Yeah, a little bit longer than what I’m used to publishing. But that’s ok. We live for new things. Not every piece will be this long, and I do have a soft limit of around 5,000 words for SFF. After that, I would split it in two.

But, here we go, diving headfirst into my attempt to play with folklore and myth. Starting strong with vampires.

I think that these stories - monsters, hostile unearthly creatures and such - work better when you tackle them indirectly. You don’t focus on the creature itself, you come from the angle of normal people dealing with them. You can use that to relate their alien-ness back to the audience in a way that they can understand.

The problem here is that our protagonists are coming into the situation somewhat ignorant. They don’t - and, as it’s revealed, can’t - know what’s going on until it’s literally on top of them. That ignorance is how Hitch was allowed to be taken.

Instead of reinforcing ignorance with defense, our characters assume they can handle it as they normally would. It’s something of a paradox; you don’t know something, so you become more complacent. And then the bad things happen.

Beyond the immediate idea of monsters and the such, we are presented with some form of organisation that deals with them in some way. What that is, who they are, why they do it is (currently) unknown. More shall be revealed as we explore this world of monsters, field agents and analysts, including Hitch’s fate, Viola’s role in the company and we shall meet some other field agents. Perhaps with worse code names than The Woman. Which, by itself, gives you some insight into the organisation of the field agents themselves.

I have another story with these characters written but - from memory - it’s a bit rougher than this and will need some work before I’m ready to show it. I think it’s also slightly longer. Another thing I will figure out later.

I originally wrote this between the 13th and 15th of February 2023. The total length of this piece is 4,382 words.

Goodness me I am happy with how this one turned out. This is what I want from my worldbuilding pieces. A story that makes you want to know more. A story that gives you an established world, a sense of history. But a story that makes you wonder what all of it means together.

Ill let you know this straight up, I do not have a continuation to this particular story. I have another Creeds piece, but its a separate event, some generations prior to this one. I’ll end up calling that one Creeds: Something Else. I don’t know yet, I need to sit down and work on it a bit.

But this one cries for a continuation.1 Stay tuned to the Daily section, Ill have a draft, or some kind of concept there at some point. Maybe I already have, I have forgotten most of what I wrote in November already.

Back to Creeds. Each of the individuals in the story work so well as icons for their respective banners. Prayer assumes, on faith, that everyone will find their way. Ritual wants the appropriate events to play out properly before he makes whatever pronouncements hes going to make. Magic is curious, just straight up trying to gather information.

But their characters are so indicative of who they are beyond their creeds; Magic has clearly been through hell and back. She has suffered for her craft and has come out the other side with a confidence and a superiority befitting someone of her role. Prayer is laid back, very let the chips fall where they may. There is no ceremony here, in all other respects he is just a normal guy. You dont need the flash when you have faith. Ritual, dressed up and ready. The first to arrive and the one who takes this seriously. Even more seriously than the old man.

Which brings me to the old man, the representative of Death. Old, decrepit and on his way out. Having to wait for the youth (relatively speaking) to catch up to him. Unafraid of his opinions, but ready to respect that which comes next. He represents everyone, at some point. But he has been wronged, twice. He has been kept waiting when the stakes are high. And there is whatever has caused him insult from the banner of Ritual.

Each of these people deserve a piece of their own, and perhaps they will get it. But for now, like they do, you all have to wait to learn what that bright light is in the sky.

This was originally written on the 5th of February, 2023.

On one hand, I wanted to hold off on posting this for various reasons - mostly because in terms of The Class, I haven’t written anything else. There is another Lucid story that you will get to read at some point, but that is a different angle to this world. This is the next step in developing some more anthological story telling chops. Several serialised stories told in conjunction with each other.

This was always going to be the first thing I published in this world. It is a good way to set the scene; set up the general idea of what’s happening and use it as a way to explain to you the various concepts I want to have in play.

I like this piece for a couple of reasons; number one, it doesn’t really have a genre. I can lean into the creepy aspect of this world. Let Paul describe the state of the world and the dreamscape. I can focus on the relationship angles, the obvious being the Alison/Dane combo, but Paul will have different relationships with each student as well, and each installment1 will have a different student as the POV character; perhaps Paul sometimes too.

Secondly, I get to do that thing I love to do and just drop massive things with z e r o context. Dreams as psychological torture? Hospitals? WHAT THINGS? Just more things for me to write, right?2

I don’t know how many threads this rub will be made of, there are two definite ones I want to pull on for now, but there are certainly many others I could play with. I think, for now, sticking with the two I know is the best way forward. Populate them a bit and see if anything else grows out of it - stay tuned to the Daily Writing; you’ll see the first snippets of me playing with concepts over there. Or maybe I already have? Another of my 12 projects3, perhaps?

I love being excited about a project like this.

Lucid: The Class was originally written on February 01, 2023. It has 1490 words.

Deep breath. Here we go.

This character, the immortal one, is a character I have been working on for almost 20 years now. For the most part, I can see the trail of development he has been through, starting as almost a caricature of existing archetypes and how he slowly transformed into his own person with his own goals and motivations.

At this point in his story, as you may well be able to infer, he is tired. He isn’t who he used to be, and a lot of his energy, a lot of his willpower has been sapped on his singular mission. He continues, though. He pushes forward because he can see the end. You will have seen the irony, yes?

The Author, whoever they are, is someone who will get a lot more attention when I set to write the biographical-ish story of the immortal man. For now, they are a stand in. Someone visceral and angry - although, a lot of that is not on display here. Someone who has seen a lot of trauma - some of it their own - and they place the blame for it squarely on this immortal man’s shoulders. To this person, the writing of the book, the articulating of the events that have led to the war they all sit on the brink of, is nothing more than a final effort at catharsis. A way - they hope - to assuage the negative feelings they hold, not just towards the immortal, but towards themself as well.

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In the same way that my Preludes to MBK offer a glimpse into that world before I actually have the real story to be read, Overture does the same for what I’m calling the climax to my Immortals Series. I don’t have any real plans as of this writing to sit down to those stories, but I have a lot of ideas for them. Because the main stories are interlinked in some fashion - prior to the climax, that is - I need to have a solid idea of what each of them are doing, how their individual themes complement or contrast to each other and all that actual writer stuff.

I will say this, though, you have not seen the last of They. Nor has The Author.

Stats!

This story was originally written on 02 February 2023. It has a word count of 1363 and the original draft of 1239 words took 33 minutes to write.

This story contains references to five other long form stories I am currently writing.