabotage the bomb. The PiO confirms there is, but it’s tricky, and probably won’t work, or could get her killed. D decides to try, and the PiO explains how to modify the material’s container.

D makes it back, and gives the material to V’Lad. He has her bound together with M, and as his technicians replace the canister, he gloats that he will enjoy them as long as it takes for the FG to accede to his demands, then he will place them in their ship with the bomb and send them to the FG home system. Even as the techs activate the bomb, however, it begins ticking down, and they cannot stop it. D uses her laser to cut herself and M loose, then shoots guards as they escape. M grabs a guard gun and joins in. BT drops down from the ceiling throwing bombs and adds his own firepower to help them escape. One explosion causes part of the ceiling to collapse, trapping V’Lad under debris. Once outside, they must evade DE drone soldiers led by the representative, but they manage to make it to their ships. They take off as pursuit craft rise to give chase, but as they clear the atmosphere the bomb goes off, destroying the city and the following craft. The flash and pulse of high-energy particles disrupt their sensors, but they see BT’s ship veer off. He signals his farewell and jumps before they can lock onto him. They in turn jump and head for home system.

Even as the jump effect washes over them, they find themselves back in their car on the side of the road. No time has passed. Over the radio the PiO congratulates them on winning another game. She explains that the goal was for D to choose between Victor or M, with the possible rewards being a lifetime with Victor, albeit in that alternate universe, something D has always wanted, or being returned to their own universe to continue her relationship with M. M chastises D for coming back for her. Not only did that jeopardize the mission, but she lost her chance to be with Victor. D explains that the mission was of no consequence. She didn't believe the PiO would be so prosaic as to test whether she would sacrifice M for the mission, and that wasn't really Victor, despite appearances. She would rather live in the real world, despite its problems, with someone who is real, than a fantasy world with someone who was just an illusion of a former love. M is touched, and she and D kiss. The PiO makes gagging noises and tells them to get a room, then the radio flares to life playing country-western cowboy blues. D & M shriek as if in agony and simultaneously switch off the radio, then after a moment start laughing. D puts the car in gear and they resume their trip to Bath.

Synopsis: An Cupla (a Team Girl Dreamlands adventure)

How Eile and Sunny first enter the Dreamlands.

Team Girl return home after a successful adventure with their pet Snowshoe Kitty. They have dinner and go to bed, falling asleep after a bout of celebratory sex, and Kitty goes downstairs to greet her vetrinarian, who enters through the backdoor. They go up to the Girls' bedroom and the vet, who is an avatar of Bast, weaves a spell over them. She departs, leaving LKitty to watch over them. Kitty regrets that she must participate in this deception, but she has no choice: it is an order from the Council. She also regrets she cannot accompany them, but where they are going they will have protectors.

Eile has a dream of walking with Sunny in a garden, but they soon realize they are both having the same dream, and they are both fully conscious. They find a set of stairs leading down into the earth and follow them into a cavern occupied by two pagan priests. They introduce themselves as Nasht and Kaman-Thah, and state that they guard the entrance to the Lands of the Dreams of Men. They dress in adventuring outfits and collect supplies and equipment, and descend another flight of stairs, emerging into a dark forest.

THere they are greated by creatures called Zoogs, who guide them out of the woods and protect them from its dangers. They step out onto the meadow of a shallow valley that leads down to the River Skai. There they meet a smoky-gray cat named Shadow-Stalker. She explains that she is to take them to a meeting with the Council of Elders of the High Queen of All Cats Great and Small in the town of Ulthar. She leads them along a road going downstream, and they have lunch in the village of Nir.

From there they cross a bridge over the Skai and eventually arive in Ulthar. Shadow takes them to the Hostel of the Laughing Cat, where they have supper and are given rooms to rest. They are also provided dresses for the meeting. They sleep for a few hours when Shadow comes for them. They put on their dresses, and the cat takes them to a temple, leading them into a grove in the garden. There they are confronted by the cat Queen and her Council. The leader of the Council informs them that they had them brought to the Dreamlands. They also explain that their surrogate-mother and mentor, Medb hErenn, is in grave trouble and they want the Girls to rescue her. However, it will be a virtual suicide mission, but if they don't comply or they fail, their Waking bodies will die and they will be trapped in the Dreamlands forever. Moreover, the Council will declare them anathema, and the cats of the Dreamlands will hunt them down and kill them. Having no choice, they return to the hostel to rest until morning.

They leave the next morning with Shadow to escort them, and after a day of travel they arrive at an inn called the House of Derga. They stay overnight, but thugs try to kidnap them. They beat them off and Derga himself guards them the rest of the night. In the morning they travel to the port city of Dylath-Leen. Outside the main gate, Shadow hides them in a copse of trees as she enters the city to arrange for a cat escort. However, the Girls overhear two Leng Men talk about Medb. They follow them inside the city to a tavern, and overhear them plotting to kidnap Medb. They get to Medb ahead of them and warn her, but she is suspicious until Shadow appears and vouches for them. Even so, she doesn't want them helping her, but the Queen's threats convince her she has no choice.

She takes them all to a tavern run by a friend across the street where they await the arrival of the kidnappers. They fight them and win, but the one survivor didn't know who hired them, other than he was a priest of some kind and he was worried they would reach a monument with a key. She lets him go, then takes the Girls to a nearby stable to retrive her zebra and supplies. She takes them into the heart of the city to a temple, then she and Eile enter while Sunny waits outside with Shadow and Medb's companions Creme the Cat, Teehar the Bird, and Runt the Zoog. However, she and they soon follow them inside. Medb makes her way to a central chamber to retrieve an artifact, but they find it guarded by a monster. Eile has a panic attack and hides while Medb fights it, but when Sunny appears and her life is threatened, Eile goes berserk and attacks it, and she and Medb manage to kill it. Eile saves Sunny, but Medb attacks Eile, angry at her cowardice. Sunny defends her and Medb lets her go, but she has no respect for Eile anymore. They retrieve the artifact, known as the Key of the Abyss.

They flee the city and head south along the coast. They stop to rest at dawn and Medb explains her mission. She must use the Key to prevent the release of the Kraken, the Dream-form of Great Cthulhu. They are headed for the Monument of the Twins, where the Key can be used to open the Abyss and imprison the Kraken once again. They continue on, and when they stop to rest again Medb begins teaching Sunny how to fight with a staff. She also names her White-Lion. At one point the Girls horse around, engaging in a mock fight. Medb tries to stop it and Eile accidentally wounds her. She reacts violently, but Sunny stops her from killing Eile. She then vows to kill Eile once their mission is over. Later they are ambushed as they try to cross a bridge and Medb is almost killed. Eile saves her and they kill the ambushers. When they rest for the night, Medb apologizes to Eile and names her Braveheart.

The next morning they continue on, but are ambushed by tentacle monstrosities just in sight of the monument. The Girls give a good account of themselves, and despite her fears, Eile is instrumental in driving them off. When they reach the monument, they discover two nude korai partially sculpted from twin spires one hundred feet high; the statues are holding hands. When she sees them, Medb realizes that they depict the Cúpla -- the Twins -- which is a Celtic cosmological principle. She also realizes that the Girls are the flesh-and-blood representation of the principle, and that they are needed for the monument to work. At the base of the statues is a nine-sided altar -- the triple threes. Behind the altar is a pedestal, and at the foot of each statue an alcove. Medb inserts the Key into the pedestal and a crystal orb emerges from it. At that moment, a sonic boom rolls over the land along with a blast of air. A storm rolls in behind it, but while there is howling wind and lightning, there is no rain. Medb orders the girls into the alcoves, then touches the orb. The orb begins to glow as it absorbs energy from her body, which sucks energy out of the earth to keep the massive woman alive. The process is painful; Medb cannot help screaming, but when the Girls try to help her, she orders them to stay in the alcoves. The orb glows brighter, and a visible aura appears around Medb, flowing from the ground into the crystal. The crystal flashes, and Eile closes her eyes in reflex. When she opens them again, she realizes she is looking out from the eyes of one of the statues. Sunny is in the other, and they can communicate telepathically. They both sea a hideous tentacled monster emerge from the ocean and wade towards shore. Sunny almost freaks out, but Eile comforts and strengthens her. They watch as the Kraken gets closer and closer, but they don't know what to do. They can feel the power flowing into the statues, building up to some maximum, but they have no idea what it's for or how to control it. Then Medb speaks to them in their minds; she tells them to focus on the Kraken, to concentrate on it. Sunny is terrified, but Eile soothes her. Then just as the Kraken comes ashore, the energy surges through their bodies and beams of energy shoot out through their eyes. The beams converge on the Kraken, envelop it in a glowing sphere, and hold it in place. The altar opens to reveal a black wormhole that drops into the earth. The eye beams draw the Kraken towards the altar. When it reaches the edge, the beams cut out and the sphere vanishes. The Kraken is pulled into the wormhole and sucked into oblivion. The altar then closes with a thud. Medb rips her hands loose from the orb and faints. Eile looses consciousness.

Eile awakens in their bedroom in the middle of the night, uncertain as to whether what they experienced was a dream, but decides it must have been when she can't remember more than vague flashes. Meanwhile, in the Dreamlands, Medb reports to the Cat Queen and her Council. The cats assure her that the Kraken cannot be raised again for another 500 years at least, if even then. They also assure her the Girls returned safely to their Waking bodies. She tries to reprimand them for involving Team Girl, but they are adamant it was necessary. She laments that she had no opportunity to get to know them better, but they assure her that they should be able to find their way back to the Dreamlands on their own. In which case, they will pay them a reward and a stipend and privide a house for them to live in, and they ask Medb to train them.

Eile ands Sunny sleep until mid-morning. As they have breakfast and try to recover from a severe lack of sleep, Medb comes to visit them. She presents them with two torcs of gold. She thanks them for the rescue, and in that moment they remember everything. She explains that they can use the torcs when they sleep to find their way back to the Dreamlands again. She then invites them to a day at a spa, her treat.

Elizabeth I of England -- Gloriany Sandy!

Queen of England from 1533 to 1603, and the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. She is best known historically for the defeat of the Spanish Armada and her iconographic virginity. Her reign has been called a golden age and is designated as the Elizabethan Era, famous for the flourishing of English drama and the beginning of England's seafaring prowess. She is best known popularly for the Elizabeth movie franchise, in which she was played by Cate Blanchett.

For more information, see this article.

Team Girl Doctor Who -- Story 1

One of the nice things about Team Girl in particular, though my other characters Medb hErenn and Sir Differel share this as well to a lesser extent, is my ability to put them into any kind of story I want, even crossovers with other people's stories.

I discovered Dr. Who while in college, and practically devoured the adventures of the Third and Fourth Doctors. My favorite villains include The Master (the Roger Delgado version), the Fendahl, Sutekh, the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Sontarans. I never saw the episode "The Celestial Toymaker", but I read about it on Wikipedia after I discovered the character in a Dr. Who comic. As often happens, these plots and concepts fertilized the compost heap I call a brain and germinated four ideas for Team Girl stories involving Dr. Who villains.

The first story will involve the Celestial Toymaker. He was a villain of the First Doctor, and was played by Michael Gough, of Batman and Corpse-Bride fame. He's an immortal, omnipotent being that exists outside of spacetime in a universe of his own creation, a universe of games and toys. His universe touches every point in spacetime on every timeline, so he can come and go anywhere and anytime at will. In our universe, his power is godlike; in his, it is infinite. Even Nyarlathotep could not stand up to him, and he created our universe.

In the story, the Celestial Toymaker kidnaps Team Girl and some of their friends -- Gen. Ross, Annis Nin, Ceithlenn, Dolores Cadera-Hueso, Fael Cayleen, Giovanna, Maela Hiver, Oda Hiver, Shasta Taffaday, and Marseilles Sheraton, the more aggressive and militaristic of my characters -- to serve as playing pieces in an elaborate life-or-death strategy game, with Medb playing them against the Toymaker and his pieces.

That's what he does, uses people as playthings in dangerous, almost unwinnable games. Those who lose become his playthings for eternity.

The game involves traveling across a playing board made to look like a battlefield-style obstacle course, trying to find the best route through while dealing with adversaries, obstacles, traps, puzzles, and red herrings. They can chose any weapons and pieces of equipment they want from a catalog, and they start off with a certain amount of food, water, and ammunition. The board is divided into sectors. They need to find keys to leave each sector, and they need a certain combination of the right ones to escape the board at the very end. If they can't find the right keys, they'll die when their food, water, and/or ammo runs out.

Just inside each sector is a comfort station. They can stay in them for up to 8 hours to rest, and they can restock their food, water, and ammo, and replace lost weapons and equipment. If they try to stay longer, they forfeit the game. Once they leave them, they cannot reenter, and the closer they get to the end of the board, the less resupply and replacement the stations can provide. However, they can use old keys to "purchase" a deus ex machina to save them from mortal peril, but doing so risks not having the right combination to win.

Within a sector, they can direct their own actions, but they cannot see the whole board. Only Medb can. She can't communicate with them directly, but she can provide them with clues and deny them access to neighboring sections to direct them along a specific path. Essentially, they control tactics, but Medb controls strategy. She must play the game as long as they are on the board, but a successful crossing could take days, even weeks, and in the Toymaker's universe Medb has none of her powers, just her normal physical stamina. She can only get a break while they rest in a comfort station, but she needs to spend that time analyzing and strategizing, so she can't get much sleep. Ultimately, that means the longer the game goes on, the more tired she gets, and the more likely she is to make a mistake. The Toymaker never gets tired.

There is no one safe route across the board. There are many possible routes, and the only real choice is either a fast transit or a safe one. A fast transit presents greater danger for the playing pieces, but Medb won't get as tired, whereas a safe route takes longer, which means a greater risk of her getting tired, but it's safer for Team Girl and their friends. The best route is the most efficient balance between safety and speed, and the conditions of the board are always changing. On top of that, Sheraton was thrown into the mix to act as a distraction, a wild card, even a possible traitor. If she believes she can "win" by sacrificing the rest of her companions, she'll probably do it. But what she doesn't know is, the Toymaker has mislead them all. His game can only be won if they all work together, and each is willing to sacrifice her life for the others. That literally makes Sheraton the key to getting everyone safely off the board.

Know the Difference Between Writing and Editing!

This, I'll admit, is still my biggest problem. Not knowing the difference, but being able to concentrate on writing and finishing the story before editing it.

I am actually constantly editing. I'll write several pages one day, then the next day I'll read what I've written and edit it before I start writing again. That's not so bad, but what kills me is hitting some minor block, like not knowing how to say something, and then I sit and edit trying to get it right rather than just slapping words on the page and moving on.

I really need to train myself to just get the story finished, and polish be damned; then I can go back and edit it.

Kevin J. Anderson wrote about this in his blog. It was one of the few pieces of writing advice that made sense to me. You can read his post here.

Universal Tropes

In contrast to Omnipresent Tropes, Universal Tropes are not ubiquitous; that is, they are not found in every story. In fact, some of them may only be used occasionally. What makes them universal is that they are not restricted to certain forms of media or certain genres, but are used in all forms of media and all genres.

When I described the Omnipresent Tropes present in my stories, I didn't list all of them, but I did include most of them, because their ubiquity virtually ensured that most of them would be present. That may sound circular, but that is the nature of an Omnipresent Trope; a trope is listed as omnipresent because it is omnipresent; that is, it's found everywhere. In this post, I only list a small sample of Universal Tropes because I haven't used most of them yet, and some I probably never will. (This list may seem rather long as it is, but that's because there are more Universal Tropes than Omnipresent Tropes.)

All Is Well That Ends Well -- Unlike people in Real Life, fictional characters are willing to let bygones be bygones and simply enjoy the fact that their lives are back to normal once the story ends.

***** Mostly played straight in my stories, but downplayed in the sense that Medb, Team Girl, and Sir Differel may be willing to just go on with their lives rather than pursue a vendetta, but the events of the stories themselves produce consequences that influence later stories.

The Big Board -- A device for both displaying information to the characters in story, and providing exposition for the audience. For example, "The Big Board" in the situation room in the movie Dr. Strangelove.

***** Sir Differel has several of these in the intelligence center of her ancestral manor, which include a table that can project three-dimensional holographic diagrams. More exist in the stations and substations used by the Caerleon Order. And when Team Girl scouts past times or alternative Earths, Sunny has a pair of glasses equipped with a heads-up display.

Bonus Material -- Material added to but separate from a particular work, meant to add depth and insight, or simply extra entertainment.

***** I have included character biographies and additional stories to my ebooks as bonus material.

Checkov's Gun -- If a gun is introduced at the beginning of the story, it must be fired, and soon. In other words, if it's not essential to the plot, narrative, setting, or character development, don't include it in the story.

***** Played straight, but also downplayed in that I tend to include more description than is necessary so as to paint vivid pictures in my readers' minds.

Every Proper Lady Should Curtsy -- A typical greeting by a female to show respect.

***** Played straight with Team Girl, but downplayed since they don't do it very often. Played straight with Sir Differel as a child, but subverted when she becomes an adult and switches to bowing. Played straight with her maids. Averted with Medb; she never curtsies and rarely bows.

Explicit Content -- Sexually pornographic material.

***** The presence or absence of explicit material in my stories is dictated by the needs of the plot, but I have included it in a few stories already, and I will include it several upcoming stories as well.

Face Palm -- An expression of irritation, frustration, embarrassment, or humiliation, involving gripping or covering the face with one or both hands.

***** Eile does this a lot in response to Sunny's inanity, and Sir Differel sometimes does this in response to Team Girl's or Vlad's wackiness.

Fictional Counterpart -- Using a fictional stand-in for a real-life institution.

***** Averted; I use the actual institutions themselves. I find it easier.

Geographic Flexibility -- The ability of a story location to acquire whatever features are needed for the plot.

***** Mostly averted, in that I use real locations. However, played straight in the sense that I treat larger regions in this fashion, and I do occasionally create fictional locations within real cities if they do not have what I need.

The Graph Shows the Trend -- Using a line graph as a prop to indicate a trend.

***** Played straight in my unpublished novel Forever Autumn, when I depict Sir Differel giving a lecture on the future trend of paranormal activity.

Group Hug -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin.

***** Eile and Sunny do this a lot with Sir Differel and Medb.

Headdesk -- A more extreme version of the Face Palm, involving a character laying or hitting her face on the top of a desk.

***** Sir Differel has been known to do this when she can't take any more.

The Hero / Hero Protagonist -- All stories have protagonists, but not all stories have Heroes, and of those that do not all Heroes are the protagonists.

***** Medb, Team Girl, and Sir Differel are not only the protagonists of my stories, many times they are also the heroes.

Hope Springs Eternal -- The Villain has won; all the heroes are dead; the world is in flames; and Mankind has been enslaved. And yet, the Resistance is born, out of the belief that the Heroic Spirit never truly dies, and Hope lives on.

***** Downplayed when Differel escapes to the family mausoleum after Aunt Mandy's coup to find the "knight protector" her father spoke of on his deathbed. Subverted when all she finds is a corpse, but subverted again when the corpse turns out to be Vlad Drakulya. When played straight it serves as the basis for some Alternative Reality and Parallel Earth stories.

Hope Sprouts Eternal -- When even Hope finally dies, in the center of the dead wasteland that used to be planet Earth, new life appears in the form of a green plant emerging from the rock-hard soil.

***** Played straight as the basis for some Alternative Reality and Parallel Earth stories.

Jumping Out of a Cake -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin. The staple of bachelor parties and comedies of errors involving children's birthday parties.

***** In an unpublished story, a Stripperiffic Sunny jumps out of a cake to distract criminals while Eile raids their computer to steal incriminating files.

Lie Detector -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin, though when played straight they are considered to be far more accurate than they really are.

***** Subverted in the Sir Differel stories, in that while polygraphs are used by the Caerleon Order and HM Government, their true "accuracy" is faithfully reproduced.

Long Hair Is Feminine -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin. In fact, the longer the hair, the more feminine a female character tends to be.

***** Played straight with Team Girl. Inverted with Sir Differel, who has long hair but is definitely unfeminine. Subverted with Medb, who can be feminine, but who also can rip monsters apart with her bare hands.

The Only One -- The protagonist is the only person alive who can handle the problem, because everyone else is incompetent.

***** Often played straight with Medb, but downplayed in that NO ONE is as competent as her. Subverted with Team Girl in that everyone else is very competent, but the Girls are the only ones in the right place at the right time. Justified with Sir Differel in that she was trained from age 12 to hunt down and kill monsters. Being the master of Vlad and Caliburn doesn't hurt.

Our Founder -- A statue of the founder of a kingdom, town, or institution.

***** Subverted in the Sir Differel stories, in that her family use oil portraits instead of statues, a new one painted every generation, and the portrait of Old Abraham Van Helsing, who founded the Caerleon Order, is just one of many.

Plot Armor -- The main character is protected by the plot, such that it prevents her from being killed, seriously wounded, or even slightly harmed, unless such becomes dramatically appropriate. However, it tends to weaken or vanish if she visits (or has a counterpart living in) an Alternative Universe or engages in Time Travel, and it can be suspended if she confronts a Hero Killer.

***** Played straight with Team Girl and Sir Differel, though the latter can get beat up on occasion. Justified with Medb because she is Nigh Invulnerable.

Story-Driven Invulnerability -- A subtrope of Plot Armor. A character is invincible until the story decrees he or she must be defeated.

***** Played straight with Medb's, Team Girl's, or Sir Differel's adversaries, but justified in that I make sure there are legitimate reasons for delaying the final defeat.

Someday This Will Come In Handy -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin: some skill or knowledge that seems useless suddenly becomes vital to solve a problem.

***** This is the entire basis of Sir Differel's training and education, and to a lessor extent Team Girl's by Medb.

Spear Carrier -- Minor characters playing bit parts with a few lines.

***** My stories have lots of these, but also an important secondary character can have a "cameo" appearance in one story even as he or she plays a much more important role in others.

That Satisfying Crunch -- The joy one receives from destroying inanimate objects.

***** When she was pregnant, Differel once got so upset that she reduced a whole room full of furniture to kindling with Caliburn.

Three Act Structure -- This is almost an Omnipresent Trope in that it is perhaps the most common structure used for stories. Act 1 is the setup, which introduces the characters and initiates the action. Act 2 is the confrontation, during which the protagonist encounters obstacles and trials as the tension rises. Act 3 is the resolution, when the protagonist faces off against the antagonist in the climax, and the tension tapers off with the denouement.

***** To be perfectly honest, I never had this structure in mind when I crafted my stories. However, it does lie under the surface, in that I have a setup at the beginning, I build the tension to the climax, and then I end with a denouement. I simply leave the structure loose and flexible so as to meets the needs of the plot and narrative.

Time Marches On / Technology Marches On / Long Runner Tech Marches On / Zeerust -- A group of related tropes that are based on the same concept: some stories don't age well. Time Marches On is the supertrope; stories can only be read after they have been written, and as they get older the changes in Real Life can make them less relevant, less plausible, even less comprehensible. This is especially true of Technology. A curious side effect of this is when, in a series that runs for years, the stories all take place in roughly the same year in-story, but the technology is shown to progress with Real Life. For example, the series could start with the characters using rotary dial telephones and end with them using cell phones, even though only a year has passed in-story. Finally, Zeerust occurs when an idea that was considered futuristic when it was first proposed becomes dated or obsolete when the Real Life future finally arrives.

***** For the time being my stories are as yet too recent to be affected by these tropes, but in time who knows. However, being cognizant of these tropes, I make every effort to make sure the tech at least is appropriate for the time the story takes place, hence portable tapes players in the late 80s/early 90s instead of CD players, while allowing for "futuristic" tech that is used in secret. Zeerust, however, is a real danger, both with stories that are set in what is for me the future and with the inventions of Dr. Mabuse.

Trilogy -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin.

***** Aside from the Three Act Structure, I do tend to group related stories into sets of threes, and I have planned a trilogy of three novels for when Differel first enters the Dreamlands.

Trouble Follows You Home -- The protagonist has either defeated the antagonist or given up, and seeks refuge in a place of comfort and safety, but the forces of the antagonist follow and make life miserable for her.

***** In the unpublished novel that will narrate how Eile and Sunny first meet and become partners, Sunny escapes an attempt to kidnap her and heads for Denver to find Eile, hoping to find refuge and protection. However, the kidnapers manage to follow her and try again, several times.

Unreliable Narrator -- A subversion of Fiction Never Lies; in this case the reader cannot be sure whether anything the narrator says is true.

***** This premise underlies a few of my stories, but it is most obvious in "Redshirt". The narrator wasn't a witness to the events, and he got his details from someone committed to an insane asylum! Only the Willing Suspension of Disbelief allows the reader to accept that the events described actually happened. However, in a fundamental sense, any third-person limited narrator is unreliable, because we witness the story filtered through her subjective perception.

The Villain / Villain Antagonist -- All stories have antagonists, but not all stories have Villains, and of those that do not all Villains are the antagonists (though in fact most are).

***** A number of Medb's, Team Girl's, and Sir Differel's antagonists are true villains, and they encounter a few villains that do not turn into antagonists.

Wrong Turn At Albuquerque -- A character gets lost because she either took a wrong turn or missed a right turn, and ends up in an adventure as a result.

***** This happens to Eile and Sunny A LOT!

Next week I will discuss the Laws and Rules Tropes.

Dreamlands Bestiary: Serpent People

Serpent People are a Waking World race that is able to enter the Dreamlands through gates. They literally look like serpents with arms and legs. However, their origin during the Permian Period precludes their being directly related to actual snakes, and the close resemblance is put down to convergent evolution.

During the Permian, they acquired intelligence, skill of tool-use, and technology, eventually achieving scientific advancements that would seem fantastic to us. They also became masters of magic through a study of metaphysics and related subjects. One of their greatest achievements was the development of a form of immortality; another was their ability to mesmerize other creatures so as to pass unseen or be seen as a member of that creature's species. Little else of their technology is known, beyond bits and pieces that survive into modern times, but they are known or suspected to have failed to make other great achievements. For example, there is no evidence they ever achieved spaceflight, or even airflight.

Their civilization spanned the super-continent of Pangaea, but the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event, known as "The Great Dying", devastated their civilization. Most survivors retreated underground, where they degenerated over the ten million years it took the Earth to recover. Others put themselves into deep hibernation, while the immortals eked out a living as best as they could. The rise of the dinosaurs, and subsequent extinction events at the end of the Triassic and the Cretaceous prevented them from re-establishing their civilization, but they did manage a minor resurgence during the Pleistocene. However, the coming of modern humans proved to be their final downfall. Though a few made attempts to conquer early human civilizations, they were never a serious threat.

In the modern age, most Serpent People survive as "The Worms of the Earth", a barely intelligent, degenerate form that have lost all semblance of civilization and are barely controllable even by their more advanced kind. The few that remain highly evolved and technologically intelligent are either the hibernators or the immortals. The hibernators come from a time before mankind, and when they awaken they are the most likely to try to usurp humanity and reclaim their place as masters of the world, either by enslaving humans or exterminating them.

The immortals are also from the time before man; the majority come from the Permian itself. However, they have lived among men too long and have seen their own race degenerate too far to believe they can ever rebuild their civilization as it was. Instead they live among men in disguise, and try to rule over them as priests, kings, or presidents, or they hide from men altogether. A few, however, live as men, as criminal overlords, captains of industry, or reclusive millionaires.

Serpent People cannot Dream, but some have discovered how to go to the Dreamlands using gates. These are either immortals or awakened hibernators who refrain from trying to usurp mankind. Both find the Waking World intolerable for one reason or another, and so retreat to the Dreamlands for refuge. Once there they make lives for themselves, either as recluses or living as humans while disguised. They are handicapped by the general technological limitation of the Dreamworld like everyone else, so most concentrate on magic, or at best alchemy, though a few pass themselves off as artificers. They are too few in number to be a threat, and in fact none of them have tried to cause trouble, though one or another might act as the power behind a local throne. Most simply want to be left alone, but few operate openly in their true form for fear of prejudice.

Synopsis: Trapped in the Mummy's Tomb (a Sir Differel adventure)

Featuring the return of the Princess in Orange.

Differel is returning to her bedroom suite after a rather grueling day; Aelfraed is with her, going over a few last details. She tells him to reschedule everything else for first thing tomorrow morning; she wants the rest of the evening free. He asks her what she intends to do. She tells him she wants to take a long, hot bath before going to bed. What she doesn’t tell him is she intends to masturbate. He wishes her a pleasant evening and leaves her alone.

She turns on her entertainment system and plays some slow, romantic music. She gets undressed, fills her tub with bubblebath, lights candles and incense, and steps in. When the water covers her she leans back and conjures up a fantasy involving Victor as a desert sheik carrying her off to his desert stronghold to ravish her. When she feels ready she wets a washcloth and begins rubbing herself. As she climaxes she becomes aware of someone else having an orgasm, then realizes that someone is in her bathroom. Snapping her eyes open she finds the PiO opposite her, also masturbating. She also discovers that they are together in a spacious sunken tub in an open terraced bathroom that resembles a Moorish pillared chamber. When she demands to know what’s going on, the PiO shows that she had been using a carpenter’s rasp with large teeth to stimulate herself. But she sets its aside and calls for refreshments. Naked beefcake men enter with platters of sweetmeats and coffee, and serve them both.

The PiO explains that she has finished her reevaluation and has come to a decision. She offers Differel a deal: she will suspend attempts to kill her if Differel agrees to allow her to play with her. She enjoyed the last three games they played, and she would like to continue it, but she wants Differel cooperation. Otherwise she’s prepared to kill her here and now, though in a manner both of them should find very exciting. Having no choice, Differel agrees, hoping circumstances will allow her to turn the tables on her later.

The PiO then admits that she was feeling bored, and wants to begin a game now. She asks her to describe the game. The PiO states that she overheard what she told Aelfraed, and that she knows what she really had in mind. So she decided to spice up her plans. As usual, the point of the game will be to see if she can bring herself to perform some kind of task she never would on her own because she would object to it. To win the game she must perform that task, though she assures her that overall the game will be a more pleasant experience than the last two times. However, she gets no clues; she has to figure out what she needs to do on her own. There’s also no time limit; she can take as long as she wants and thoroughly enjoy herself, and she need not worry about getting pregnant (winks), since as she said a previous time, the last thing she wants to see is her knocked up.

Differel asks about the setting. The PiO explains that she has entered a universe where she serves an Arabian Nights style potentate as grand vizier. She has a palatial estate and a harem, all at her disposal. She then says she hopes she enjoys herself, and disappears.

A chief eunuch approaches, bows, and informs her that her newest acquisition arrived that day and is being prepared for her enjoyment that night. He then leaves to see to her dinner. The men step into the tub and bathe her, rubbing their bodies against hers, fondling her, and giving her multiple happy endings, then give her a massage, during which they caress her with their penises as one gives cunnilingus. They give her a sumptuous feast which they feed her like she was a child. Finally they anoint her with oil and perfume and escort her to her bedroom to await her lover for the night. She sits in the bed and realizes that, while part of her considers everything so far as immoral, she finds that she actually did enjoy herself, and that she is getting excited as she anticipates the arrival of her bedmate.

The chief eunuch arrives and announces that her lover is ready. She lays down and closes her eyes. She feels him get into bed and lay on top of her, then tickle her face with a flower. She grins and chuckles, and opens her eyes.

And stares into the face of her son, Henry.

Shrieking, she throws him off and leaps out bed, and screams for the PiO. She appears with a towel around her head and covered in soap bubbles as if she just stepped out of the bath. She demands to know what’s wrong. Differel indicates that her new harem acquisition is her own son. The PiO tells her that’s the point; to win the game she must have sex with her own son. Differel calls her depraved, and the PiO leers and turns into an orange anthropomorphic shape with flaming hair, skin, and eyes. She says it took her long enough to figure that out; that is exactly what she is, in addition to being insane. Differel realizes that in her rage she forgot just how dangerous the PiO really is.

Nonetheless she will not corrupt her soul to save her life. She states that she will never sleep with her son. The PiO says she has no choice: she must play the game to the end, and she and Henry will remain in this universe until she does. If she continues to resist, she will restart the game as often as needed to get her to cooperate, even setting up an endless loop. However, if she gets bored she will terminate the game. When Differel expresses a desire for that, the PiO states that if she does, everything in it, including her and Henry, will cease to exist.

Differel pleads for mercy, begging her to create a new game that does not involve her son. The PiO states that she isn’t giving her an incentive. Differel realizes what she means. She gets down on her knees and swears before Almighty God that she will do anything the PiO wants, as long as she lets her son go. The PiO asks anything? Differel bows her head, closes her eyes, and says yes. She fully expects that to be her last act as a free person.

She feels nothing, but the PiO states okay, Gate, let’s negotiate. She opens her eyes and finds herself in some kind of room, but everything is so blurry she can barely recognize anything. Only the PiO is in sharp focus. She asks where they’re at. The PiO explains that they are in a sitting room in her quarters in the palace in Carcosa, but if she saw what it really looked like she would go insane, so she “translated” it into something her mind could understand. Even so, it would still be too stark and realistic for her to tolerate, so she applied a Gaussian blur. Differel tells her to get it over with, but when the PiO expresses genuine confusion she asks if she intends to make her her lady in waiting. The PiO laughs and reminds her that she gave up all claim to her; besides, she finds her so much more fun as a free agent. She won’t say she isn’t tempted; she has a luscious butt she would just love to ravage, but she’s a girl of her word; besides, she’d much rather have Differel give herself to her freely.

Differel asks why she’s here, and the PiO states that she has accepted her offer. Henry has been returned, safe and sound, with no recollection of what happened. However, she wants to establish some ground rules, to insure Differel’s future cooperation. They sit and the PiO conjures up tea. Differel asks for a robe at least, but the PiO states that presently she exists in a state between pure physicality and pure spirit. Her nudity is in her own mind.

The PiO states that these are the rules she will insist upon:

1. She can come and go as she pleases, and start any game she wants without permission or warning. This is non-negotiable. Differel agrees, provided if she wins everything is restored to the way it was. The PiO agrees to that.

2. Once the game begins, Differel must play it to the end, regardless of the circumstances, and if she refuses the PiO has the right to terminate the game, and Differel with it. This is also non-negotiable. Differel agrees, but conditional on what the other rules will be like.

3. If the PiO believes that Differel is going off in the wrong direction, or is trying to sabotage the game, she can restart it as often as she wants, with the option of terminating it. This is also non-negotiable. Differel agrees.

4. Each game will have a specific goal, something Differel must do or achieve to win, otherwise the game will go indefinitely, with the PiO having the option to terminate it. This is also non-negotiable. Differel conditionally agrees again.

5. In recognition of the fact that Differel’s refusal to perform the winning act has brought them to a stalemate, she is willing to grant certain wavers that will allow Differel to establish acts that are off limits. She will allow two. Differel wants six. After dickering and bickering, they split the difference and agree to four, provided Differel chooses them now. Differel selects incest; sex with any child below the age of 17; torture, sexual or otherwise; and consumption of bodily fluids and excrement, even by accident (which rules out any form of oral sex). The PiO agrees, but reminds her that anything else, such as necrophilia or bestiality, is permissible. Differel states she understands, and agrees to rule 4 unconditionally.

6. Differel requires that she have a sporting chance to achieve success; no games that are death traps, no impossible goals, no insurmountable obstacles. She accepts that the game must be challenging, with difficulties, risks, even danger, but she must have a reasonable chance to win. The PiO agrees.

7. Differel requires that none of her people or anyone she knows can be used as part of the games. The PiO counters that she must be allowed some additional free-will playing pieces and demands Team Girl, Billy, and one other to be chosen in the future. In exchange, she agrees not to use anyone else currently living in support roles. Differel agrees.

8. Differel asks that she be allowed to opt out of certain games. The PiO refuses. Differel knew it would be a long shot, but she persists. She states that as long as she has a chance to win, she can look upon these games as training exercises, of a type she would never expect to get. That’s why she’s willing to accept danger; there must be a credible chance that she might fail, or they would have no training value. As such, she would expect the PiO to create the most imaginative and challenging games she can think of. She might even come to enjoy the games, seeing them as a diversion much like the Dreamlands. But, she must protect herself. Until Henry can officially take over the Caerleon Order, she must be able to protect and train him. She cannot allow anything to jeopardize that.

The PiO mulls her request over as she sips tea. Finally she states that Momsy and Dadsy want her dead. She volunteered to do it, because the same purpose could be met by claiming her as a plaything, but after she managed to evade that fate, and after she did so well in the orgy game, she realized that it would be much more fun to torture her. Hence the continuation of the games, but they must be careful. She might be able to convince her parents that these games are meant to off her in some spectacular fashion, but if they come to suspect that they are really meant to fool them, they could take unilateral action, against both of them. That’s especially true if she allows Differel to drop out of a game to save herself. Differel assures her she would do so only under the most dire of circumstances. The PiO agrees to give three opt-outs, but on the condition that whatever would happen as a result continues to happen. Both are non-negotiable. Differel doesn’t quite understand that last condition, but she accepts without hesitation.

The negotiations finished, the PiO spits in her hand and offers it. Differel does the same and they shake. The PiO grins, and states that with the rules mutually agreed to, the show must go on....

...and Differel finds herself sitting at a café table outside a coffeeshop. She appears to be in a Middle Eastern town. A newspaper lies on the table beside her cup and plate of mince pie, and the date reads 1912. Looking down at herself, her style of dress would seem to confirm that.

The PiO emerges from the right breast pocket and waves, then ducks down again. Reaching in, Differel discovers a pocket watch. Opening the case, she finds that the inside cover bears an engraving of the PiO, which animates and speaks to her. She explains that she had thought of this game as they were negotiating. To begin with, if she needs to talk with her, all she has to do is open the watch and speak her request. Now, to the details:

“You are Dame Differel Van Helsing, daughter of Sir Henry Van Helsing, who died just recently. He had been funding half a dozen excavations in Egypt, and you have come to review them to see if you should continue the funding. You’ve already closed down four digs while leaving one open. There’s now just one left. You’re in the village of Abu Dayr Muluk to meet with the archaeologist in charge, to discuss his progress and arrange for a tour of the dig. Speak of the devil...”

As the engraving goes silent, a man approaches her table. Looking up, she sees her dead husband, Victor Plunkett. He asks to join her. She notes that while the other tables are occupied, there are numerous other free seats, but he states he’s interested in a familiar face, by which she assumes he means European. She invites him to join her, and they introduce each other; his name really is Victor Plunkett. She explains why she’s in Egypt, but he’s purposely vague, letting her think he’s a tourist looking for artifacts to take home. They have a pleasant luncheon and he offers to take her on a tour of the village, to which she agrees. It sits on the Nile, so it has a thriving bazaar, but there are also antiquities dealers. At one point, however, she manages to go off by herself and she asks the PiO about him. She states that he is the archaeologist she will be passing judgment on, which she already suspected. She also tells her that he has had a lackluster career. He excavated a few minor tombs in his youth, but he also had a couple of tombs pirated that went on to yield major finds. He is desperate to make a name for himself, and it has made him reckless. Before she can say more, Victor returns and she closes the watch.

They have an early dinner, and he escorts her back to where she is staying, but she invites him up. They kiss and it isn’t long before they are in bed together. She figures he expects her to be passive; instead, she acts aggressive and becomes the dominant partner. Using her experience, she holds him in check until she is ready, then they climax together.

Afterwards he compliments her on the best sex he’s ever had and asks where she learned her technique. She replies that he would be surprised by what they teach at a lady’s finishing school nowadays. He reiterates that she’s the best partner he’s ever had. She in turn says he’s a liar. Their meeting had not been chance. He knew who she was and why she was there before he even approached her. He tries to bluff her, but when she tells him something of his history he realizes he’s been found out. He asks why she allowed him to seduce her. She asks how he knows she wasn’t seducing him. They both laugh, then kiss, and she rolls over so he’s on top of her. She wraps her legs and arms around him and asks him to show her his since she showed him hers.

She awakens midmorning and finds herself alone. However, she finds a note from Victor asking her to meet him at the café where they had lunch. She bathes and dresses, and finds him at their original table. After ordering food he admits that he hoped that if he seduced her, she would be willing to continue to fund his dig. He offers to give her a tour and show her what he’s discovered so far. First, she wants to know why he’s digging here. He doesn’t want to discuss it in the open, where others can hear but promises to explain everything at the dig. She finds his reticence strange, but agrees to his condition. After lunch she packs her bags while he retrieves a car, and then he drives her west into the desert.

Once they get clear of the village, Victor reveals that he believes he found the tomb of Huni, the last pharaoh of the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Furthermore, he believes Huni and the legendary Nephren-Ka, The Black Pharaoh, are one and the same. They debate the issue, but when they arrive at his dig, he shows her his initial finds. Two canopic jars bear inscriptions of Huni’s many names, with Nephren-Ka and the cartouche for the Black Pharaoh included. Differel is not convinced; however, she realizes she cannot afford to take the chance that Victor hasn’t found the BP. So she agrees to fund his dig for another month to see if he can find the entrance to the tomb. He in turn introduces her to his native foreman, Kamenwati.

During the next week, Differel has her own tent, but she sleeps with Victor. She helps with the dig by cataloguing everything found, despite the fact that Victor would discard most of it. She even introduces the idea of sifting each bucket of sand. She figures he indulges her to keep her out of his hair, but she is enjoying herself. Her secret desire had always been to participate in a classic era Egyptian dig, except she was born too late. That was why she had funded and overseen the Hob’s Lane and Thetford excavations, as a way to fulfill her desire as closely as possible. By the end of the week, they uncover three steps leading down into the earth. They break off for the day to celebrate, and prepare for the excavation in the morning. However, in the night bandits capture the camp. They threaten to kill Victor and sell Differel into slavery, but she confronts the leader, named Muawiyah, offering herself to him if he will let Victor go. He accepts her offer and she lets him rape her, but in the night they are joined by a second man who takes her anally, and she recognizes him as Victor.

In the morning the bandit leader leaves, but Victor stays. She realizes they’re in cahoots, and he confirms it. He’s had too many claims stolen from him, but no more. When he realized what he had, he made a deal with the bandits. They would pretend to capture him, force the laborers to open the tomb, and then pillage it, but take only one item out of ten, though he suspects they will take the choicer items. In the meantime, they would guard his dig, giving him a chance to announce it to the world and thereby assure his claim. However, her arrival mucked it all up. They finally decided that they would pretend to take her away, but instead they would take her out into the desert and kill her. Then she had to go and be heroic, and that damned Arab had to accept. So he offers her a deal, though he warns her she has only two choices. She can cooperate with them, in exchange for a 10% cut of any artifacts, which could make her rich. The alternative is being taken out into the desert and shot.

She asks for five minutes to think it over. He states he would prefer an immediate answer, but for what passed between them he will give her some consideration. Once he leaves she finds the pocket watch and opens it. The PiO confirms that she would consider Differel making the second choice as trying to sabotage the game, and would start it over again, but she adds that she would wipe her memory as well, to keep her from using the “death option” to her advantage. Differel knows that the PiO would never reveal anything of the future of the game, or give advice on the best course of action, being as that would spoil the surprise and prevent her from acting spontaneously, but she wants to know one thing: has Victor’s desperation reached the point where he would sacrifice anything to achieve his goal, or does he have a modicum of decency left? The PiO answers both, but adds that if Differel plays her hand right, she can turn an enemy into an ally.

Differel gets dressed and goes outside. She tells Victor that she will cooperate, but on one condition: she wants to share in the glory of the discovery. He agrees. She asks him what last night was about. He states that he’s wanted to do that ever since they first met, but was afraid she would refuse in disgust. She tells him she will be sleeping alone from now on, and if he tries to touch her she will kill him. She sees fear in his face and understands that he believes her.

After another week, they uncover the sealed entrance after descending some 18 feet. The seal appears to have been broken and replaced at least twice, if not more. The door is made of plaster, so Victor is able to bore a hole through it, and test the air with a candle to indicate it’s safe. The workmen break through to reveal a corridor sloping down another 22 feet. A trio of bandits with their leader push past Differel and Victor, but when they get halfway they fall through a plaster false floor. The leader manages to grab the edge, and Differel throws herself down to grab his wrists. Victor helps her pull him out, and when they look down they see the three men, plus the dried carcasses of a dozen more, some 30 feet down, impaled on spikes. Victor instructs the foreman to have the laborers construct a wooden cover, but it will take a day. Differel, Victor, and the bandit leader edge along the wall past the pit with the foreman and a couple of workers. Those three go on ahead, probing the floor for more pits, but find none. They reach a second door, also made of plaster, but when one of the workers bores a hole, he and his companion are sprayed with salt acid. He succumbs immediately; his badly burned companion turns and runs, and falls into the pit; the foreman retreats as fumes fill the lower corridor, forcing everyone else to retreat as well. It will take a day for the fumes to dissipate.

While they wait for the cover to be made, Differel collects and examines debris from the upper corridor. They are mostly wood chips and fragments of enamel and such, suggesting that the corridor had once been filled with artifacts. Victor believes that in the two previous break-ins the thieves removed the items before falling for the traps, and that the people who resealed the tomb simply left the corridor empty, but she is suspicious: the debris looks too clean, as if manufactured to resemble debris. Victor offers advances but she rebuffs him. She eats alone in her tent, but later goes outside o have a smoke. The bandit leader approaches her and thanks her for saving his life. He owes her a debt, and in repayment he pledges in the name of Allah to protect her during the rest of the excavation; he apologies for taking her against her will; and he offers restitution. She in turn thanks him for his pledge and apology, and says she’ll think about a proper restitution, but she informs him that she volunteered to sleep with him, and she did not find it onerous. He salutes her, which she returns, and he departs. She wonders if he is meant to be the ally the PiO spoke of.

The next day the foreman declares the corridor free of acid and the workmen put the cover in place. Using a revolver, Victor shoots at the door, but no more acid escapes. The workmen open it, revealing a rectangular chamber 10 by 25 feet, which contains chests and furniture. Though of great scientific value, they have little monetary worth. However, Victor is certain that the burial chamber and the treasure vault lie behind hidden doors. An examination of the walls reveals another plaster door, but when removed it leads only to a smaller chamber containing the remains of embalming supplies. Victor is confused; a tomb with no body, but he is convinced it must be the tomb of Nephren-Ka. The bandits are angry that there is no gold, and Differel is concerned they may mutiny, but the leader assures her again that he will protect her. Even so, she doubts his sincerity, or his ability if the situation blows up.

While Victor pours over his notes and sources, trying to figure out where the treasure chamber might be, Differel inspects the traps. While she suspects the PiO could have fabricated them for the sake of drama and sheer excitement, she is nonetheless curious to see how they worked. Examination of the frame of the second doorway showes that above it is a plaster chamber that had served as a reservoir feeding into tiny tubes that descended into the door. When the door was breached, the tubes were exposed and the weight of the liquid in the reservoir forced the acid out of the tubes under high enough pressure to create a spray.

The pit seemes simple enough, until she realizes a plaster cover could not be poured in place without some kind of support. Muawiyah lowers her on a rope, and she discovers the remains of an ivory frame, and sees pieces of thin wood on the floor below. She cannot touch bottom because of the spikes, but she notices they appear to be driven into the rock to anchor them. And yet, it dawns on her that as closely spaced as they are, there wouldn’t be enough room to work once four-fifths of the floor had been covered, but there are no gaps. She tests one of the spikes and discovers that it is loose in its hole. The implication hits her like a physical blow. She has Muawiyah haul her up and she makes for the sarcophagus. Victor hadn’t checked the floors, but she figured the best place for a secret entrance into deeper chambers would be under the sarcophagus. With Muawiyah's help she finds a catch and the sarcophagus and its pedestal easily slide aside, revealing a 4-foor square shaft leading straight down.

They go tell Victor, and after he verifies what they found he orders Kamenwati to rig a frame so that they can descend. As that is being done, they assemble their equipment; Differel borrows a pistol and sword from the bandits. Muawiyah drops a torch, and it falls a long time before it stops. He estimates the depth is 100 yards. Once the frame is ready, they rig a block and tackle so that someone sitting in a rope harness can lower themselves down. Differel volunteers to go first, and Muawiyah sends nine of his bandits ahead on separate ropes. About 60 feet down she sees a shaft running sideways. She pauses long enough to crawl up its length into a chamber, and finds the spikes of the pit trap set into the floor and penetrating up through the ceiling. About 100 feet down, one of the bandits snags a tripwire. Above him, arrows shoot out of the walls and strike three others. Two fall and hit the first man, and they drop to the bottom. About 175 feet down, the wounded bandit snags another tripwire and above him a grate with sharpened stakes closes, impaling two others. The four remaining bandits break through, being as it is made of wood, and continue on. At 235 feet down the wounded bandit encounters another tripwire. It pulls taut before he can stop himself, but he shouts a warning and the three above him stop in time to avoid having sand poured down on them, but the wounded bandit is caught and knocked down to the bottom, and buried. Differel calls a halt, and passes them. As she descends she uses her lantern to spot the sheen on the wires. At 275 feet she spots another wire. She ties some string to it and pulls herself up about 10 feet, then pulls the string. Khopesh swords lash out just below her; she jerks her legs up in time to prevent her feet from being cut off.

Differel makes it down the rest of the way with no incidents, and whistles. The three remaining bandits join her and the rope and harness are drawn up. She lights a second lantern to provide light for the others, then scans the area. They appear to be in a small receiving chamber, but a corridor leads off in one direction. She takes the lead, looking for tripwires, as the bandits follow, but she doesn’t see any, and finally they reach what appears to be the end. She depresses a spot in the floor and a huge block drops from the ceiling. The lead bandit pushes her out of the way and he is crushed beneath it. It also blocks the tunnel.

Using the lantern she examines her surroundings. She is on a balcony that surrounds a large open area. A channel in the railing of the balustrade contains a pitch-like substance. She lights it using the lantern, and a wave of flame runs around the perimeter, lighting bonfires set at regular intervals. The light from these fires reveals that the balcony itself is two stories tall and the open area is as large as a gymnasium. Finally two fires light up in the area, revealing that it drops two stories below the balcony and has a ceiling that rises another three stories above the balcony. At what would have been the far focal point had the chamber been an ellipse, sits a stone sarcophagus, while a stone block, like a kind of altar, sits at the near focal point. Four colossal statues stand at each corner, rising a full story above the floor of the balcony. However, there doesn’t appear to be any way down.

She turns her attention back to the blocked tunnel. She assumes that since the PiO hasn’t restarted the game everything must be going according to “plan”, but she can’t be sure if she is meant to go on alone at this point or raise the block somehow. She examines the walls around the tunnel opening, and notices a curious hieroglyph looking like a huge eye. Though she recognizes it, it seems overly prominent. Acting on a hunch, she pushes on the large pupil, which depresses into a socket. She hears a hissing sound and sees the block slowly descend; she figures it is resting on a bed of sand that is draining away. When the top reaches eye level she sees that Victor is on the other side. The expression on his face looks genuinely worried. He asks her if she is all right, and she states yes. When it drops low enough he clambers over. She shows him the sarcophagus, and while there is no treasure visible, he nonetheless gets so excited he hugs her. When he realizes she had ordered him not to touch her he tries to pull away, but she pulls him close and kisses him.

The bandits rig a better system for descending the main access shaft, and begin lowering supplies and equipment to open the sarcophagus, while Differel and Victor search for a way down to the floor below, but cannot find one. Meanwhile, the four statues intrigue them: they depict Set, Sobek, and Sekhmet, the so-called triumvirate of evil, and a pharaoh, whom Victor believes is Nephren-Ka. However, Differel privately believes all four statues depict the same being: Nyarlathotep, in the guises of four of his avatars, the human being the Black Pharaoh. Victor is skeptical; as an academic, he rejects the so-called mythology of the elder beings as a fraud, and chides her for an overly simplistic representation of the deities, since they all had heroic as well as diabolical aspects, and did not become demonized until after 1000 BC. She states that he is over complicating the issue, being as he depends upon accepted records; that many Egyptian deities later depicted as good began as evil in the dim past and were co-opted by the Old Kingdom to weaken their ancient cults, and even those who were believed to oppose the evil gods were themselves not good in that they despised humanity as much as their enemies did.

During their argument they are joined by Muawiyah, who suggests they use one of the statues to make the descent. The three of them secure themselves with ropes held by the bandits, and as Differel goes first they climb down the pharaoh statue, being as it is closest to the entrance. Once they reach the bottom, the fan out. They discover two three things right off:

there are ten open entries in three walls that lead deeper into the complex, which Victor now believes is a funerary temple;

along the back wall behind the altar, hidden in shadow, are three piles of mummified bodies, sacrificed on the altar and then laid aside;

and behind the bodies is a sealed crawl space that leads into a secret chamber: the treasure vault.

With these discoveries, and with all their supplies and equipment brought down, they call it a day and travel back up. That night Differel, Victor, Muawiyah, and Kamenwati celebrate with a feast with champagne. Victor and Muawiyah argue over when to divide up the treasure, but Kamenwati persuades him to wait until after the sarcophagus is opened. He and his men may only be interested in the gold, but if Victor can prove that he really found the tomb of Nephren-Ka their artifacts will become even more valuable intact. Differel recounts the legend of Nephren-Ka, especially how he sacrificed a hundred of his followers to Nyarlathotep, supposedly for the power of prophecy. Afterwards, Differel agrees to sleep with Victor; she even allows him to penetrate her from behind.

The next morning they rig a block and tackle above the sarcophagus and remove the lid. Inside they find what appears to be a coffin of gold, but the weight of the lid suggests it is gilded wood; seven men can lift and remove it without the need for the tackle. The inscriptions on the lid match those on the canopic jars, including cartouches for Huni, Nephren-Ka, and the Black Pharaoh. Inside they find the mummy, except that the limbs are loose instead of enshrouded against the body. The head and upper chest are covered by a golden mask inlayed with lapis lazuli, carnelian, quartz, obsidian, turquoise, glass, and faience. They lift it off the body and the face appears normal, despite the weight pressing on it for several thousand years.

Before they can do anything else, the mummies in the back of the chamber reanimate and attack. The bandits fight back, but the mummies are impervious to bullet or sword and overwhelm them. The workers are trapped and caught. Muawiyah runs off with a couple of others, much to Differel’s disappointment and disgust. Victor stays by her side, but they are soon surrounded. Kamenwati reveals himself to be a traitor; in fact, a priest of Nephren-Ka. He had orchestrated everything so as to free his master from his deathless sleep, and to provide him with a bride. Differel and Victor watch helplessly as Kamenwati cuts the throats of five bandits, spilling their blood into the coffin. As he intones a chant, the mummy rises and stands upright in the sarcophagus. Differel and Victor are dragged before the mummy and forced to kneel. It examines them and speaks in some unknown tongue. Kamenwati states that his master approves of them. They are dragged before the altar, where one mummy pours a liquid into a bowl held by another mummy. Kamenwati takes the bowl and approaches Victor as the mummies holding him push him forward. His head is bent down over the bowl, but not low enough to drink it; Differel realizes he is being forced to breath the vapors. He tries to hold his breath, but finally he gasps and inhales. He moans; the mummies let him go and he straightens up, but he makes no attempt to flee, and his face displays a blank, thousand-yard stare. She is also forced to breath the vapors. Within moments, she loses her will to resist, her vision distorts as if dizzy, and she sees everything as if she were back in ancient Egypt. The mummies look human once more, the chamber is brightly lit and colored, and everyone is dressed in Egyptian costumes.

Women guide her and Victor into one of the side entries, which leads into a small antechamber. There they are stripped naked, their heads shaved, they are bathed and anointed with fragrant oils, and finally golden ornaments are placed on their arms, wrists, and ankles, and around their necks. A nemes headdress is fitted on Victor’s head while a wig decorated with gold is placed on hers. All the while she can hear screams. They are escorted back into the chamber, and she sees Kamenwati sacrificing the last of the workers and bandits while Nephren-Ka stands to one side and acts as if he is in ecstasy. When the last man is dispatched, he approaches Victor. He stares into his eyes, and what looks like a bluish-silver mist flows from his face into Victor’s. Victor then turns and approaches Differel, his penis erect, and she opens her arms to embrace him.

A shot rings out and Kamenwati falls dead. Instantly everything snaps back to normal and she regains her will. The mummy of Nephren-Ka lies as a heap of dust and fragments of bone and linen, while Victor’s eyes glow and his face is twisted into a leer of wicked glee. She strikes at him then evades him. The mummies close in to catch her, but she gets past them and runs into an opening that leads into a corridor. She hears the mummies pursuing, and she leads them on a merry chase through the labyrinthine temple. Her thought is to try to evade and escape back to the surface tomb, so as to find a way to seal it and prevent Nephren-Ka from escaping. However, she can’t find her way and becomes lost. At one point she stumbles into a tiny chamber that seems to be a shrine dedicated to Isis. That puzzles her, but she finds two things that might be of use. One is a silver ankh, the symbol of life, which she slips under one of her gold bracers for luck; she figures she can use all she can get. The other is a khopesh sword, new and sharp. With that she goes on the offensive, lying in ambush and taking off mummy heads, which seems to destroy them. During one encounter, a mummy grabs the wrist of her sword arm, but its arm dissolves to dust. She realizes the ankh has actual mystical powers; it may even be powering the khopesh.

As she passes a side corridor, Muawiyah pulls her inside. He has been searching for her; he knows the way back to the surface. She tells him to go on without her and use the dynamite to collapse the tomb over the entrance to the temple. She will create a diversion to give him the time he’ll need. He argues with her, but finally she persuades him to do as she says, otherwise Victor could get out before he can succeed. He leaves her, and using the ankh to keep the mummies at a distance, she follows them back to the main chamber. Even Victor is wary of the ankh, but all she does is use it to reach the altar. She then places the khopesh on the ground and the ankh on top of it, and lies back on top of the altar, gripping the corners above her head while spreading her legs. Victor takes the bait and mounts her, penetrating her immediately. She resolves that if she gets the chance, she will use the khopesh and the ankh to destroy Victor and the spirit possessing him.

Victor thrusts into her for what seems like hours. She cannot help becoming aroused and having orgasms, but she also feels exhausted, and doesn’t know how much longer she can hold out. He has climaxed inside her several times already, but each time kept going to do so again. Then an explosion breaks through her malaise. At first she thinks it’s from the tomb above, but it sounds too loud and close. A second explosion startles her; she opens her eyes in time to see a third. Looking above her, she sees Muawiyah lighting and throwing sticks of dynamite. She pulls away from Victor and rolls off the altar, collecting the ankh and the khopesh. She dispatches mummies that try to grab her, then confronts Victor as he tries to grapple her. She slams the ankh against his chest; he screams and collapses to his knees, and the glowing light streams out of his face. She raises the khopesh, ready to strike, but when the light is gone he returns to his senses. He remembers everything, and together they flee as Muawiyah provides cover. Once on the balcony they run up the tunnel to the base of the shaft as mummies swarm up the four statues in pursuit. They grab the rope as Muawiyah cuts a restraining tie and they rocket up to the tomb as the counter weight falls. They roll the fake sarcophagus back over the opening, remove the pit cover, and make it to the surface.

Muawiyah connects a couple of wires to a blasting machine. When Victor demands to know what he’s doing, Differel explains they will destroy the tomb and collapse it on the temple, so it can never be found. Victor goes berserk, screaming that they won’t deprive him of his gory. He knocks Differel out of the way and attacks Muawiyah, threatening to plunge a knife into his throat. Differel tries to get him to stop, but he refuses to listen. Just before he kills Muawiyah she takes off his head with the khopesh. She then pushes the plunger on the machine. The dynamite goes up; the ground shakes and starts to collapse. She and Muawiyah run back to the camp, and when it’s finished all they can see is a sand and debris-filled depression.

They collapse on the ground in relief and exhaustion. She thanks him for keeping his promise and protecting her. He voices the regret that they could not have claimed any of the treasure. Though he speaks tongue in cheek, she reminds him that the camp still contains the artifacts found earlier; they should establish the authenticity of the find, meaning they will be famous. There’s also the ornaments she’s wearing, which she will gladly share with him. He asks her if she would honor him by being his wife. She replies the honor is all hers, but states he might want to wait to have the ceremony until her hair grows back, and she removes the wig. He smiles and removes his headdress: he’s bald. They both break up laughing, which ends with them kissing as he lays her back and covers her.

Differel startles awake and finds herself back in her own tub. At first she thinks it’s been a dream, until the PiO, buck naked, rises up out of the water between her thighs. She leans forward, gripping the edge of the tub, until they are practically nose to nose, and she can feel her nipples brush her upper chest. She congratulates her on a game well played, and as a reward she will answer any question Differel cares to ask, about anything. Literally anything. She asks if that was a real world or just a theatre created for the game. The PiO replies it started out as a theatre, but once she created it it took on a life of its own, and now exists as an independent universe, with its own destiny. Differel asks if “she” still exists there, and the PiO says yes. In fact, she and Muawiyah get married, settle in Cairo, and have four children. The first is a boy. Differel asks who the father is. The PiO states it might be Muawiyah, or Victor, or even Nephren-Ka, but that’s a mystery for another game. Meanwhile, she wants to know if she’s ready to let her ravish her, but she says no. The PiO replies, “Be seeing you,” and gives a salute with an OK sign before bursting into a mass of soap bubbles.