Mike256bit

@mike256bit.bsky.social

Designer // Artist // Engineer // Writer Working on a novel which combines some of my great loves: mechanical systems, a little magic, fast-paced combat, and characters who triumph against the unknown odds. 🩷💜💙 LGBTQIA+ (They/Them)

“Well,” Harron began, “let me bring you up to speed, gentlemen. Almost 500 years before the Federation of the Crag became the Obsidian Empire, a wee village in the northern foothills was founded by two men: Argos of Bronzebreak and Kellis of Middleglade. Bronzebreak was one of the first of the original Federation, but Middleglade was a little known hamlet that had been settled by frontiersmen who wanted to expand to the west and get away from stark mountain life. Bronzebreak had been turning out ore for over 100 years at this point, mining the underground chambers which had kept them safe after the Cloak.”

“What, wait,” Dax interrupted as he lifted the dutch oven lid to examine their meal as it bubbled over the heat. “The Cloak?” Several sets of eyes turned from Harron to Dax, brows furrowed in disbelief.

“Dax, son,” Cleave murmured, “the Cloak is basic human history. What were they teaching you as a boy?”

Taken from part three of “The Fourth Sigil”
Book One of “The Seeker”

$SHE THOUGHT ABOUT Elisa. Then Pin recalled from her fractured memory of the night before the curious way the air seemed to shift around her. That girl isn’t right. She might be– Right. You know what she is. She can’t be. They don’t possess kindness. They never will. She might be cursed, too. Just like you. Pin stumbled over to her bed and stripped out of her muddied clothes. She had spent so much time in carrier bodies across the city that she didn’t realize it had been days since she changed, and it was only after Elisa had begun to bathe her that she felt the stink crawling over her skin. Standing naked in the room, she fished for a new outfit amongst the pile of wares that she had gathered on the mattress, finding a set of high-waisted tan-colored pants and a pale red loose long-sleeve to replace the tattered tunic. She was done with the beggar routine – today was a day to leave, Elisa’s curious effects foreboding enough to convince Pin that the woman was not worth any further delay. Taken from part four of “The Fourth Sigil” Book One of “The Seeker”$

YRINA FLINCHED AT another gavel strike and nodded with resignation. “Of course, Gideon. I can lean on some of the girls and maybe warn them that they’ve got fans too eager for them to perform. They’re not all whores, you know.”
“Close enough,” he spat. “To mimic the art of true theater in such a grotesque fashion – reducing the human complexity to ten minutes of animal rutting to the limp tones of some bullshit music box is, frankly, insulting. Never mind that the only difference between a ‘dancer’ and a ‘whore’ is that the dancer doesn’t know their price yet.”
“Still,” she pressed through clenched teeth, “it might be enough to shake them.”
“If that doesn’t work, tell Alister I’ll buy the fucking building and find a renter who can follow instructions. Shut the show down, Yrina. Are we clear?” She peeked around him, watching as the auction gavel banged again, but her curiosity was interrupted by the snap of Gideon’s fingers in her face.
She looked at him and nodded again. “Yes. I’ll handle it, Gideon.”

YRINA WAS MOMENTARILY distracted by a rush of air, the rumble of heavy wood, and the blend of hysterical and titillated screams swiping through the large courtyard. She looked up to a flying jib flapping as it raced by, followed quickly by the golden, waxy wood of the ship to which it was attached. She marveled as the sixty-foot sailboat swung away from her and sent its aft deck up into the night sky and let out a whistle as if for the first time appreciating the enormous A-frame truss from which the boat rocked. The boat, easily hosting forty or fifty people sitting in wooden pews, raced back towards her as it came to its lowest and fastest point in its travel.
She heard – and felt – the rumble again, and watched as the gondola accelerated into the air, arcing almost ninety degrees before reaching its apex. The frame’s bundled oak beams were anchored into the stone plaza, securing the groaning machine as riders hooted for new heights and hollered for mercy. Under the boat, two wheels wrapped with sheets of rubber blurred as they spun contrary to each other, powered by a center drum through the meshing of large-tooth gears. As the ride came back down, the nearer wheel ran along the keel, shoving the ship along even faster than before. The entire plaza seemed to vibrate when the boat made another shuddering pass.

“IT’S PRIVATE FUCKIN’ property,” one snapped. “Take your fuckin’ doomsday nonsense out of here!” As the trio tussled the people who passed through the open plaza widened their berth, with a few stopping to watch as the aggressors lifted the man from his feet.
“Those are Gideon’s goons,” Olmut muttered, giving Korbas a bump on his elbow. “That blond one is a real prick. Name’s Lohan, I think.” The officer stiffened, feeling the weight of his duty belt shift as he approached the struggling men.
“That’s enough,” Korbas ordered as he stepped into the ten foot wide half-circle of bystanders. The jacketed men both looked up to the heavy voice, one that Korbas had first learned to use on the wild dogs and coyotes that threatened the unfenced edges of the commune. “What’s going on here?”

Tiri stared back through the forest of iron bars and into eyes that burned with flecks of orange embers.
“Who? And when?”
“I dunno, these two were here before sunup. But they’re direct from Bronzebreak from the looks of the saddles – definitely not hired from the lowland stables.”
Tiri whistled appreciatively. “They might be the biggest I’ve ever seen!” She flashed another fond smile to the mother and its cubs, cooing gently at her, promising that none could be as agile or as cute as she was.
“They’re not pets, Londe,” Matthias grumbled.
“Oh, don’t listen to him,” she continued, waving at the cubs as they began to wrestle until their meals made them too sleepy to play. She surrendered to the tug Matthias gave her arm and his insistence that they ascend to Sierra Eva, but when she twisted to follow him, he had become as rigid as the posts supporting the stable canopy overhead. He pushed two fingers into her ribs, making her straighten with a yelp just as a pair of Crown Ambassadors stepped off the stairs and turned to face them.

“I’VE ONLY ACCOMPANIED her for the last month,” Enzo revealed, looking pointedly at the door as he spoke. He was uncareful, speaking more loudly than the typical sneak would and suffering none of the sudden anxiety of realizing he’d done it. Gren made him crouch and reminded him to whisper. “Nadja had been coming longer. I doubt she’s the only one; the path was well-beaten by the time I began to assist her.”
“Competing theologian alchemists?”
“Homeless children,” Enzo answered without a smile. “There’s hundreds of forgotten children in this city. They come from many different circumstances, in too many numbers for the city or charity houses to handle. They bounce between abandoned buildings.”
“Not all of them are homeless,” Gren answered, a distance in his voice that he corrected almost immediately.

TIRI CHASED HER familiar through a narrowing lane of cedarwood until a root caught her foot and sent her sprawling, sliding shoulder first through the moss and sparse grasses. Sid caught up a moment later, having fallen behind by just enough that he barely saved her from crashing to her knees when she tried to continue her run. Her face twisted with pain as her foot tried to take on too much weight and she whimpered loud enough that Lilith, only thirty feet ahead, turned her ears back in alarm over her companion’s injury.

“Easy,” Sid cautioned her, helping her sit as the meadowcat came bounding back to investigate, the flicker of the dart’s tail firmly forgotten. Tiri nodded reluctantly, allowing him to elevate her foot into his lap as Lily insistently rubbed along her other leg, each ‘meow’ a melodic request for answers. Tiri pet her to soothe her demands.

It was the building’s living roof which caused the project’s abrupt pause, having collapsed around the edges of the skylight directly over the northwest quadrant hosting the lobby. Elisa’s eyes craned up from the uncleared, three foot tall mound of dirt and grasses that had once been on the roof, up to where a jagged, sagging hole folded inward, creating two leaf-life segments of rebarred concrete that curled inward along the edge of the skylight. Shattered glass had at one point been swept into a lesser pile near the mound of dirt, but it appeared that no other cleanup had taken place in the weeks since the structural collapse. Even though it had been over a week since the last rainstorm, a constant stream of water rained down from the rent ceiling, navigating along the draping vines that infiltrated almost fifteen feet down from the hole. Elisa pulled her feet back from an errant, muddy trickle snaking away from the dirt mount, owed to a slight slope in the floor that sent the flow towards large drains.

THE TWIN DAUGHTERS of the lounge’s proprietor (and primary bartender) were both leaning against the exterior of the one-story building that doubled as the family home and family business. A cigarette passed between the girls while they quietly chatted, sometimes sharing a laugh or an exaggerated eye roll as the conversation drifted through the usual hills and valleys of their favorite terrain: city gossip. Between what they overheard while on near-nightly shifts and the scuttlebutt traded in their healthy network of fashion-minded friends, it was a good bet that Nina and her identical sister Vera had the details of the tea-worthy stories that threaded through Telemere.

The drum freed itself from the wreckage of the autophone and rolled south, carrying enough kinetic energy to bowl over those who were not fast enough to dive from its path. The spring-loaded hammers which once struck taut wire were flung into the air as the machine fully collapsed; spikes of shorn wood tore through the drum skins that surrounded the base of the machine and the air bellows which powered the now-bent organ pipes were ripped from their supports. The cacophony of its destruction was soon replaced by the excited rabble of those in the square whose common focus was a narrow brush with the runaway drum. By then, the cylinder had collided with one of the stone flower boxes marking the center of the square and had returned to its normal speed, ceaselessly grinding against the gritty surface of the plaza like a rake dragging over rock.

“WHAT DO YOU want? Who are you?” Her eyes darted rapidly between the door, Ghald, and the stairs leading to the city street, until one more encroaching step nudged her into flight. “Get away!” she yelled, dashing the coinbox down at the floorboards next to Ghald’s feet. A corner of the box yielded against the wood and the lid sprang open with an explosion of ringing silver.

The money burst out like a geyser as Sara scrambled for the stairs, stumbling twice while navigating around shocked children and the mothers who pulled them from her wild path. The sound of bouncing coins drew a circle of curious people, some of whom began to wander up the stairs of the veranda. If they were ignorant of whose property they were trespassing on, the two club-wielding men squeezing through the open door behind Ghald helped educate them.

THE INCLINE STATION loomed above the single-story structures at the highest elevations on the gateway mountain, giving Tiri a world-class view of the steep sloped roofs that capped most buildings. The snow season was growing deeper, leaving her to shiver slightly as she hugged herself further into her parka. Even with her back to the winds slicing across the observation platform cantilevered over the caldera’s edge, the streams of frigid air seemed to curl around her hood, hunting her ears.
She pulled her scarf up over her nose and squinted against the sharp crystals of ice that blustered across her face when she turned. Worth it, she considered, as she panned across the view of Ter Argoska’s grand city. She likened it to a checkerboard, a uniform mixture of dark shadewood and light stone all the way down into the dormant woods. Color wasn’t rare but was limited to the small pennants hung from eaves, or from the painted boardwalks that bridged around and between the narrow fang-like spires that stabbed a hundred feet in the air throughout the city.

YRINA TURNED FOR the door, though not quite fast enough to escape being seized by her coat. He yanked her back, his palm closing like a trap around her neck.
“You’re alive because I reward cleverness which possesses the ability to learn its place,” Gideon growled into her ear. “But make no mistake; I am the warden, Yrina. I make the boundaries. I suggest you study them more often, else you’ll trespass too far beyond them to save yourself.” He pressed his thumb into the pocket under her jaw, and her whimpering softened. “In the end, you’re just like a whore. While you leverage that cleverness to steal, they leverage their bodies to steal. You’re all thieves for loose change while I am a man who has earned his fortune.”
“I know,” she gasped, bringing her hand up to pry at his rigid thumb, her eyes searching for his, looking for clues to her fate. “Gideon, please–”

“FOR SOMEONE WITH money I find it a little weird that you need to steal drinks.” Elisa and Lucas both turned to her in surprise, but she remained unmoved under the scrutiny. Again, Ozulo was unfazed by the boldness of a stranger.

“To be fair,” he replied after a faint chuckle, “I ordered this to my room before I realized I was late for our meeting. Lucas knows I’m not the best with being punctual. She might not realize it yet but I left a decent tip on her tray.” He took another sip but kept his gaze on the girl and her white ribbon blindfold. “But how interesting that you saw that, eh?”

JUST AS SHE leaned from her hiding spot, Stellen Kilkeiner emerged from the next lane over. Despite the darkness she recognized his silhouette and his purposeful stride at once but the onset of her paralysis was so sudden she could only watch as he approached. Every one of his previous promises about ejecting her from the academy screamed at her through the squeezing pressure in her chest. She knew she should retreat but when he turned toward the barrack – disappearing through the same door as the unknown entrant who came before him — she trailed him. Tiri peeked around the side of a neighboring building, hoping to see directly into the window from her new vantage point, but found that the shades had been drawn again, only a faint line betraying the break between them.

“You don’t understand,” Elisa said with a dismissive wave. “This used to be the thing that excited me more than anything else. These stones are a connection with the very land we live on, more than the food we grow or the way we take power from the forests and the rivers. These stones speak to the planet in their own language, and all we do is build the most brutish, ceaseless machines just to extract one more coin from the day’s work.”

“Are they really that special?” Pin replied with a shrug. “They’re everywhere. They’re not just in the Empire or Telemere, they’re in the Southlands, they’re even on the ships that come into Fort Silvermist. I say what makes them special is all the hard work that people don’t have to do because they have a rotorstone.” Elisa sighed with an exaggerated eye roll that left her looking at her ceiling, as if asking for divine guidance.

AS BUSINESS OWNERS and master craftsmen demanded to meet with officers for answers it became clear that it would take more than one night to fully understand the extent of what had happened.
So when Arloss dropped a bundled ream of papers onto her newly acquired desk, Padima felt more than within her right to be irritated to have been so abruptly pulled from her unscheduled nap. “Rise and shine, cadet, it’s a new day,” Arloss sang cheerfully, offering her a cup of steaming tea. She sat up with a groan, her forehead red from pressing against the open pages of the ledger.
“Thank you,” she muttered, reaching for the cup with an unshielded, miserable frown. He slid the cup back as her fingers came close, forcing her to look up at him and his own unmasked features. Despite his jubilant greeting he was not smiling.

THE YEARLY FESTIVAL always brought a little more disorder into the walls of the Sentinel but this was a new level of chaos. Any piece of furniture not nailed done – and none were – had shifted several feet from its intended place and in some cases had been fully turned over as crowds rushed the lobby in search of safety. Tall planters had been toppled and rich black soil spilled across the dark floor, making it difficult to find the stains once the bulk had been swept up. Broken ceramics left white dust and micro shards that threatened the feet of unshoed children who ran ahead of their oblivious parents. Paper debris had flown in like a flock of lost birds and scattered so far that Carre could reach into any crevice with decent odds of finding another scrap.

HADO ACCEPTED THE gift and slipped it into a pocket within his draping cloak. “Thank you,” he said after a few seconds of curious silence. She smiled and separated one of the flowers from the bouquet in her other hand.

“Take one of these, too. Everyone should have one for the festival.”

He plucked it from her fingers, turning it around in the light to see if he could replicate the sparkle she’d managed to elicit. Even with her coaching it did not react, yet he tucked it away with care.

“Try in the morning,” she urged. “It’s pretty, I promise.”

SHE FANNED HER face as she leaned back against the doorframe, lost in the nuances of how she desired Gren’s attention. She had been so caught up in her own great works that his arrival, so sudden and critical, convinced her another string of fate had been pulled tight. The feeling carried her, giving her the sense that she was floating as she closed her laboratory door, lowered the well grate, and set off across the courtyard with the bright, watchful eye of the night following after her. The chants from within grew louder as she wandered toward the temple’s front doors, the congregation entering a new phase of their ritual ceremony.

THE NIGHT BEFORE had been a true test for the newer cadets and probationary constables, many of whom had begun to associate their roles as officers of the peace as something perfunctory – many of the recent efforts of the West Bridge constabulary revolved around breaking up bar fights, writing reports of petit theft, and managing complaints over noisy late-night revelers. For Padima and Korbas, who until yesterday operated almost exclusively out of the lockers assigned to those on beat patrol, having a desk to support so many stacks of important papers was something of a change.

Gren’s foot was already planted on the balcony when he saw her dress catch the gale and carry her body toward her demise. He leapt forward, launching himself into the open air between his balcony and the temple building. As her fingers clawed the stone, his hand caught the zip line and his body twisted around it, pivoting, his feet pointed toward the temple as he sped along. He was an arrow primed on an archer's bow, the cord stretching as his momentum shot him toward the temple wall at an uncomfortable speed. The hook in his palm glided over the line like a hot stone skipping across the surface of a frozen lake, frictionless and out of control, until he landed against the wall with a soft thump, squatting to absorb the sudden stop.
In one burst of motion, he climbed from the line and up onto the rampart, diving for her. Just as the girl’s legs were about to flip over her head and send her into freefall, Gren’s hand clasped around her ankle, pulling her back with a yank that sent her chest crashing into the top of the rampart. She scrambled back from the deadly drop, desperate to get back onto solid footing, sending Gren crashing to his shoulder as she kicked wildly. She stumbled once more, this time tripping over Gren’s legs, and she landed on her buttocks next to him with a soft cry.

“You must be a romantic at heart,” he added, taking a mouthful of rice and veg before he swiped a hand toward the distant bays northeast of the station center. “But no, we don’t need to take the gondola.”

“Why though?”

“Why what?” he mumbled around his food, his focus seemingly unshiftable. She rolled her eyes without the fear of being caught.

“Why don’t we use them anywhere else?”

Balan set his fork aside and sighed, scratching his temple as if to unlodge Crag trivia from the very surface of his bald head. “They’re relics, I suppose. The mountains used to be full of them – you’d know this if you’d actually read those books you’re so proud of. Their usage peaked probably a hundred years after the discovery of ley lines and steadily declined after that.”

“Why?” she asked, extending the word so much it almost gained an extra syllable. He glowered at her this time.

“Do I look like a pebble-headed historian to you?” Tiri looked back at him unflinchingly, expecting more, but when none came she turned her sullen gaze down to her food and began to eat.

Elisa’s eyes fluttered as the heat radiated from her cheeks up through her temples, feeling so lightheaded she worried she’d pass out – if she had any capacity for worry within her overstimulated system.

“You’ve been on quite a journey, honey,” [redacted] whispered. “I’m glad you’re back.” Her hands tightened around Elisa’s waist, pulling the fabric of her dress taut from her bodice, tugging the neckline down another inch. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

Elisa crumbled, her hands moving down over [redacted’s] forearms and toward the hidden tremors beneath the rumpled folds of her dress. Before she could release the desperate moan that had built under the pressure of internal flames, [redacted] grabbed her hands and hushed her, the brush of her breath against her ear just as maddening as every other sensation born from their shared contact. [redacted] gently nudged her from her thigh, but Elisa’s legs were so weak she had to support herself on the edge of the bed as she stood, confused, wondering how to rebottle the storm heating her belly.

As she leaned to one side, her elbow propped on the armrest and her fist supporting her chin, Yrina listened to the scribble of a pen nib attacking a ledger. She deliberately focused on any noise that was not his labored breathing, sometimes accompanied by the squelching of damaged flesh under his bandages whenever his jaw moved. She was careful not to express her disgust, having already seen the product of his wounded vanity more than a handful of times. Instead, she embraced the snap of the fire, or to the way his drinking glass clinked up against the whiskey decanter as his furious writing rattled his desk.

“A pleasure to meet you. Lucas was pretty insistent that I meet some of his friends while visiting the city. I’m Ozulo Valonsaro but please call me Ozzie.”

Elisa thought back to the night before when Lucas first pitched the meeting and the picture she had painted in her head of what the stonecutter might look like was wrong on nearly every level. Images of a snot-nosed kid holding a backpack overflowing with gems vanished, for the man in front of her could not have been more than a year or two her junior. He was as tall as Lucas, lean, and dressed perfectly for blending with the aristocratic element of the city. His dark red coat extended down to his knees and seemed to flutter even without a breeze to push it. Underneath, a stark white dress shirt was tucked into charcoal-colored wool slacks, matched to the color of his oil-buffed boots. The most surprising part, once Elisa finished appraising his vestments, were the two short conical bumps that protruded from his tanned forehead just below a crop of spiky, black hair.

“Are those horns?” Elisa blurted. Lucas seemed to grimace at the forwardness of the question but Ozzie smiled softly, unperturbed, and kneeled so that he was at her eye level.

“I always like to discuss business inside,” he began, gesturing back towards the main street of the carnival. “I have an apartment above my office with a fantastic supply of alcohol. It would be a fine place to start a negotiation.” Elisa let out a legitimate laugh, short and incredulous, and leaned forward into the dim firelight. She had been similarly propositioned by the richer men she’d targeted, business-types who considered haggling a suitable substitute for flirting.

“No, thank you.”

To his surprise she turned and began to walk down the alley, into the darkness and away from the carnival. Even though he suspected the denial was a part of her game — just as it had been with some of the other girls he’d seen over the last few months — her bluntness came close to toppling his confident smile. He moved to catch up with her.

“My apologies, Elisa, that was clearly too clumsy for you. Allow me to accompany you to your destination, though. It would be ungentlemanly to leave a lady to walk alone.” He matched her pace and she nodded approvingly.

“He’s not wrong, is he, Londe? You’re the ‘right candidate,’ are you?”

A question she had no business answering but a question posed by a superior nonetheless. “Yes, sir.”

“Hm. What you’re about to learn, Tiri, will place greater expectations on you than you’ve been able to meet so far.”

Decidedly not a question. She roiled inside, dying to declare him wrong, to insist she could handle anything, her legs barely containing their quivering while she parried against intrusive thoughts that made her nearly burn cherry red. The implied promise that she was imminently privy to something secret was enough to keep her in check. She only lifted her chin higher, maybe unconsciously, concealing the fear that he could sense her caged impudence kicking at the bars.

“Balan,” the Headmaster Commander said abruptly as he straightened, earning the snap of the Sergeant’s hand to his temple. “Let’s take them downstairs.”

Unable to come up with words, and worried that she could feel her lip begin to tremble, she opened her arms and wrapped them around Elisa’s waist, her head resting in the crook of her neck.
“Oh!” Elisa blurted in surprise, her arms trapped in Pin’s embrace. She laughed gently, extracting herself so that she could return the hug. “You’re welcome, Pin.”
“We better go,” she replied, withdrawing far enough to look up at her face. “Ozzie’s gonna get impatient.”
“Eh, let him,” Elisa sighed, standing and smoothing down her cream-colored wide-legged pants. “I’ll tell him I needed a moment to say goodbye. I never felt as protected anywhere as I did here.”
“It’s kinda like a safety net,” Pin answered, not in the snide way she might have a few days ago, but instead with. . . Could it have been sympathy? “This is home base, this is comfort — the known universe. No matter how far you went out to explore, this was a constant. Always waiting for you. Yeah, I get what you’re feeling.” Pin sighed, looking down to the floor and then over her shoulder to where the bed sat in the growing glow of daylight. “But safety nets hold you back. You can’t go too far. You can’t make too many mistakes. You feel like you owe it to the place where you find your comfort not to threaten its existence.”

He scowled at her and a dark spot bloomed on the gauze, the microfissure wounds along his shorn jowl reopening and oozing into his bandage.
“Don’t make the mistake of redirecting my anger, you fucking dunce. There are only three possible scenarios here. Someone in the Titling Office didn’t do their job, someone in the Records Office is giving me falsified documents, or someone who has access to my private study is trying to mind-fuck me.” He leaned in, his glower hidden in darkness, his humid breath reeking of pus and copper, his ire momentarily directionless. “Where do you think I should start, Yrina? What, pray, do you find to be the most probable scenario?”
A fleck of his polluted spittle struck her cheek and she thought she might vomit. With a gulp and a shuddering voice, she quietly reassured him that he was right; that somewhere between the official record and the copy on his desk, someone else must be responsible for the missing details.

Rubik’s cube themed pride pin on a backpack

$“I’m just here for information,” [redacted] said, hoarse and raw, coughing as his inflamed larynx begged to be left alone. “I’m not here to hurt anyone but if you come at me again, I’ll put my knife through your eye.” “Oh, would that you tried, friend.” “Stop it, I said!” Elisa cried again, cracking her club against the cistern to interrupt the growing certainty of strange men trading bludgeoning strikes. The clang proved suitably disarming, with each man backing away from each other fractionally, both resolving to quietly appraise the other in the weak firelight. Elisa came to stand near [redacted] as she looked beyond the intruder to the disheveled state of her quarters, her attention settling on the jagged holes that had been wallowed in the center of the settee cushion. “What did you do to my stuff?” she squeaked, her voice climbing to an octave rarely visited.$