A retelling of a short story written by myself for an old Horror fanzine. That story focuses on a particularly eventful evening in the life of freelance photographer Pamela Grey in the world of the Dark Conspiracy RPG. In this story game you take the place of Pamela. 

The world you live in is much like today's, only a little worse.  The rich are richer, the poor are poorer, and the gap between is so much wider. So much is controlled by the mega-corporations and rich interests that large swatches of the ever expanding urban sprawl are marked as "Outlaw Territory, Enter At Own Risk" - where even the police don't go, either for fear or lack of resources.  The middle class has mostly disappeared except for the lowest echelon of corporate execs, and legislative changes have allowed many that would have previously been on the public dole to instead sell their vote to corporate interests in exchange for support. Crime is up, as are disappearances, theft, and violence. Even as bad as the world has become, there are persistent rumors that even worse things lurk in the shadows.  Many neighborhoods have abandoned houses that everyone knows better than to enter, and even in the outlaw where the police fear to tread there are rumors of entire blocks that no one but the mad or the most desperate are willing to risk going into after dark.

You and Susan, your significant other, are doing ok.  Her job with Aprico has afforded the two of you a small place in a small gated community owned by the company. A prized place in the vanishing middle class. Your home is close enough to the gates that you can still easily indulge in your favorite hobby, walking through Chicago with your trusty camera in hand, particularly at night.  The sale of these photos as art pieces to the ultrawealthy, facilitated by Susan's contacts, has helped with sporadic lump sums of money.  Susan pays the bills, but your money pays for luxuries and splurges.

In the twilight one often finds isolated moments of beauty and mystery that would never been seen in the daylight, and you work to capture these moments in the perfect clarity of your lens. You know the risks of being out alone at night outside the gates, but even Susan has had to admit that the last couple of pictures you sold would not have been possible if you hadn't been out there.  To help comfort her (and yourself to be completely honest), you recently bought a large knife to carry with you, just in case.

So, come explore the night and see what waits for you in the dark.

The job listing was simple "Earn 100K » in your sleep!" Having not been able to find a steady job for over a local year and half, you jumped at the chance.

Now, eight months later by the clock on the pod, you have suddenly been awoken from hypersleep to fulfill your role as the emergency backup crew of PrimObs 80085. There is no sign of the regular crew, and even worse, no sign of the rest of the backup crew, so it is up to you to determine what happened and hopefully get a message back to sector command for rescue.

Entry for EndMaster's Prompt Contest 4: Prompt #27) A story involving a space station.

This work is currently being rewritten to include an additional successful ending. If you find a path that appears to dead-end, please come back and try this story again soon.

An entry for MHD's Fairytale contest, this is a retelling of the old Appalachian Fairy Tale "The Little Princess of the Forest".

Come listen to the telling of one of the wildest fairy tales I've ever heard.    This story was originally told by Marshall Ward for a fairy tale collection, and has stuck with me ever since I first heard it.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.  Grab a seat and listen up, as it starts like this...

You have made your way through the city, state, regional, national, planetary, sector, parsec, arm, 64th-, 32nd-, 16th-, octo-, quarter- and semi-finals to arrive with a guaranteed spot in the Finals of the 169th cycle IntraGalactic Culinary Challenge brought to you by Mag King and Gal-actic Robotics held on RecStation 420 in the Lagoon Nebula. When those magnetronics need to sing, 🎶🎶 Call on Mag King 🎶🎶! Do you need a handy robot pal? Everybody wants a Gal!

You face a varied array of challengers and an even more diverse panel of judges to win over in the two round Final. Before each round, you will have time to plan your dish and explore the features of the station. Who knows, you might even find something to help in the contest! Judges and contestants are randomly selected with every read-through, and finding things is done by a random function of your stats, so every new read is a fresh game.

This was originally going to be an entry for EndMaster's Promt Contest 4, but I ran out of time and quickly wrote The Backup

This is a storygame conversion of the Minion Hunter Board Game (and Minion Nation expansion) by GDW, based on the Dark Conspiracy TTRPG by GDW and Dynasty Presentations, with some modernization updates by myself, and is set in the same world as my "A Night in Chicago" storygame.

This is a simulation of a complex boardgame and while I have done my best to add some narrative to the events, it does not have a standard ending that you are working towards.  Every movement is a "round" in the game, and while you are developing your own stats and equipment, the forces of the Dark influences are advancing their plots.  The story ends when one of the main Dark Minion races (ETs, Fae, Morlocks, or Nukids) gains 20 plot points, or you defeat enough plots to run out the plot deck.

Full rules are detailed within.  Give it a try and see if you can save Dark America from the corrupting influence of the Dark Minions.

It was just supposed to be a quick run down to the bodega. Ten minutes, tops. Then you saw something in the alley, and now everything has been turned upside down.

This is incomplete. Sorry, I just ran out time.

Entry for Sherbet's Summer's End Synergy Contest

Following the dictates of the blood-thirsty vote, everyone went to go capture as many of the beggars as we could. We met them across the river from the base. The one-sided firefight resulted in Kim and Polis, the two adults, getting dropped by headshots. Shakes, their child, ran for the hills, but we were able to chase him down and capture him. Unfortunately he is so bitter for our heartless treatment that he will never join us, but we should be able to convert him to the Cystian religion. Then if we should release him or even sell him a slave he might start converting people out there for us. It's a slim chance but certainly possible.

In addition to the the waste of the beggars for their crappy equipment and the additional mouth to feed while we work to convert Shakes, everyone feels surprisingly bad about the whole thing, resulting in a moderately long lasting debuff to everyone's mood. Milton gives a demonstration of how badly crippled our mundane research is with this story teller. Both Milton and Fresh have a total of 139% research speed modifiers and even with that we only only generating a few research points per day.

Over the next day or two, everyone continues to putter away at things around the base, including working on converting Shakes and research, both anomalous and mundane. The freezer gets built for the most part, and lots of vegetables get planted. There was a sudden surprise of a squirrel going rabid and trying to attack RK, although he was able to easily handle it. Then we got the notificaiton of three surprisingly familiar faces that wandered on to the map. A man and his two daughters, staffers of the Gazette that happened to have been out on assignment when the vortex happened. Endmaster, Suranna and TCat had apparently been drawn to this world as well, but separated from the rest of us. Their minds had been scrambled, making them devotees of a religion focused on smoking weed all the time (Marauding Garden).

As Fresh, Mr. Nobody and Milton approached their confused and discombobulated friends, they split up, each approaching on a slightly different route. Mr. Nobody happens to pass near an oddly smooth wall of stone. He is momentarily overwhelmed by a pulse of malevolent psychic power from the other side of the wall. Some unknown ancient danger awaits begin revealed. But that is a problem for a different day. Fresh quickly captured Endmaster as even though he did not seem to know her name he still seemed to recognize her face and tone. Suranna and TCat, however, had no such familiarity with Milton and Mr. Nobody and had to be forcibly detained.

Getting everyone settled in the impromptu prison/dining room/research workroom and patched up was accomplished quickly and without too much trouble. Some initial conversion conversations were had with Endmaster as well.

As things settled down, and we tried to focus on cranking out enough food and meals for our nearly douled population. Temperatures have also begun to swing pretty wildly, so we are expanding the general workroom to add a tailoring bench to make some coats and clothes for our prisoners. As this planning goes on, interspersed with conversations about board games, we get notification of a single man raid by the Vemon Psychers. Milton and Rina quickly intercepted the raider and killed him with the first shot.

Shortly after Milton's skillful resolution of the raid, RK decided everyone could use some perking up and threw a party. Lots of unusual topics were discussed during the party, and it was notable how much focus Fresh started to pull from everyone by the end. The party carried on far into the night.

We were awoken the next morning by the arrival of a large trade caravan from the Legua Coalition. They are a very chatty group and wind up hanging out for a really long time. Working on converting/recruiting/returning to sanity our friends Endmaster, TCat and Suranna is a high priority and almost everyone takes a little bit of time each day to talk to them. Even so, progress is slow.

Fresh takes the lead on talking with the trade caravan. They have a decent price on a large count of pemmican, which will be immediately useful for addressing food shortages. We can easily cover the cost with just some random leathers and the dozen cigars that were in our supplies when we appeared. RK also adjusts priorities on hunting for more animals to include in meals. Anthraxus gets a lucky inspired cooking streak, so we are starting to get a little ahead of our immediate food needs.

For several days, the camp falls into a steady rhythm. Fresh focuses on researching and converting our prisoners. Mr. Nobody works on building walls of new rooms on the base and converting our prisoners. RK hunts and cuts trees, while Anthraxus focuses on harvesting rice and potatoes from the gardens and cooking. Milton spends his time split between mining, cutting down trees and construction.

It becomes evident that Endmaster keeps a far different sleep schedule to everyone else. Most nights, there is some period of time where everyone but he is asleep and he just paces the room. Planning and plotting no doubt. As the barracks expansion is almost done, we may move him to a private room just to improve security for everyone. In one of those new rooms, RK has a fright as an arctic wolf cornered him. He escaped with out a couple minor bites, but it could have gone far worse.

The trade caravan finally moves out and the very next day, Mr. Nobody finally converts Shakes. He is still unshakeable in his unwillingness to join our group, even though he agrees with our philosophical tenants. To see how it impacts conversion rates, Endmaster is also moved to a private prison room. The entire base is dealing with rolling blackouts, so we have started work on a third windmill.

Another single man raid, this time from the Ghostface Rig, a cannibal pirate gang, came charging in. He stumbles across RK out breaking down some ruins and gets shot to death before a rescue directive could be issued. It is noteable that Glas, as he was known, while proving a hapless threat did drop a dozen handrolled joints. Several of our staff enjoy the green, as do all of our prisoners but Shakes, so these aren't likely to last long. Our own garden is fairly close to maturity, so we may have homegrown soon.

In between everything else going on, Milton has periodically slipped over to the Monolith and studied the strange twisting runes and markings on it's surface. One afternoon, various ideas clicked in his mind and he had a breakthrough in the study of the monolith. It is some kind of coinduit for phsyic energy, linked directly to some distant location. What and where that location is is still unclear. Additionally, Milton has unlocked a translation key for the monolith, meaning that future research on it will yeild more information.

In an unexpected blessing, a book, some steel and some components fell from the sky as Milton began walking way from the monolith. The book is of particular interest as it is a nearly 200 year old novel that is impressively relaxing to read. Later that same day, we also achieved our first radio intercept. The transmissions included the infomation we would need to make the two and half day trek to reach what is rumored to be an abandoned research post. An ominous wave of deja vu swept over the entire encampment.

To celebrate the breakthrough and to take advantage of bonus conversion powers, we built a ritual site next to the monolith. Once this mandala-like steel art piece was finished, we officially decreed Milton as our Founder and leader. Milton gave a verbose speech that everyone thoroughly enjoyed. This resulted in a noteable mood buff for everyone, particularly Milton.

Inspired by this significant event, and perhaps angling for the Mod designation that still needs to happen, Fresh took another crack at TCat and Suranna. TCat is still balancing on the edge of conversion, but Suranna converted to Cystianism and joined the group. Almost before Suranna can even get settled into her new room on the expanded barracks, we get notification of another single man raid. Surprisingly, this raid is not a Gazette staff member, but still one whose name and nature spoke of some strange familiarity.

That raid will be resolved soon enough and Endmaster and TCat will convert after the next 1-3 attempts, so our base already begins to expand. On to the votes!

We have more to touch on than simple research (which is really moving painfully slow).

Vote One: What to do with Shakes? He cannot be recruited and is just another mouth to feed and back to clothe.

1. Option 1: Release him. He is a converted Cystian and may spread our religion on his own out in the wild.
2. Option 2: Sell him. We can hold on to him until a slaver caravan comes by and we can then sell him off. This will likely be a strong mood debuff for most of the group as our religion currently looks down on slavery, but could be good money or a good trade for items.
3. Option 3: Harvest him. If we want to go fuly bloodthirsty, we can harvest his organs. Because he is young and in good health his organs may actually be worth more than he is. This probably will also be a mood debuff, although it may only impact whoever does the surgeries.
4. Option 4: Harvest and release. We could also harvest a bunch of organs from him without killing him and then release him. This is kind of splitting the negative impact of harvesting with taking the time to heal him up afterwards before cutting him loose.

Vote Two: Research Post Quest. Should we take this on, or leave it until we are better equipped?

1. Vote A: Ignore it. We are strong enough yet and need more weapons.
2. Vote B: Risk it. Send as many people as we can equip weapons too and bring back as much as they can carry.

Vote Three: Designate a Mod. Who should get the Mod title? This person gets bonus abilities in healing and converting people.

1. Vote I: Fresh.
2. Vote II: RK
3. Vote III: Anthraxus
4. Vote IV: Mr. Nobody
5. Vote V: Suranna
6. Vote VI: TCat
7. Vote VII: Endmaster

It was a normal day at the office of the CYS Gazette. The next issue was due out tomorrow, and all but two stories were already done and edited. Everyone was just starting to pack up for the day, but the first person to the door was Anthraxus.

To his surprise the door of the office no longer opened onto Main Street, but instead revealed a swirling vortex of black, blue and purple light and gas. Anthraxus took a step or two back, calling out for everyone to check this out. Everyone drew closer to the door, getting a good look for themselves. Suddenly invisible hands seemed to grab at them all, pulling into the vortex. Everyone tried their best to escape, even Raina the office dog, but to no avail. Each was dragged into the swirling mysterious phenomona.

What happened within the vortex itself is unknown. No one can remember exactly when they lost consciousness. All everyone can recall is the office and the feeling of being pulled forward and some passage of time before opening their eyes here in this new place. There was no sign of the vortex nor of the office. They all stood, or knelt, in a small group in a broad flowered meadow surrounded by strange pink leaved trees. Just beyond the trees in any direction, the sounds of burbling water could be heard. A small hill rose up from the center of the small island, and just to south of that stood a towering monolith that seemed to pulse and shift in strange ways. Auroras of green, yellow, and red lights danced in the sky.

Everyone awoke at the same time, shocked to find themselves standing, dressed in new clothes with hoods and surrounded by a scattering of supplies. Something had changed in them in the transit as they were each convinced of the value of writing, to the point of literal religious fervor. The burdgeoning faith was not well defined, but it provided a strong emotional connection. As we started sorting through the supplies and exploring the area, we all realized that it seemed like we were in some way written over the existing bodies of other people. Faint and distant memories of this other life began slowly coming to each of us. If not for these memories and related skills, we would probably be doomed from the outset. There was no time to consider the moral and ethical implications of this, as we needed to make shelter and begin trying to figure out this new alien world we find ourselves on and how to survive long enough to find a way back home.

First thing first, we needed to know our immediate surroundings, so we quickly scaled the nearby hill or mountain. Our first real disagreement as a group was what it should count as, but from the peak we could see that we were on a sizable island in the middle of a river. There was a scattering of what could charitably be called mountains, but were really little more than sheer eruptions of stone out of ht ground. Their sides were so steep as to be practically unscalable. Numerous copses of various kinds of trees dotted the valleys between the escarpments. Somewhere in the distance a psychic drone that seemed to only impact the men in the group was ringing, setting nerves on edge.

After a quick conversation as everyone descended down again, we agreed on a small collection of buildings for barracks and workspaces, as well as a central warehouse building. Among the supplies we found a big seed book, so took advantage and planted several small gardens in some nearby rich soil since we needed more wood anyway.

Before we go much further, here is a closer look at our group and their mysteriously inherited skills. Everyone awoke in clothes of their favorite colors, and the hoods provide shelter from the weather and a certain religious comfort. Anthraxus, as the atheist of the group before the vortex, has issues recognizing and reconciling what this might mean, as well as the implanted religious faith that came with existing in this world.

Due to poor planning and everyone focused on cutting trees and getting the gardens going, not enough beds got made on the first day. This resulted in RK falling asleep in the one dining chair that got built and Fresh just laying down in the flowers outside the first barracks building. Because of this poor sleeping situation, Fresh fell asleep on a chair in the dining room that was built the next day. Not really giving his fellow colonists due consideration, RK wound up sitting on her while eating dinner.

Apparently sitting on Fresh satisfied whatever was causing the psychic drone, as that finally ended on the dawn of the third day. Intense work was on schedule for the third day. Two wind turbines and enough beds and bedrooms for everyone were finished. Additional gardens were marked out to help keep the turbines free of obstructing trees. While Milton and Anthraxus work on those, Fresh took a few moment so to work on her relationship with Rina, the office dog. As she chases the dog around the base, whatever was causing the previous obnoxious drone that was draggin the guys down, started droning again, this time focused on women.

By the end of the fourth day, Anthraxus put the finishing touches on all of the inital buildings, although temperature controls, particularly for the warehouse, are now high priority. A lot of conversations have been had about the need to research the monolith and figure out how it is related to how we wound up here. Milton volunteers to start this investigation and in alarmingly little time, he determines how to awaken it more fully.

Mere hours after the pall took hold and the monolith was awakened, a tiny figure stumbled into the area. It was a young girl named Mary Graf from the nearby Eastern Enmonla group. She seemed pretty lost, but had a few items that she might trade. As we waited for her to approach, three other strangers appeared from the west. This trio is begging for 37 silver to rescue the fourth member of their barbershop quartet. We have currently have 1000 silver, so not a big sacrifice for us, but they aren't a member of any of the factions, so it's just moral goodwill most likely. Alternately, I could designate some prisoner sleeping areas and capture them.

So to the votes:

Vote One - What to do with the beggars?

• Option 1: Give them the silver they need. See what, if anything, they give us in return.
• Option 2: Try to capture one or more of them and see if they can be converted/recruited.

Vote Two - Mundate Research - Currently researching wall-mounted heaters and coolers (new tech from a mod), but where should we go next?

• Option A: Smithing and Machineing - This is the most expensive option, but will get two keystone techs out of the way.
• Option B: Soups and Stews - open up some cheap food options
• Option C: Drugs - Not only the standard Rimwolrd drug production options but a industrial smokeleaf mod I've added.