wiz bits

scribbles and sketches for no reason in particular

The Golden Leaf

Birch Forest, Gustav Klimt, 1903 Klimt, Gustav. Birch Forest [oil, canvas]. 1903. Belvedere, Vienna, Austria

“Stupid to think you could gain without cost,” the Inquisitor said, arms folded tightly behind his back. His stiff white uniform was almost as priestly as it was militaristic, though in truth, he was neither. He was, as designed, an enigma. Set apart to uphold the spirit of that which created him. He answered to none but his Order, and they granted one another a great deal of laterality. The radiation therapy of societal order. High degree of collateral damage, high degree of effect.

“I thought no such thing.” The voice belonged to a young man.

“Hmm?” He intoned, circling to his evidence locker. He had pulled it from a thumbtack-sized rod stuck in the meat of his palm. It grew and grew until it was a metallic box, thick walls like a safe, squatting densely on a protesting table. Not the only dense thing in the room, Jun thought.

From the box, after entering an obscenely long passcode and enduring more retinal probing than could possibly be healthy, the Inquisitor pulled a golden leaf, pinnately lobed, serrated edges. “Then what do you call this?”

“A leaf, sir.”

“Ah, but it’s not a leaf, is it?” He strolled around the back of the evidence-bearing table.

“Yes, it is.”

“And far more. Far more. No?” He eyed the boy suspiciously, knowingly.

“Well, if you want the truth, it’s a friend.”

“A friend? Ha!”

“Yes, a friend.” Jun was not joking. “It’s always been there for me. Never let me down, really.”

“What kind of man,” began the inquisitor, turning to an invisible jury, “calls a leaf friend?”

“A compassionate one, I’d hazard.”

“Ah, compassion! Yes, compassion. And tell me, is it compassion that compels one to harbor a weapon of mass destruction?” Gasps from the unseen jury caused Jun to jump in his seat.

“You’re kidding.”

“Would that I were, young man. Don’t be coy with me. Or —” he trailed off, investigating the blank expression on Jun’s face, “do you really not know? What your friend here is capable of?”

Silence.

“Very well, I shall show you. Observe.” Producing a glass of water, he held it under the leaf, which he pinched between gloved thumb and forefinger. Delicately, slowly, he lowered it into the water, the tiniest sliver of it, and pulled it back out. His face, triumphant, glared at Jun, who was confused, seeing that nothing had happened. Then, the Inquisitor held the dangling golden leaf six inches in front of his face and, ever so slightly, blew on it.

Fine specks of gold dust trailed outward, floating aimlessly for a moment before flying quickly, as though pulled by a magnet, straight into Jun’s eyes. Reflexively, he closed them, and the little motes crept around the corners, finding purchase as they dissolved in his tears. He opened his eyes, and he felt shame. He looked at the inquisitor, and he knew instantly this man, this absurd man, was infinitely his better.

“Now,” the man’s voice deepened as the grin trickled, then flooded onto his face, “tell me again. What is this?”
Unborried

Art Students and Copyists in the Louvre Gallery, Paris, from Harper’s Weekly, January 11, 1868, 47.25.10

Look closely. There is nothing up my sleeve. Nothing in my back pocket. Nothing. Now, look at me. See my eyes. As I see, you will see. As I go, you will go.

A restless man wanders in a windy wood. He and I are not alike. There is nothing we share. I go with him, but we do not know what comes. We only know light as it collides with us in its path through the wending branches above. His face is a storm. His pulse is a hurricane. I follow him, yet I know not why. I know not why.

Anders, Tepulon V, Era of the Whisper

“Cindy, dear, there is no need to polish it so vigorously.” The voice is that of Matron Benithet, second Lady Sitting of House Artensis. Lady Sitting. Funny title, thinks Cindy Hollins. They never sit. She had started to notice that she was going a little beyond the spirit of the work, before the Matron had said anything. She dabbed the polish into the cloth, rubbed the cloth on the sleek wooden hall table. Dabbed the polish on, rubbed the table. Dab. Rub. How long she had been doing this, she couldn’t really say. Shorter than it felt. Longer than she should have. She didn’t know why she was doing it. For one, it did keep her looking busy, which meant she wouldn’t be pulled into other duties, at least not immediately.

But it was more than that. She wanted to know if the table could get any shinier. What would be the effect of adding more polish? What could the table hold? Would it glisten? Would the accumulated layers of polish start to mask each other and dull, washing into a gray absence of light, absence of color? If it would, well then where would the light be said to go? Inside the polish? Trapped between the polish and the table? She found it so frustrating to not really know the answer. To not really know what had to be one of the most basic things about the work she was supposedly supposed to be dedicating her life in doing.

Worse than that, she was certain that nobody else knew either. If she needed any more evidence for that, it was in the Matron’s comment. In the way she said it. It was fearful. The Matron was afraid, afraid of this stupid, simple thing. She was afraid that Cindy might do something she didn’t expect, hadn’t planned for, couldn’t manage. Well, that would just send the whole agenda toppling, wouldn’t it?

“I didn’t mean to sit there staring with that stupid look on your face. Honestly, you look dumb as a carpet. Have you any brain in there at all?” When the Matron spoke to Cindy, or any of the other girls, like this, there was a part of her, a constructed part that had long since dwarved the others, that sincerely believed she was being kind. She was doing them a kindness by pointing out their flaws, by reminding them of their inadequacies. This is not so strange when you think about it, for the Matron occupied a station in which one’s inadequacies are indeed a comfort. Limits. No painful thoughts of change. No threat of dreams unfulfilled. Role. Station. Duty. To know one is flawed, to know one could never be anything else, to accept one’s betters as just that. These are comforts to the surrendered life.

Cindy would wish she could have these comforts if she had any means of even guessing at their existence. But she couldn’t possibly. The Matron’s mind was as foreign to her as that of an octopus. An octopus with wings.

The Matron’s brow sunk. She clicked her tongue. Then, she said something she thought would cheer the girl up. It didn’t. “Come with, dearie. We must tend to the portraits.”

The portraits. Oh, misery. Misery of miseries. The only thing Cindy hated more than scrubbing toilets, or taking out the bins, or pulling the weeds in the garden, or degreasing pots, or repairing frayed sleeves — the only thing worse than these hard labors were the portraits. The portraits were not to be touched, not even to be seen, really. Only to be thought of. Only to be spoken about rearranging here, polishing up there, put in a museum some day, properly lit in this way, but never touched. Never actually moved. Never actually to have anything actually done about them whatsoever. The portraits. Gag. Gag, gag, gag.

These were no family portraits, no. Although Cindy had long since learned never to voice such bald facts about the portraits. No, these paintings were the works of aged Master Carlson, the boy, the very old boy, of the house. His father, Old Man Carlson, Lord Carlson, now deceased, had never left his son the House proper. He left the house and all its management to the system he had devised for its care, consisting of Sitting Ladies and Standing Lads (not to mention Barn Boys, Garden Girls, and even Dancing Dogs, as the man seemed more concerned with the sound of things than the actual doing of them) and then the Lord went a-leaping to his grave. His words. In his latter years, he would remind his son loudly that “the Leaping” was to come quite soon, and then he would be truly appreciated.

No, these were not family portraits. These were the frenzied ejaculations of a mad man. They were an assault on paint as a substance. They were the desperate efforts of a man whose need to impress his father would never be fulfilled. Nobody understood why he called them portraits, as they were almost never depicting any aspect of the human form in any discernible way. Nobody asked why. No, nobody asked why. Portraits is what he called them, so portraits they were. When he loved them, they were loved. When he hated them, they were shunned.
Nebulus

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Evan-Amos, 11 November 2010

They sat there, at the edge of time, the universe, and everything, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches without the peanut butter. Gold-orange and yellow light glowed brightly behind them, illumination of their trials and triumphs, like the sunsets of home. And while it wasn’t a sunset, they were very much at home there, smiling and chewing, legs dangling off the jagged alien platform, swinging freely.

In these moments, these few, precious moments, time really does stop. It really does. There is a sense of joy mingled with great sorrow, in the knowledge of its rarity and transience. It comes so rarely, painfully so, and it will pass, painfully so. And though this knowledge is seasoned with age, it is felt in the soul of the youth as it is felt in the soul of the elder, and for a time, it joins them and makes them alike. Undergirding this joy, enmeshed in this sorrow, is peace, a peace that is noticed and felt, and one awakens in surprise, as though buoying up, head bursting out of the deep ocean swells to find — aha! — it was there all along.

Finally, in that same moment, as though lost before it was found, it is gone, just like that. The scalp begins to tingle. The ears itch. The neck is sore. Birdsong is once more of birds instead of fae. The wind is made of air, and not sighs. And in the case of our heroes, for that is what they now are, the hum of the Symnion engine is merely a feat of technology, the daughter of magic no longer. But all is not lost. No, not all.

“Mom’s probably getting worried by now.”

“I’d say so. You’re going to be in trouble.”

“I’m in trouble? You’re in trouble!”

A sharp inhale, a tilt of the head as if to say ouch.

“Yep. Yep yep yep.”
Corners

Cecilia Beaux, Sita and Sarita, c. 1921, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, William A. Clark Fund), 2014.79.1, National Gallery of Art

Can you feel when you’re being watched? Cats can. Stare too long and it’ll burn a hole in their fur. A direct line of sight gives itself away more than an indirect one. Watch from the corner of your eye. You’d be amazed to see what happens there, before it knows to hide. Pay attention to what lives there, in the corners.

“Hold on tightly.”

To what, I wondered.

“With what,” was the reply.

Confused, I looked down at my hands, as if to signal my checking that they were still there. They were.

I turned them over. They obeyed. I flexed and extended my fingers, and they moved so. I clapped my palms together and they… Well, they didn’t clap. They went rather through one another, as shadows crossing.

I reached out, reeling, to steady myself on the elevator wall and felt a conspicuous nothing as first my hand, then my wrist, then my arm, and finally my whole body fell through, taken by gravity’s hand as I tumbled head over heel endlessly down in deep, deep sky.

Nothing satisfies. I stand on the mountain and have no home. I sleep in the valley and have no rest. I hate with the spittle of my mouth and have no strength. I pray for love, but my heart is evil. My blood is poison.

If good gifts have a giver, why does he hide as his gifts fade, as they are smashed, stolen, and defiled?

I can no longer lie to the mountainfolk, who should know full-well that is no peak. Snow-capped though it may be, that is itself no cap. It is, rather, a fool’s horizon, a trick of geometry, and I can abide this delusion no longer. At best, it is foolishness, but I suspect malice, which I intend to obliterate.

When I told Brick to grab a hoe and start scraping, he told me the same thing he said the day I first met him. The sun was high. The grass was green with the first breath of spring. Birds nested just outside the lab windows in a little sky planter. Dr. Morris’ voice was dry and scratchy from the repetitive voicing of boilerplate questions.

“We need someone to work on the engine,” he croaked.

“I happen to be a nuclear engineer,” Brick said.

“Nuclear… physics?” I asked.

“Physics, yes! Nuclear chemistry as well. Capable of engineering.”

I knew him then to be one in whom I must take no risks.

So when I commanded the man to scrape the equivalent of barnacles off the hull of our grounded craft, he looked at me, smiled beatifically, and repeated the principle axiom of our working relationship, “I happen to be a nuclear engineer.”

He read the pamphlet.

Why wait for heat death? What world destruction means for you, and how you can help determine the New Universal Order (NUO) via a completely democratic collaborative effort. Make the world a better place. The next one. This one is trash.

A little recycling logo, the one with three green arrows, one of the four most pervasive remaining religious symbols in the galaxy, repurposed in a fashion that strict Recyclists (a minority of the majorly religious) would certainly find sacrilegious, in which one of the arrows had been turned to point into a garbage can with the slogan “Break the cycle!” The symbol featured next to a smiling man giving one thumb’s way, way up.

“Is this some sort of joke?” Rek asked, handing the pamphlet back to the young woman. The smile had not left her face nor the hope her eyes. Charismatically, so innocently as to be slightly seductive while also evoking the pang of shame in all who detected its suggestive tone, she laughed a clean, round laugh, rolled her eyes as if acknowledging in some inside way the absurdity of the situation, and said in a just-between-us kind of way, “I know, right?”

“Look. Uhh, we’re kind of broke due to recent misfortunes completely outside of our influence, so we can’t, uhh, donate or whatever to your, uhh, cause.” Rek’s empty mouth took on a certain air of inelegance that his full one lacked, as if he were trying to remedy the absence of food, drink, or smoke by filling it instead with “uhs”, “ums”, and “ahs”.

“Oh, we don’t need your money, silly!” She laughed again, giving Shale what he felt to be an overly familiar nudge, though if his cheeks were capable of changing pigment, they might have blushed. “We’re just asking you to get out there and vote.” During this exchange, Nole, who had been openly yawning and looking everywhere but at the young woman, choked on his surprise. His eyes grew wide, wider than usual.

“And who’s we –” Rek began, when Nole, speaking for the first time, and with urgency, pulled Rek’s elbow in a run, shouting, “Don’t care. Let’s go!”

Rek followed.

Shale, the only one to pause and remember his manners, gave an apologetic nod to the girl before himself hauling off. The gestures delighted the girl, who, being momentarily confused and momentarily extant, was subsequently vaporized by a highly charged ion stream.

Through storm he came, in storm he went. The one they call heav’n-sent. Today, we baptize you as he was baptized. We choose you as he was chosen. Thunder echoes atop the hill and down the vale. Epiphany strikes. They come when he calls, an’ no one else. They cannot be bidden. They cannot be broken. Stand, and become men.

The naked, muddy boys had been doing pushups for so long they were like hot, soggy rags. Grass and mud clung to them, ground their way deep into their flesh. Water flogged the nostrils. Hair smacked the neck. They stood.

You have received your whippings. You have received our ways. You have spoken the words. You have broken the bone. Now, receive your shield. Now, today as every day, fight until you receive Helter’s gift.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but really, is all kinds of messed up. Can you change the weather? Can you buy a toenail?

Trynin boarded a ship to the motherland. They put a wrench in his hand. They sailed the currents, together, he and the aerlings, and their song was sung from shore to distant shore. What gains a main, what profits he, the sailor of higher way, who under star and over vale may ride the gusty wave? Who is this man, this windwalker, under whom the kingdoms fly? He is the heir of Landunsun; he is the prince of sky.
Tuk – Part 5

A D&D Character

When one accepts the gift of mjød,
beware the Viking spirit

This is Part 5 of my character diary for Tuk, a monk adventuring through Out of the Abyss. Read the previous entry, or start with Part 1.

Sweetly, she stings
fruit of the colony
desired in robbery
by spear-bitten hands

Seduced into folly
is he who beholds her
the Golden one
her promise of foreign lands

a dirge for one of deeds undone,
of eyes gone strangely dim

another for a mother’s son,
yet no one mourns for him

machine or man, to destined land
the soul doth always fly

but most of all, a really tall
and super manly guy

Dissolving slowly,
Slowly dissolving,
In the Ooze.
Tuk – Part 4

A D&D Character

One man’s mental break is another man’s epiphany.

This is Part 4 of my character diary for Tuk, a monk adventuring through Out of the Abyss. Read the previous entry, or start with Part 1.

72… 73… 74…

Tuk’s back rose and fell. Push-ups.

It’s 3:30 AM. I just got back from my daily Netherese Tomb raid, and while the other guys are asleep, it’s time for Tuk to rise and grind. Look at ‘em. All snug in their bedrolls. Cozying up to their warm little blankets on their little cheeks, dreamin’ about some girl. Weak. You have to be strong. You have to be physically strong. You have to be mentally strong. You have to have a strong mentality.

27… 28… 29…

It’s like this guy. I got a guy here with no hair on his body. He’s got some kind of disease or something that stops him from growing hair on his body. He’s got what I call a “Why me” mentality. Anytime something bad happens, it’s “Why me?” Captured and taken into the Underdark, “Why me?” Sharing camp with some kind of sneaky, ritual serial murderer, “Why me?” Struck by a stray bolt of lightning and sent into V-Tach, “Why me?” It’s your mindset, bro. It’s your MIND. It’s just like I told this short, hairless guy. I’m tall because I’m HARD. I have leg hair because I’m HARD. Not the other way around.

44… 45… 46…

My memories are written on a wax tablet, but do I complain? Nah. Every day, I’m putting in the work. I’m sweating. I’m getting that iron HOT, and that wax just melts away. Memories are weak. Memory loss is just weakness leaving the body. I don’t need to remember. Remembering is for people who don’t want to do anything RIGHT NOW. Do something about the situation you are in NOW.

16… 17… 18…

Fought some ghosts. Killed ’em. Made ’em wish they’d stayed dead in the first place. Fought an ancient ghost woman. Killed her. I thought she turned into a half-orc and evaporated, but that’s just my memory being WEAK. Don’t trust it. She looked like she could snap me like a twig. I like that.

The party did, in fact, release a Netherese sorceress into the world. Against all probability, her wraith form was resurrected by wild magic into the shape of a half-orc lady. When asked by Belriel, “What are you going to do now?” Her answer was as follows, “Get out of the Underdark!” She promptly teleported away. Her whereabouts are unknown.

61… 62… 63…

Ever since I got 10 inches taller, I know that whatever god there is out there is a real one and he thinks I’m a real one too. It’s 2:45 AM. I don’t remember what I did last night, but I know my arms are sore. Arms are sore? Everyone else is asleep? That’s the perfect time to rise and grind.
Objects of Faith

Scribbles is a place for collecting thoughts and notes that I have recorded at some time or another. As with anything a person creates, they are not necessarily indicative of what that person believes currently, or even what they believed 5 minutes after they wrote it. They are just little snapshots of existence, tiny little sojourns of psyche.

The faith must have an object — purely semantic. What am I trying to say? Here I describe a feeling rather than an axiom, but what isn’t, really? When we reason, how are we not beholden to this sense of what feels right, whether we appeal to our own limited notions of logic, to some authority, or “merely” to our own experience? I am no opponent of objectivity. I actually like objectivity (subjectively). Nonetheless, I feel a deep need to convey the subjective as well. Here goes.

The intellect must be subservient to something not of its own design — something it might name, but the name is at best a description. The names of God are many, but one cannot simply add them up and “get” God. That which does the adding, that which uses the name, can never exit the world of representations. It must rely upon, submit to, its superior, but not the mere representation of its superior, which is an object of its own making, restricted to the space of the known and knowable.

The one that knows in this sense of categorization or quantification may at best do itself a service by adopting a policy (for it operates within the realm of policies, needs them) of flexibility, of willingness to do things for no particular reason, to do precisely those things which offer no promise of gain or reward or even intrinsic worth. It must seek those out and do them, and upon discovering utility, refuse to make utility the object of the search.

The knower here defends itself in the face of possibility, for unknown possibilities are its rightful fear and, in fact, its continual death. It never grows comfortable with the assurance of rebirth, no matter how many times it dies in this way and is reborn — nor should it. Its duty alone is to submit to what it can only call God, and one is left to wonder whether it ever could or ever has done anything other than just that.
Tuk – Part 3

A D&D Character

George Frederic Watts, The Minotaur, 1885

This is Part 3 of my character diary for Tuk, a monk adventuring through Out of the Abyss. Read the previous entry, or start with Part 1.

Fargus. Fargus. The name echoed in his mind, but more than the name was the voice. He had not heard a halfling’s voice, its bright timbre, its lilting inflections, in… well, in longer than he could remember. They had found him encased in web, paralyzed with venom, doomed to be eaten. “Spider-snack” was the term given by their tunnel guides, the goblins Spiderbait and Yukyuk. Tuk and the strange dwarf freed him. The human called Cedric healed him. Then he spoke. The halfling spoke, and a wave of memory overtook Tuk’s anxious mind.

Mid-morning sunlight trickled in through the window on the far end of the room. Muffled voices could be heard just outside the thick oak door.

A deep voice spoke in low tones, “I do wish you had come to me sooner, but at this stage, our options are limited. All is not lost. We can still reach those more recently affected.”

A much higher voice, a halfling voice, said, “I… damn. I didn’t know it was so serious.” A sigh, then, “Yes. Yes, there are more.”

“Thank you for being honest with me. We can still help those for whom symptoms have not yet presented. Now, you must tell me —” then the voice paused. After a few moments, the voices resumed again, more distantly, the words no longer discernable.

Inside, the boy sat patiently. He knew he was in the examination room, but he didn’t know why. He couldn’t quite seem to recall. He noticed a large, leather-bound book sitting on the desk. This belongs to the healer he thought. As the moments passed, his curiosity grew. Noting that the muffled voices continued in the hallway outside, he slowly moved over to the desk, glancing at the open pages. The journal was neatly lined with concise entries, medical records and notes, with many words he had never heard before.

Pt #211 34 y/o halfling male. Patient presents with gumma of the palate consistent with tertiary stage infection of Treponema Pallidum. A review of the patient's social history was performed. Patient reports several known risk factors. Due in part to close living quarters and other environmental factors, behavioral modification has proven unsuccessful. Recommend use of solitary confinement facilities as quarantine. Known partners must also be identified and examined. Request Penicillium spores from the guild. Surely, if they cannot suffer additional serology equipment, they can at least provide this. Pt #26 17 y/o human male. Patiently initially presented with head injury, parietal trauma secondary to fall. Reported syncope while balancing on second story bannister. Possible etiologies include atonic episode or transient ischemic attack. Interview revealed history of "blanking out" with increasing frequency over time. Suspect absence seizures. Amnesia onset observed in the postictal phase. Predominantly anterograde component, although some retrograde memory loss is observed as well, with possible progression of symptoms. No known treatment options.

As he was reading, he felt a jolt of fear, suddenly noticing the hallway had gone silent, not sure how long ago it had. He was halfway into his chair when there were two quick knocks on the door. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say anything. He half-shouted, “Uh, come in!”

Floorboards groaned loudly behind the door as the healer approached. Muted thunks. Footsteps.

Armored boots? A soldier? the boy thought.

The knob turned, and a large figure slowly and graciously opened the door and entered, affecting an air of composure, control, and calm.

Not boots. Hooves!

“Ahh, the young prince! How’s my favorite patient?”

The boisterous voice belonged to a towering figure. He loomed large in the space, which had not been designed for one of his kind. Nonetheless, in his practiced and gentle manner, he moved about the room as one well accustomed to manmade structures. His forearms were braced with intricate, glinting metal that caught the light in multitudinous ways as he moved about. His blue cloak, obviously cut for human proportions, was tiny against his bovine shoulders. It bore the gold and white serpent and staff of the healer’s guild. This sign, one of great dignity and status within the city, took on a quality of modesty when he wore it, as though it were more of a concession for him to bear the guild sigil than a point of pride. Pride was reserved, then, for the adornments of his skull, two large horns shaped like rolling waves. Each was inset with precious minerals of varying color and crystal form. Deep wells of crimson and byzantium were trimmed with a xanthous alloy, finely worked into symbols of precise erudition, none of them Baldurian.

The minotaur, appearing to notice something, stepped over to the book, looked at it, and frowned a bit. “Hmm. Did I…?” After a moment’s thought, he closed the book. His furrowed brow relaxed, and he turned to give the boy his full attention. “Ah, nevermind. Now tell me how you’ve been.”

“I’m sorry, I…”

“Don’t believe we have met?” He chuckled. “That’s quite all right, young one. You may not remember me, but I remember you.” He tilted his head and smiled at the boy, who didn’t say anything. A moment passed, and the healer glanced around the room. Then, noticing something amiss, his eyes brightened. “Ah! Perhaps this will help.”

He cracked open the window behind his desk. The scent of the herb garden — a sort of medicinal pet project — wafted into the room. Some birdsong could be heard from the array of brightly colored birds picking bits of seeds off the garden floor. “I always find it helpful to be in touch with nature, being out of doors. And, seeing as you can’t quite be out of doors, that savory square they call the cloister notwithstanding, this is the next best thing. Not to mention, scent! A powerful catalyst for memory retrieval!”

The fresh scent did help to calm the boy’s nerves. He eased back in his seat a bit. Nonetheless, the face was unfamiliar to him. As far as he was concerned, he had never seen a minotaur before, and he was fairly certain he would remember if he had.

“All right, young prince. A few questions, if you’ll indulge me. What month is it?”

The boy answered, “Eleint.”

“Good. Where are we?”

“The Center. In Baldur’s Gate.”

“Yes. Can you spell ‘Toril’ backwards?”

“L-I-R-O-T”

“Right again. What is your name?”

“I — uhh.” Several moments passed, as the boy’s eyes scanned the ground, then looked distantly above him, searching for his name.

The minotaur made a clicking noise with this tongue. Tchk. “Interesting. Well, you are known to some as —”

—

Tuk was pulled violently back into the present. He felt as though he had been kicked in the skull. His vision blurred. Sound was warped and dampened as the Underdark came creeping back into his awareness. No. I have to stay. STAY.

—

He was back in the office, the horned healer seated across from him. “But most of us just call you Young Prince.” The minotaur smiled. “And I am Er-Chlor, resident physician, at your service. Heh-heh. Pleased to make your acquaintance, again. Now, come take a look. I want to show you something.”

He waved Tuk over to the desk with his hand, and the minotaur pulled something out of a drawer.

“This little device I’m quite proud of.” He held up a metallic vial, the open end of which was tapered to a fine point. “Here, examine it for yourself. Careful not to touch that end. Quite sharp.” He extended the device in an open palm.

Tuk held it. It glimmered strangely in the sunlight coming through the window, reflecting thin little slices of light in a thousand directions, and when he turned it over, a thousand more. Looking closely, he could see the metal engraved in complicated, overlapping lines.

“Glyphs are something of a specialty of mine.” He smiled again. “And the material, well… Not a light expense in the city treasury. Creative paperwork and aggressive negotiations, another specialty.” He chuckled. Heh-heh. “Those clerks, they’ve learned not to mess with these,” he leaned his head forward a bit, and pointed at his horns. His throat grunted a deep laugh. “Cost me a bit of let’s say, social capital, but nevermind that. It’s the least I could do, considering.”

Then, his face darkened. His kind smile turned to a scowl. His nostrils flared as a resounding snort filled the office. A rustle of wings was heard as the birds in the herb garden panicked into flight.

“Look, young one. You are soon to come of age, and at such time the city can no longer… I can no longer… When I was assigned to this clinic, shortly before your birth, I knew there would be challenges. I accepted these challenges. I made them my own. Would that I might grant you further sanctuary here. Sadly, this is something I cannot do.”

For the first time in their conversation, he avoided the boy’s eyes and scowled at the floor. His head turned away from some unseen offense. “I always did my best to advocate for your family, as it were. I will continue to do so in your absence. It has been a great honor to serve you.”

“Now, on to business!” And just like that, the shadow lifted from his face.

“One point of order. I would recommend that you remain awake for the procedure. While this will certainly result in an increase of discomfort, it will also significantly decrease suspicion. In my experience, I have found suspicion to be far deadlier than pain. You’ll be fine. In Labyrinth, we had no word for anaesthetic!” Heh-heh-heh.

The wind rustled gently through the herbs just outside. In echoes, the boy could hear the residents beginning to rise and go about their daily business. He looked at his hands, finding them to be the most familiar thing in sight. He looked at the minotaur. While he had no real evidence of the healer’s behaviors or intentions, he sensed something genuine about the creature, something that went beyond the his obvious competence and the symbols of authority adorning him.

He smiled again, gently. His eyes squinted slightly, then he raised an eyebrow. “We may proceed!”

The procedure was uncomfortable, but not so bad, as the healer had promised. Despite his joke, local anaesthetic was applied, so Tuk felt very little in the way of actual pain. It was only a few minutes before the capsule was situated deeply within his pectoral tissue, providing a steady supply of the medicine that would prevent seizures from disrupting his memory. A few minutes more, and the boy’s awareness expanded, as it was ballasted by a great mass of experience that had gone unnoticed for some time. His memories returned.

“Er-Chlor!” The boy spoke, “I remember you. I remember everything! I remember… oh.” His heart sunk within him. “That means it worked. That means… That means it’s time, isn’t it?”

Though he was not quite sure, he thought he could see tears welling in Er-Chlor’s eyes. The minotaur nodded slowly.

“Yes, my boy. Our time is near its end.”

The healer regained his professional composure and continued, “But before we get to goodbyes, there is business to which we must yet attend. The device that I have implanted within you contains a compound of my own design, synthesized from valerian extract. A potent anti-convulsant, but more than that. It has a stabilizing effect on your neurological activity. The dramatic results of this intervention — that is, the return of your memory — confirms our suspicion that your overactive brain has played a role in your memory loss. This is good news. This means you are treatable. However, circumstances, it seems, would conspire against us. You are soon to go out into the world, and as potent as this formulation is, it will not last forever. It is being slowly, very slowly, ever so slowly, released into your bloodstream by the device as needed to maintain a particular titration. It will last for some time, but it will run out.”

“How long?”

“Yes, well, that is the question. How long is uncertain. Could be months, years.”

Tuk grimaced in frustration and fear. He would lose his memories again. It was only a matter of time, and then he would not have Er-Chlor to help him.

“Ah, but all is not lost! You didn’t think Er-Chlor would leave you without a contingency, did you? Heh-heh. Though the formulation is of my own invention, I have no interest in guarding it or hoarding it as those rotten guild cowards would have it. They would have me lock it away in a drawer in some basement, to be synthesized only under market demands. Pah! This is not the birthright of knowledge. This is not the fruit of inquiry! No, I am sending a copy of my findings to every house of healing this side of the Sea of Swords! What’s more, I have inscribed the device itself with the formula by which it may be synthesized.”

“So I could make more of it? But I couldn’t read any of those symbols.”

“Not you, but any artificer worth his fire salts could. If you notice that your symptoms begin to resurface, seek out a competent artificer at the first opportunity. Do whatever you must to enlist their service.”

Then, before he could say goodbye, Tuk came to. Ripped away from the realm of memory, he was in the present once more. Looking around him, the faces were once again unfamiliar and strange. He knew only glimpses. He saw vividly an angelic being, guiding him through the darkness, its presence a light to his path. He remembered an act of great sacrifice, as this angel forfeit its own life for those of its companions. He remembered something about a spider. Nonny. And something about a… bell? A real bell? He looked down at his hands, his own hands, completely unfamiliar to him. They were larger, thicker than the remembered. For that matter, so was he, standing a foot taller than seemed normal.

An artificer. I must find an artificer.
Tuk – Part 2

A D&D Character

“There is only spoon.” – some other Matrix kid, probably

This is Part 2 of my character diary for Tuk, a monk adventuring through Out of the Abyss. Read Part 1 for a little backstory.

Tuk lay, eyes closed, on a quarter-dried bedroll. The blanket, like most of his belongings, had not quite fully dried from the prison escape of recent days past. Although he was exhausted, his sleep was fitful and light. For this, the damp bedroll was among the least of causes. You can try any number of contraptions and rituals — wring it with all your strength, sling it on a line, carefully drape it over a fire — but once a bedroll is wet, it never dries, not really. Such is life out of doors. A sojourner’s bedroll is always musky and damp, the same way his stomach is never quite full, the same way his eyes are always at least a little bit red. To lose any of these is to be at home. To be at home out here is to die. Doubly so in the Underdark.

Had he not rappelled ten stories of waterfall, the shabby bundle of burlap and straw, surely molding by now, would still be tinged with sweat. Even in the cool, dank environs of the world beneath, one must consider the stressors of combat and survival, the continuous strain of alertness, the weighty knowledge that from the shadows encroach horrors unseen. One of these conditions by itself would be sufficient to produce sweat on the brow of any man. Tuk bore them all with respectable stoicism, but stoicism was not all. In the early, pre-waking hours, he felt something that the others did not: peace. Though there was no sunrise on the horizon, no birdsong on the air, no comforts of the world above, Tuk felt peace. Peace, thanks in some part, to the boon of sleep. Sleep helps one to forget — forget the grudges and pains of yesterday — if only momentarily. Tuk slept, and he forgot. Nonetheless, he sweat.

His hand rested lightly on his ward, a hairy arachnid companion in its youth, larger now than it had been some tenday or so upon their meeting. The spider, Nonny, nestled tightly between Tuk’s hand and ribs. The slow drip, drip, drip of cave moisture was a familiar sound to him (or so he thought) as was the odd rustle, sniff, or snort of his slumbering topside companions, unaccustomed as they were to sleeping in the utter silence of the Underdark. No leaves rustled here. No soft whisper of wind tickled the ear or kissed the cheek. There was no owl’s nocturnal call, no dim flicker of starlight. No benevolent deity gazed down at them from above, at least none who would care to make herself known.

Tuk had received a fair amount of religious instruction as a youth, running the gamut of the more socially accepted pantheons of his metropolitan home. What were described to him as gods never failed to seem more like caricatures, heightened versions of the base, boring, mortal experience. He often wondered if they should be called gods at all. If there were indeed some higher existence, he thought, it might look a lot more interesting and strange than what he had been taught — stranger than could be taught, for that matter. Nonetheless, the good-aligned denizens of which he knew must have preferred to turn their inviolate visages elsewhere, to other places and other planes than this.

The others in the camp drooled and snored, battle-wounded, in shameful want of the subtlety needed to survive such a place. Though free from their stalactite cells, they were no less trapped, caught. Doomed as fish washed ashore, gasping for air. Splayed and vulnerable as Shuushar, strung up by an as yet unidentified assailant. Cursed, as one who robs the spider-queen herself. Infected, as one afflicted with a lycan’s bite — or worse. They were mere flies caught in a web, panic-stricken, struggling fruitlessly, each limb becoming more tightly ensnared, each twitching wing more fully arrested, bodies thrashing impotently as each helpless blunder further sealed their fate. Doomed and cursed all — all, save for perhaps the child of Cannith, the warforged. No, not the one with decidedly human proclivities. The other one. He neither slumbers nor drools. He has not succumbed to greed like the other of his mechanistic kin. His is a way of silence. In him has yet to be espied any vice. Ah, but give it time. As the old gnomic goes: Clockwork most precise is not without ticks.

Tuk thought none of this, of course. As he lay sleeping, or half-sleeping, he knew only the dripping and the snoring. Eyes closed, he was home. Where else would he be? It must be raining, dripping down the stone walls of the cell block. His thick wooden door, the only one that could be freely opened by its occupant, was doing its part to muffle the snores, sighs, ruffles, and other, less gracious noises of the halflings and women there detained — there, of course, being the Baldurian Detention Center for Wayward Women and Little People. Home. More home than anywhere on Toril, if in her bosom Yondalla yet retained any warmth. But of course she had, and with warmth to spare. Anyone could see that. Anyone could feel it. All it would take were a visit to one mealtime, and anyone with eyes would see the halflings, wrongfully detained (for the most part) though they were, conjuring all the merriment of a holiday at home, all the joyful warmth of a well-kept hearth, from a meager prison lunch .

Then, as Tuk yawned and stretched happily, it happened again, as it always did, as it had countless times before. With eyes first squinting, then half-lidded, he was greeted once more by a world completely foreign to him, a place that was not his home at all, a place he had never seen before, a place of which he had no recollection whatsoever. It happened as it always did. First, the wave of shock and surprise. Strangeness all around: strange people, strange smells, strange environs. Next, the pit of longing, the emptiness in the stomach, longing for that which was so near. It was just here. It could have stayed if he had just kept his damned eyes shut. Lost in an instant. Lost so long ago.

Finally, the dread. The sweat on the back of his neck, the realization that this day, as all other days, he would be met with the unknown once more. Each and every person, creature, and moment, would be a potential threat as yet unfulfilled. Another day in which everyone would know everything, and he would know nothing at all.

What memories he did have were few and fleeting: Glimpses of home, isolated facial features, and a Vow of Truth. I am… at first, nothing came. I am… He searched for something more, but could find nothing, until a thought presented itself from the recesses of his mind, as though it had been folded away neatly, waiting to be retrieved: I am Tuk.

…Why is my bed wet?

He was awash with senses. His mind may not have remembered, but his body did. His hands throbbed, and he was reminded of swinging his staff into… something. Someone? Had he been moved to violence? That’s unlike me. His ankles remembered the soreness of weary travel, and of perhaps kicking? Strange. His inner ear recalled in vertiginous waves the feeling of falling a long, long way. His shoulders recalled the stings of many whips. His wrists felt the warm cuffing of new scabs. Imprisonment! Real imprisonment, not like home. All surprising. All confusing. All new.

Then his hand felt… But no, it couldn’t be. His eyes drifted downward, and he recoiled, first with his hand, then jumping to his feet. A spider! Monstrous in size, unnatural and terrible, the largest spider he had ever seen. He drove his hands into his robe, seeking safety, but there he felt something warm and wet. It smelled rotten. His fingers grasped in horror. A snake? No, a tail. Fearing to be bitten, he pulled it out quickly: the half-eaten, decaying corpse of a rat.

The spider wiggled expectantly, displaying something like excitement. Almost servile. Almost… cute. He tossed the rat to the swaying creature, who nibbled it at first, then finding no sport in its quarry, devoured the rodent with unchecked malice. It scampered to Tuk’s ankle and sidled him like a cat. Charmed, he reached down, hesitantly, and pet the thing. He was surprised to find warmth, an ever so gradual softness, as though the palm of his hand were momentarily engulfed in beautiful oblivion.

Then he remembered himself. Rather, he remembered to observe his surroundings. His eyes, adjusting to the dim bioluminescence of standing toadstools and creeping molds, saw for the first time an encampment of strange bodies and faces. He eyed them suspiciously. He caught small glimpses of familiarity, a cheekbone here, an odd nose there, but he recalled not a single name.

His hands found his quarterstaff. Some rope. A torch. Ordinary, everyday objects. Tools. Implements. These he remembered. In these he would find comfort. Upon these he would rely. He sat in a meditative pose, waiting patiently for the troubles of the day to arrive as surely they would. When arrive they did, he would face them as he always had: feet light, hands ready, and thoughts renewed.
Generative Art

Init

Experiments in programmatic art emphasizing interplay of iterative processes and randomness.

These images are the products of hand-coded, non-AI-assisted algorithms. Despite the lack of AI in this project, I still consider these pieces to be in some sense collaborative with machines. To create involves a relationship with the medium of creation, however unidirectional that relationship may seem. We do not typically think of the relationship between a painter and brush to be a collaborative one, but the advent of generative models has perhaps called this assumption into question. How does this type of collaboration differ from that of a human-AI interaction? Does the degree to which it is a collaboration differ at all? Why have we been drawn to this term, artificial intelligence, to describe generative, stochastic processes like neural networks and their products? When considering generative models, we might consider to what end they are entrained.

These images began simply as an exploration of randomness. Drawing rectangles, specific introductions of randomness, such as placement and color, is in some sense free of habits and preferences. It is agnostic, coming from a place of very little supposition, very little assumption. It is an attempt to begin axiomatically, minimizing the domain of the axiom as much as possible. How free are we from that which is assumed? How might we expand or contract these freedoms in time?

What is curve? What is round? Does it include jagged little edges and horns? Mutilated sine waves care little for these notions. Colors are again random. Placement is given a domain of composition. Each coordinate is potentially drawn upon, but origins are preferred in a cascading spiral. The distribution of this spiral is apparently evident, but our discomfort with randomness may lead us to wonder about things like sample size.

A small decision is made here. Solids and symmetry.

If hominid preference had not returned above, it does here. What kind of brush would make these? Some give a sense of direction in the brush stroke, but these are merely random. What does random mean here? Is there any tendency in randomness? We might know if we could observe, or at least observe attributes, of sufficient… oh, there’s that sample size thing again.

What if we delete small parts of an image over some distribution? They become scratchy, attenuated.

Strong commitments to composition and uniformity. What happens when our textured shapes cross a boundary? What is the effect of inversion, noise?

A reaction to the unfriendliness of patterned gradients? Large, clear shapes and complimentary colors. The same motivation for two opposite images reminds us of the enormity of our task. This too is comforting; enormity is familiar.

The images that follow are beautiful to me. They strike a balance between the will of the creator and that of the created, the influence of chaos versus that of control. The lone mass, fearful of integration. The bold sun, present, conspicuous in its absence, and never out of context. Why do we risk these interactions? What is left behind?

Many were made like this. Each is colorful with discrete shape placement. This one is noted for its sense of movement. Its color choice is suggestive of bloom, obscured in likeness and centrality.

The number of elements up for variation we might call degrees of freedom. As these increase, so does difficulty in discerning a sense of direction of these elements, particularly when viewed from a 2-dimensional plane. We might impose an illusion of 3-dimensionality or an actual 3-dimensionality to explore. This may account for the added principality of one such element, perhaps more. How might we continue to generalize our perspective into multidimensionality?

A strong preference for noise, even at the expense of colorful insults.

An experiment of 3-dimensional placement of polyhedra, with a strong preference for 2-dimensional, near-orthogonal perspective.

Future explorations may include other volumes, experimenting with vertex placement, number, and distribution. What might noise do to a surface? What might volumes of noise do when intersecting with solid volumes? Scratchiness and attenuation need also be considered.

Init