C.P.D. Harris's Blog, page 13
March 21, 2019
Serial Poll and Another Teaser
I’m enjoying the heck out of Civ 6. I’m still unsure of what to do for my next serial and if I should do it on Patreon. Much of my lack of decisiveness is due to lack of sleep (small kids) and being ~80,000 words into the next Domains Novel.
Speaking of which, here is a teaser for Bloodlust: War
“What’s that fog?” said one of the Legionnaires.
“Move, get out of the way,” bellowed a centurion.
“Its too fast!”
And then it was on them. The fog was now an ominous mustard colour, moving as if under its own power. The men around Vintia stopped moving convulsed, letting go of the Warbound. Vintia, still disoriented and with an arrow lodged in her head, felt her lungs burn as she inhaled. The gas. The Legionnaires. She needed to save them.
Channelling hurt. Vintia had drawn and held too much power for too long with the ice wall, reaching for more was like forcing an exhausted man to run. She managed enough for a gust of wind before the pain in her head drove her to her knees.
That cleared enough of the gas for her to see the Nosgoth Beastmasters riding their monstrous beasts thundering through the ravine in a mass, hurling right toward her. At their head was a smiling madman riding a wolf that could swallow her whole, nocking a familiar looking arrow into his bow.
“Fuck,” gasped one of the surviving Legionnaires, struggling to rise, blood dribbling from his mouth.
Willing herself to her feet and lifting her shield, Vintia really couldn’t disagree.
March 8, 2019
Captain Marvel Review and a Bloodlust: War Teaser
I’m posting this Friday instead of last night, because I went to watch Captain Marvel and then stayed up to talk about it with Viv.
The movie is already ‘controversial’ because of the usual internet trolls who seem to be mad that Brie Larson kicked over their sandcastle in fifth grade or the equivalent. It has a strong message about female empowerment, but the idea that it is overwhelming feminist or anti-male is about as silly as it sounds.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie. I liked it more than most Marvel movies but would not put it on the same pedestal as the amazing conflict and world-building of Black Panther or the deep delve into the nature of order and justice from Winter Soldier. I would put it on par with Thor: Ragnarok. Brie Larson is believable as Captain Marvel and carries the movie well in both action and dramatic scenes. The rest of the cast is quite good as well.
The action scenes are where the movie shines, as you would expect from a blockbuster. I was surprised at the variety, however with a nice mix of stunts, small scale martial arts, big CGI super-fights, and a heck of a lot of dog-fighting with jets and spaceships.\
The movie is heavy on 90’s nostalgia which you will either love or groan at if you lived through it (Full disclosure, I hated 90s culture for the most part) but could baffle you if you did not. Larson does a superb job with the annoying grunge attitude and there are some good laughs around 90s tech and references.
The messaging is very positive. As I said the movie is an empowerment flick with a female lead and it has decent positive messages about friendship and self-understanding. The best messaging for me, were the parts about overcoming gaslighting, which is kind of central to western society these days. I was pretty happy with the choice of tone, I’m tired of grim movies and books right now.
Overall, I think it worth seeing if you are even slightly curious about it or just like the Marvel movies. Given the challenges in making a movie about a character who is more powerful than entire teams of superheroes (see Superman), I think it is especially triumphant.
And, as an apology for not posting lat night, here is a teaser from Bloodlust: war, due out July 17th 2019.
The projectiles clattered against the Homeguard. Without shields their defence was imperfect, but with heavy armour and warding weapons held high, only a few of them went down under the lethal volley.
It was inhuman to stand there and do nothing in return, and yet that is what they did, and the bulk of the Deomen forces charged right toward an intact line. Silver Masks overtook the Gold Masks leading them, who were slowed down by their huge weapons. The plan was to kill them as quickly as possible, avoiding giving them time to gain power from their wounds.
And then they were upon them, howling bestial, all rage and wild power. Raw strength surged through Kingblade as he met the first silver masks with a sweep of his great blade, cutting a red arc into their ranks, sending limbs and broken bodies flying to the side. A gold mask surge through the ranks to meet him, already a head taller than the others, heaving a massive club up into an impossible overhand. Kingblade, much swifter, thrust his blade low and twisted into an uppercut slash, splitting the Gold Mask in half from groin to shoulder. The body warped rapidly as he cut through, growing monstrous, but even a Gold Mask could not live through such a stroke and the two growing halves crashed to the ground. The Silver Masks backed away from him.
February 21, 2019
Another Teaser :D
While I consider what I want to do next on the ol’ blog, here is a teaser from my next Domains novel, Bloodlust: War, due July 17th of this year.
“HOLD!” she bellowed, turning to Sassin. “Are they trying to drown us?”
Her fear was that the Deomen would use the same tactics that the Legions once used against them on the floodplains North of Kirif, sweeping her army away with a flash flood.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Sassin. “The water here does not flow quickly enough.”
“What if they have a powerful elementalist?”
“If they were that powerful, I doubt they would wait,” said Sassin. “They mean to even the odds and attack again, I think. We should reform or try to move to better ground.”
“Let them come,” snarled Sadira. “Their Gold Masks are dead. What else do they have?”
As if in response to Sadira challenge the Deomen stopped running, silently reforming their own lines. To Sadira’s surprise she saw a cadre of Gold Masks come forward, bearing powerful Runic weapons, already full grown.
“They had reserves,” said Sadira.
“We have a few surprises left ourselves,” said Sassin.
The Two forces regarded each other, the Deomen preternaturally quiet. Sadira could sense Sunmane, Ashen Rain, and Razorthorn readying offensive spells and felt the determination of the men at her back, where now up to their ankles in mud and water,
“HOLD!” she bellowed, hearing the command echoed up and down the line.
As she watched, the centre of the Deomen line parted, revealing an ominous figure clad in crude armour that blazed with incredibly powerful runes. The figure was something new, and yet she could not escape the sense of familiarity that she saw in his magic.
“Valaran?” the words came to her lips unbidden, but she knew it to be true as soon as she laid eyes on him.
“Welcome to your doom, Chosen Sadira,” said the armoured form.
As the armoured figure spoke a lithe woman with strange eyes, dressed in shining green scales slipped around him holding familiar looking glass globes in each hand.
“The Poison,” whispered Sadira, stepping in front of her uncle.
February 14, 2019
Happy Valentine’s Day Teaser
I took the day off today to spend some extra time with my wonderful SO, who supports me in everything I do. She is the best.
And so are my parents for watching Ronan, who has no conception of Romance or keeping dinner on his plate 
February 7, 2019
Rotblossom Rose (Links & Thoughts)
Here is the final collection of links to my rough draft, serial story of grim vengeance. It is brutal and harsh, but, I think, uplifting in the end.
The story follows Rose, nicknamed Rotblossom, because cruelty, as she seeks revenge for the deaths of her Son, Daughter, and Husband, watches over her last remaining kin, and makes her fortune in the harsh, but treasure-filled Depths under the city called The Scab.
Read on, if you wish, just be warned that is based on those crude 80’s revenge films where the family gets killed and raped, and is kinda bloody in places.
For those of you who have read it, you can find my thoughts, in brief far down below.
Some thoughts
I like the world, but I could have used more time for little details like the coilsword. this is evident to readers as I change the name for things partway through.
As much as I liked the world, I wonder if this would have made a better pirate story. Maybe I just want to write a pirate story.
The big reveal with The Spider and the clones and the Syndicate was somewhat according to plan, but I am not certain that it was clear to the reader.
I am happy with the end of the tale.
“give the depths their due” is a great line. I am also pleased with “undulating incongruity”
I wonder if these stories would do well on Patreon. Certainly, if they did it might be a good place to get some feedback.
All this is copyright CPDHarris, as always.
January 31, 2019
Rotblossom Rose (1.70R)
Welcome to the space where I experiment, my weekly serial. It is written raw, not edited at all, and mostly unplanned.
The world is partly based on the background of an unpublished Steampunk game that I worked on with a few friends, which has grown in my mind over the last couple of years. The story is a take on those ultra-violent revenge epics of the eighties where a man’s family is abused and killed, but he survives and seeks vengeance. Needless to say it is a grim, bloody tale, that deals with bad people doing bad things, so be warned.
Here is the first post of this series.
<>
Past and present collide as Stethrey, a boy of ten years steps forward to face his father’s killer just as Rose’s own son, Gared, had tried to protect his own family that day on the road to Avalain.
“I will kill you, villain!” snarls little Stethrey, brandishing a small rapier.
Where he found the sword, Rose can not say, but he holds it well and even though there are tears in his eyes as he advances toward her, there is steel in them as well. She can see his father in the set of his jaw and nimble footwork, but the look in his eyes reminds her of his grandfather.
“Heed you mother and walk away, boy,” she says coldly, pointing the tip of her coilsword at him. “My blade still thirsts.”
“Never!” he says, hesitating only briefly.
“Nooo!” screams Amelia, a wrenching sound that seems directed at reality itself as much as her son.
By now their drama has gone on long enough that it has even disturbed even the cynical denizens of the city called The Scab; Rose can here the sound of booted feet running behind her. She does not bother turning, it will be over before they can intervene.
“Come at me then, boy,” she says, taking up a stance that is familiar to them both, circling so she can see both sides of the bridge. “Give the depths their due.”
He obliges. Stethrey’s thrust is surprisingly good, even to Rose. It reminds her of another little boy, so long ago, trying in vain to save his family, somehow striking a true villain. She smiles behind her silver skull mask as the tip pierces her jerkin; her nephew’s eyes are wide as his blade pulls free, stained crimson. Rose plays her role well and she feels no pain as she falls back against the railing where the last name on her list was crossed off moments ago. Her body slumps over the cold stone barrier and then plunges into the waiting abyss. As the shadows take her, Rose closes her eyes, picturing the little boy returning to his crying mother, a hero now, relief washing over them both.
She does not scream on the way down and her body is lost to the depths.
<>
Later, Geb will be standing by the gate with Scarab. He will have heard of of all that has passed, but faith and loyalty will keep him waiting.
He will catch sight of a face in the crowd that is both familiar and yet strange to him, bereft of both the outward ruin and the brooding weight of vengeance. He will call out.
And if I told you then that it was Rotblossom Rose and that she came to him and they laughed and embraced, would you believe me then? Or would you just tell me that I was seeing what I wanted to see?
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Thank you for reading. Let me know what you think!
January 24, 2019
Rotblossom Rose (1.69R)
Welcome to the space where I experiment, my weekly serial. It is written raw, not edited at all, and mostly unplanned.
The world is partly based on the background of an unpublished Steampunk game that I worked on with a few friends, which has grown in my mind over the last couple of years. The story is a take on those ultra-violent revenge epics of the eighties where a man’s family is abused and killed, but he survives and seeks vengeance. Needless to say it is a grim, bloody tale, that deals with bad people doing bad things, so be warned.
Here is the first post of this series.
<>
Rose waits for Edwyrd on the little stone bridge that he always takes when returning from his expeditions into The Hive. One would think that after so many ambushes he would alter his habits, but then again in days he had always emerged victorious thanks to her unseen hand. If only she had known…
Was this part of her brother’s game? Was he some deviant genius on the order of Lawch, or even the Spider, letting her ‘save’ him as a kind of sick joke, all the while knowing that he was the source of her misery?
If that is true, he certainly does not care for Jillia or Stethrey, who are bound and gagged near the bridge, plucked from their beds at sword-point by the skull-masked villain whispered of in lower wards that theirs.
Rose times her arrival at the bridge to coincide with Edwyrd’s, scouting in carefully in case someone else decides to lurk. Satisfied, ignoring the pleading groans of pretty Jillia and young Stethrey, she takes place on the bridge and waits, hand on the hilt of her coilsword, ready to cross the final name off her list.
Edwyrd spots her immediately as he climbs into view. He’s drunk as usual after a night of gambling, but that is not her concern. His gait before he sees her indicates that he had a good night, long confident strides and ease with his own inebriation. When he stops, sighting her, that pleased confidence vanishes. People have heard of the woman in the silver skull mask, and here she is, barring his path, staring at him like death herself.
He hesitates and then walks forward. She knew he would do this; Edwyrd was always overconfident, never understood what a flaw that was in a duelist. She draws her blade, leaving him no illusions as to her intent. His flashes from the scabbard in answer; their father’s old sword.
When he is a few paces away from the end of the bridge, she steps to one side and lets him see the tangled bundle beside her. His frightened wife and their defiant child cry out as best they can with the gags in their mouths.
“Unhand them, Villain!” he shouts, not even slurring his words a little. “Whatever you want from me, they have no part in this.”
Rose keeps her sword leveled at the pair. Part of her simply wants to ram the blade into one of them and watch Edwyrd break and she visited red ruin upon them. Would he drop his sword in anguish or fly into a mad rage? How would he act in the same situation that he had put her in when he hired Lawch and his band twenty years ago.
“No, don’t,” he pleads as she considers, and it is the sound of the boy still in him, her brother that stays her sword for a moment. “I am a man of means, tell me what you want!”
“Revenge,” says Rose. “To cross the last name off a very old list.”
He licks his lip, talking a half step toward her, eyes bright in the dim light. At Rose’s feet, young Stethrey is struggling mightily, as young Gared had when Morn had been reduced to screaming and dying, on that day.
“What do you mean? How have I wronged you?”
“You signed my death warrant, Edwyrd.”
He looks at her, memory blossoming in him. His eyes dart to the coilsword and recognition washes over him.
“You can’t be her, she is dead,” he whispers.
“I have been to the depths and back, brother,” sneers Rose. “I’ve killed Lawch and all of his band, and now I have come for you. But first, I think I will kill your wife and your child so that you can know the despair I felt. I wonder little blade, if you could have cut off your own arm to escape the slave pits or survived the machinations of the spider.”
Rage burns through Rose, like wildfire on dry grass, and she raises her metal arm. Edwyrd stares at her aghast, his face pale like a dead man’s. She savors his tortured expression, knowing that, at last, she has him where she wants him.
And then, unceremoniously, Edwyrd drops his blade. The priceless weapon clatters to cobbles, thunderous in her ears.
“I was never a fighter like you, Rose. You’re right. I would never have made it past all of the trials that you have survived,” as he speaks he walks past the blade and onto the bridge, lingering near the thick stone railing, eyes darting for a moment to the abyss below. “I could never beat you in a duel, and as long as you were alive I was second best. I won’t watch them die. If you want to kill me, you will have to be fast.”
And he was up and over the railing, leaping into the dark below.
“No!” howls Rose, flashing toward him with desperate speed.
But as fast as she is, the depths are faster. She catches a brief glimpse of him as he is swallowed into the dark and that was it. She listens but does even hear him strike the side or scream on the way down.
“FATHER!”
“Stethrey, no!”
Rose, tearing her gaze from the spot where Edwyrd dissappeared, turns. And there is little Stethrey, sword in hand, advancing toward her, vengeance in his eyes.
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[One more to go, folks]
January 18, 2019
Rotblossom Rose (1.68R)
Welcome to the space where I experiment, my weekly serial. It is written raw, not edited at all, and mostly unplanned.
The world is partly based on the background of an unpublished Steampunk game that I worked on with a few friends, which has grown in my mind over the last couple of years. The story is a take on those ultra-violent revenge epics of the eighties where a man’s family is abused and killed, but he survives and seeks vengeance. Needless to say it is a grim, bloody tale, that deals with bad people doing bad things, so be warned.
Here is the first post of this series.
<>
“It was my brother Geb, it was Edword,” Rose is drunk on expensive wine, the stuff she used to drink in the Bedrock wards, at the house she shared with her fathers and brothers. She is not certain why she is even telling him, old faithful Geb, who has saved her life in the deeps a hundred times. The again, who else would she tell? Her life has been about subtraction, not addition, since that day on the road to Avalain.
“That is a right fucked up piece of business,” says Geb. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to do what he did to me…” says Rose. It is left unsaid that she also means Jillia and Stethrey, Geb knows this, but is too loyal to say what he truly thinks of that kind of murder.
“I’ve been thinking of leaving the city, Rose,” says Geb. “Just for a little while… maybe you should come with me, think about your… project. Live life a little.”
She wants to yell at him, to scream, to wail about the dreams that eat at her every night, a torment that only stops when she crosses a name off the list… or, when she is in the depths, with him, searching for Wraithstone under the city.
“I’ll think about it,” she says with finality.
“If you change your mind, Rose, I’ll meet you at the Merry Shank by Beggar’s Gate, I’ll be there for a few days,” and with that, he stood, flashes her a tired smile and walks out of the Rippershead.
Rose wants to say goodbye, but it catches in her throat. She has one last name to cross off, the most painful of them all. She lingers for some time, drinking, but the Ripperhead has lost its charm without Geb, without Ogre…
<>
She watches Edword that night with new eyes. How many times has she saved him over the years? She had thought that it made her a good person, a kind of hero instead of yet another stone-hearted murderer seeking revenge. But there were few heroes in The Scab, and maybe she had just been seeing what she wanted to see.
Edword dined with Jillia and Stethrey, eating the kind of meal that would have driven men in the slave mines wild. Unlike Rose, Edword had enjoyed that kind of cuisine all his life. Even with his penchant for drunken gambling, he never wasted enough money to lose station. There was always a rich boy who wanted to be tutored in the way of the coilsword.
She knew that it was only a matter of time before he went out again. he would walk across the same bridge into the lower wards as he always did, even though he had been ambushed there at least three times. She could meet him there, end it quickly… decisively. Even meet up with Geb after.
But she wanted him to suffer. She needed him to understand the full depth of his betrayal. Morn nailed to the flagstones outside of his own forge. Little Gared thrown screaming into a cesspit to drown in shit and piss after watching his father die. Janiye raped and sold to the slave mines to be used by men like Kragorr, fading away until at last she ended the pain herself.
She needs to take something from him before he dies, Rose decides darkly. And after she did what she had to do to come full circle, Rose doubts that she could ever look someone like stalwart old Geb in the eye again. Better to end it after that; to expose the lie of Edword’s life with her own blood and begone from this damned world.
And so she watched as Edword left his lovely manse to gamble and drink, but instead of following him, or confronting him, she put on her silver skull mask and crept toward that house, quiet as death, coilsword at her hip.
<>
January 10, 2019
Rotblossom Rose (1.67R)
Welcome to the space where I experiment, my weekly serial. It is written raw, not edited at all, and mostly unplanned.
The world is partly based on the background of an unpublished Steampunk game that I worked on with a few friends, which has grown in my mind over the last couple of years. The story is a take on those ultra-violent revenge epics of the eighties where a man’s family is abused and killed, but he survives and seeks vengeance. Needless to say it is a grim, bloody tale, that deals with bad people doing bad things, so be warned.
Here is the first post of this series.
<>
We are in the past, but not so far back now, to the Sorceress naming names.
“I should have known it was The Spider,” sneered Rose, after the Sorceress revealed his true identity and how he had hypnotized her.
“I will help you strike him down,” answered the Sorceress, sitting back in the luxurious room where Rose had first awakened after killing Lawch. “He won’t be able to resist so bloody little trophy from me, if it promises my death. I will regrow it after he dies or maybe keep it as a reminder of my part in this ordeal.”
“And what if he doesn’t?” said Rose. “He lives in a mad maze of traps with a moving entrance.”
“Do you think we are the only enemies that a man like the Spider has?” asked The Sorceress. “You and I will only be gaining entrance for a group of people who have the power to see him dead.”
“Who?”
“The Syndicate.”
“You can do that?”
“I have some contacts within the Synidcate, but you have all the evidence you need to bring them down upon him, and with a little piece of me, you will gain them access to his lair.”
“What evidence?”
“Your blood, Rose. He has reconstituted your body. That stuff is forbidden even within the Syndicate. That kind of blasphemy has brought war in the past. They will be very eager to… question… him.”
Rose laughed. It was a mad plan, but a good one.
“Fine. What about the surprise name. The one you say I got wrong.”
We see what we want to see, until the truth forces itself upon us giving us the choice between stark, spoiled reality and mad, but comfortable dissonance. These moments of truth are profound, but rare. Beliefs are challenged, faith is lost or becomes fanatical, the armour of innocence is breached.
One such moment for Rose, came when the Sorceress uttered that second name, the one that she got wrong.
“No, you’re lying,” spat Rose, but it was too late. She could already see it, feel the ring of truth in it, feel her faith wither. How may times had she cursed her father in the last twenty years for dying before she could sink her blade into him? How many times had she saved her brother from death or dishonour in the shadows of the city?
And yet, now this strange woman, Lawch’s Sorceress, who had been on her list was telling her that her own brother, little Edwird, had been the one to hire Lawch and his band of bastards to come to the house of the road to Avalainn. Her faith in him was not strong enough, and the truth bit deep, ripping away the illusion of his innocence in the matter.
“Edwird. His name for mine, Rose. His and the Spider’s.”
“Edwird,” said Rose, crying at last, broken and remade by the truth.
“Edwird.”
<>
January 3, 2019
Rotblossom Rose (1.66R)
Welcome to the space where I experiment, my weekly serial. It is written raw, not edited at all, and mostly unplanned.
The world is partly based on the background of an unpublished Steampunk game that I worked on with a few friends, which has grown in my mind over the last couple of years. The story is a take on those ultra-violent revenge epics of the eighties where a man’s family is abused and killed, but he survives and seeks vengeance. Needless to say it is a grim, bloody tale, that deals with bad people doing bad things, so be warned.
Here is the first post of this series.
<>
Time collides as pain washes over Rose. She lives the present and the future as one long skein of agony, punctuated only briefly by moments of happiness that serve as the counterpoint to highlight the longs, dark lows.
But, she thinks, self-pity would have seen me dead in the slave-mines, twenty years past.
“Pain is a friend, girl,” he father’s voice comes to her, after knocking her down with a practice blade. “It teaches us when we have made a mistake and it also reassures us that we are still alive, and have room to correct our ways.”
“What does it teach those who are crippled by it father?” young Rose had retorted angrily.
“I’ll let you know,” he said simply. She never understood, still doesn’t. Maybe the Spider messed with her memories, didn’t Lawch say something to that effect?
How she had hated the old man, felt cheated that he died before she could feed him her steel. Rose now knew that it had not been him behind Lawch’s attack on that day in their little house on the road to Avalain. The Sorceress had revealed that it was someone else. The Sorceress had told the truth about The Spider and The Syndicate. Freed of Lawch, the Bleedweaver had no reason to lie…
There is still time to correct that mistake. Still time to fix the name on the plate in a mausoleum that she had scratched with an angry blade. Still time to write the correct name on that list and to cross it off. That is what the pain is telling her. That is the lesson.
So she accepts the pain, and she struggles.
<>
A hard-eyed woman stands over her. Lithe and and vicious as the whip at her side, Mrs Lash, looks down her and smiles.
“Well, well, that did not take long at all.”
Rose sits up, ignoring a sudden moment of nausea. She is pleased to feel her metal arm back on her shoulder, where it belongs. She looks at Mrs Lash, short dark hair and luminescent blue eyes, a killing blade on her hip across from the whip.
“Where are we?” asks Rose. Part of her expects that they are in the syndicate, that she might not be free. Yet.
“In a little inn, south of the Hive,” answers Mrs Lash. “My associate, Mr Hale is not here. He tends to unsettle the folk.”
Rose laughs “I think he came close to making The Spider soil himself; I will treasure that look so long as I live.”
Mrs Lash smiles appreciatively. “If he didn’t then, he will certainly soil himself once he understands what The Syndicate is going to do with him.”
“I won’t ask,” says Rose. “But be careful with him, he is a clever one.”
Mrs Lash laughs now. “Not clever to realize that he would be better off with The Syndicate than against it. Men like The Spider have escaped the Syndicate before. We always get them back. His little lair kept him from them, but they understand it now. I made certain that it was thanks to you.”
“Why?”
“I like a woman who can laugh in the face of such a wretched death.”
“Am I…” the words almost stick in Rose’s throat. “Free to go?”
“Yes,” says Mrs Lash. “I am to deliver a warning to you not to talk about what you saw in the Spider’s lab, even what you understand of it. The syndicate doesn’t want people to experiment with that kind of thing. The Spider was very close to unleashing something that would have killed both of you and half the people of The Hive, or so I’m told.”
“Understood. I know better than to pry in the Syndicate’s business.”
“Smart. I’ve left you some of the Spider’s money, and bought you some nice clothes in your size. Your wounds are healed and no one knows that you led us to the Spider.”
“Thank you.”
“Before I go, one last thing; if you get tired of Scabbing or killing people from your past, seek me out in the Syndicate wards, you have talents we can use.”
And with that, Mrs Lash turns and walks gracefully from the room, pausing only to nod at Rose as she passes through the door.
Her exit leaves Rose alone, thinking of the future and the last name she needs to cross off her list.
<>
