Dreams and Stories

Delicious dreams fade so fast, but this one lingers longer...

It seemed, it felt, a movie made from a novel, but no novel I have read.

The world: a world where dogmatic occult studies were the norm, and sects and specialties were trained in common institutes, although the hierarchies of disciplines and organizations made for awkward social interactions, as a forced and formatted road map for the haves and have-nots was superimposed on everything.

The opening was on a school of sorts, set in an overcast city, its name and trim lit brightly, back-lit frosted lettering in an alien alphabet. *The viewer, it must be noted, thought that it should have been lit with slightly more colorful neon tubes, the lettering in neon, although said viewer also approved this treatment for the artistic theme of the interpretation by the director. The voice-overs are all a blur, but they related to some minor extent the nature of the world and the educational system.

We then find ourselves in a rather sparce and monochromatic cafeteria style dining hall, where the students are gathered. We find ourselves looking at a table of miscreant children, wearing disheveled and worn garments, traditional gray wool school uniforms with no apparent crests or logos. As they sit murmuring and whispering amongst themselves, obviously students who live with the knowledge of their mediocrity in the heirarchy, they hush and look both respectfully and with a note of longing as a group of tall figures wearing large ornamental headress/helms and long dark robes glide down the center aisle to one of the prominant tables near the front. The voice-over intones that these are the '??? of the light' *a word is lost in the fog of memory. They are clearly the upper eschelon of the school, if not the society.

A stern looking older woman sits at the miscreant table and chastises a girl, who we understand to be our heroine, for slouching and looking reproachfully toward the elites. She straightens and sits properly, glancing nerviously at her peers.

The headmaster makes some sort of announcement, then with a typical and wizardly cliche, summons forth the meal... in this case, what appears to be some sort of roast fowl, chicken or game hen, plops down inelligantly onto the platters in spaced down the long, gray, formica tables. The appearance of overcooked green beans and mashed potato is not shown, but its assumed it was all conjured forth. It is also a safe assumption that the meal is considered mediocre by many, but not our focus, the miscreant table.

Our heroine is looking at the mistress at the table, mocking chewing as she is discreetly moving the food she mocks eating into a dish. As the meal comes to a close the mistress leaves, and so our heroine pours the left over potato and gravy into the bowl she had already moved the green beans and meat into, filled to the point that only surface tension and viscosity are keeping the gravy from running out. She then spends some time securing another bowl to the top of the first, an impromptu lid.

The audio track has been subdued at this point, a noticable quiet. The adolescent heroine and her classmates are at this point having a hushed arguement about what she is doing. She must be insane to do this. She insists her family is alive, and she has found somebody who will help her find them. The food is obviously a payment of sort, but she either says or implies that this person is a mercenary or proffesional... a claim left questionable by this first payment.

She dismisses herself and meanders down a series of halls and out a side door, where she is on a stark sea-cliff, tiered brown stone with moss and close grass on the top of the rocky escarpment. A trail of sorts meanders down toward a tall-grass medow and beyond that, a forest. A thin fog lingers over the damp scene as she makes her way to the forest. At this point, a figure in a gray cloak is slithering along the cliff trail behind her, ameoba like in its movement. *The viewer understand this almost sinister figure to be a person who is a member of a sect that is trained to move so in their gray robes and cloaks. He also has the anticipation that this will be her ally in the upcoming story, but no indication of such is on the screen at this point... our viewer has, after all, read the book.

The next scene (that I recall), is her and several of her miscreant classmates being brought in to an office for questioning, the classmates are dutifully shielding her without lying, but eventually they are lead out and she is alone. Later still, she is being led down the dark monochrome halls toward what is clearly to be some sort of room of review and judgement.

This is where the story fractures and the dream unraveled, but it was clearly anticipated by the viewer that the boy in the gray cloak was going to come in at the last minute of this review and justify her presence on the cliff with a fabrication about her doing him a favor of some sort.... cementing their bond as a duo in the story to come.

It is also clearly understood by the viewer that the mercenary she was taking food too was actually an outcast member of the elite group we glimpsed at the beginning of the 'movie', moving on his own tragectory of revenge and validation.

Circles circles all around

I was driving through Gig Harbor a few days ago, and the new commercial district is bereft of traffic lights, instead, the area is a series of traffic circles connected by short roads. As I was putting along through this labyrinth of circles and lines, my mind began to wander, to wonder...

And so these thoughts lead to an abstract notion of an intersection, and then a tiered circular intersection, and from that, I envisioned circular intersections tiered and connected in a larger circle, with tiered circles beyond, rising upward. Then it seemed that the circles rising from a central depression was a poor design for a city, and I inverted the concept, making them rise to a pinnacle and decending in tiers lower and lower. At this point, my mulling notion of subterranean cities in spherical voids connected with the initial thought of the tiers rising from a depression, and I realized I had a solid concept for one (or more) of the cities in this fictional world I am envisioning.

So now, I have a new layout for a reasonably artistic and unique set of cities in spheres. This will certainly not be the only design style for these places, but it will definitely be the signature for a particular class of such cities, in much the same way that many periods of history have seen the development of unique layouts or styles.

World Building, Subterranean Cities

The premise is getting refined in my stray moments. The elements and history that might have lead to the mandate for such a situation are still loosely defined. At this point, I envision a surface world consumed by fire, probably demonic in nature. Using my concepts for portals that connect worlds (which would require massive scanning and text conversion of the old CoT's to do any justice to), I envision a portal being manipulated, from one side or the other, and creating an egress that once opened, spilled hellfire across most of the surface of the world.

Original ideas and some dated sketches of this concept show a few mountainous zones that due to altitude, geology, and/or geography, escaped the wrath. One such elevated location would have a portal on site, and either due to security or issues of alignment and tuning, was not able to be utilized as a hellfire portal. Further, minor orbiting sphere/worlds (again, detailing this is much scan and text conversion away) connected to this world would have been subject to the hellfire consumation as well, barring a few that were on the same 'secured' channel access that the surviving planet-side gate was on.

So to summarize, this is a world mostly consumed in fires, with a few patches of miserable surface world left standing above the hellfire. Orbiting it are a number of small 'spheres' most of which are consumed in fire as well. A few orbiting sphere-cities escaped, the last vestige of normal existance left to this world.

Now, for whatever reason, left to later musings, the technology existed on this world that also opened subterranean spheres up. I envision it working something like this: Deep shafts were bored into the earth, and suspended down into the space was a sort of energy converter... it created a spherical field of energy and glazed the rock solid, and then, as the field's size adjusted, vaporized everything inside the shell, converting it to energy and compressing it into a hyper dense mass, which would later become part of the fuel core for the 'sun shard' that would make the space habitable.

Once the space was properly glazed and vacated, engineering teams would decend into the space and begin constructing a secondary shell of arches and anchors that would act as a support for the cavernous roof and a mounting for the structure that would suspend the 'sun shard' in the center of the void.

In an ideally built city, the upper tiers, built between the heavy arches and the glazed shell would probably be rather elite housing, with lower built homes haveing similarly lowered status. The notion of suspended shanties and breaks in the shell leading to dark alleys would apply to broken, failing, or improperly built cities only. Also, the better cities would have ample gardens, hanging and trellising down and around the space, making for a lush, humid, and fragrant space. Older or broken sites would have much less greenery, and feel dry and thin aired.

Further, I envision a series of tunnels, perhaps with some sort of 'subway' system, connecting many of these deep cities... as well as many abandoned tunnels and caverns.

In some cities, the Sun Shards may be suspended entirely from above, via huge chains. In others, mainly the more run down cities, supports from below are used to secure the shard in place (as previously envisioned).

Ideas about this are swirling madly at the moment, but this is where I am at for the most part. More to follow I am sure.

World Building, Concepts and Dreams

Many of my other weakly pursued projects have been neglected of late, as I rattle the notions of a city (or series of cities) embedded deep within the earth, each built in a spherical void within the rock, buildings sprawling along the floor of the space, creeping up the steep sides, with shanties suspended by cables from the roof with precarious catwalks and rope bridges connecting them.

Several (3-4) diagonal braces angle upward to support a construct in the center of the void that contains a 'Sun Shard' that provides light and heat for the space, and even perhaps, some O2 recirculation... The diagonal braces would have matching vertical angles reaching to the roof, being used as part of the anchoring for the shanties.

Occasional breaks in the sphere would reveal crevasses and caverns adjoining the spherical space, that would become dark alleys for those drawn to such environments, or those who could not afford to live in the light of the sun shard, and/or refusing to live the precarious (and probably illegal) life of the shanty dwellers.

Ultima Online, again

The interior of the Pyramid was only three stories high... the forth was used to create the illusion of three or four more stories on top of the actual living space.
The first floor was the working space, with crafting equipment for blacksmithing and tailoring, the two main professions in UO. There was also a mock stable with a stable hand, and in the kitchen, there was a cook. You could purchase NPC's and give them things to say in response to keywords spoken in their presence... the cook and the stable hand were that sort of NPC.

This was an early shot of the second floor... the dining room and seating area remainded the same, but the rest of the area was eventually filled out with more homey appointments as well. In UO, there was no global Auction House system, but you could place personal vendors in your home to sell your stuff at prices you set. The suit of armor was one such vendor. I always sold reasonably nice stuff I looted off my victims or stole at rock bottom prices to the benefit of my friends (who were the only ones who would visit my god-forsaken corner of nowhere).

The third floor was largely decorative and went thru many itterations. The entire floor eventually became a library designed to show off my collection of system generated and player-authored books, as well as a lot of the curiosities I had accumulated.



The one element of the third floor that always remained the same was this garden terraced room... the glowing orbs made the room a very nice space to be in at night. The Pentagram in the center concealed a teleport-pad that would send people to the 'top' of the forth floor.

Heir's Folly- the doodle

Most of my larger works started as a doodle in the CoT. Heir's Folly was no exception:

Heir's Folly

Properly scanned and uploaded now, This is probably my best 'completed' work so far, in my opinion at least.

This is actually a second piece based on a previous, the subject of which can be seen as a silhouette against the moon in the background. Unfortunately, this drawing took center stage in my mind and the other fell by the way-side... a story most artists can tell many times over. I still work on the other drawing occasionally, but it lacks the sense of urgency this drawing had.

Ultima Online

One of the coolest things about Ultima Online was the custom homes.

The biggest houses had only four floors, but if you were clever, you could make them appear to have more than four, and if you worked at it, you could create the illusion of features like a working dock too.


The Pyramid was my main residence. It was also only four floors, but it looked like it was seven stories tall. The interior was comfortable and homey, unlike the dock-house. The Dock-House was just a warehouse for my ill gotten gains, so the 'feel' of that place was never important.

King of Pain

The words KING and PAIN are mirrored images of each other. The dagger forms the word 'of '. This was done about 10 years ago. In the animated version, the KING/PAIN revolve around the dagger.

The Banquet

The lavender clad porters bowed out behind golden doors as the spectacle we had all long awaited began with the ceremonious music's first reverberations filling the hall, our heads, and indeed, our very souls. Seemingly solid wave-forms of sound emerged and engulfed, drawing us into the haunting tones of the spectral composition that dominated this, the grandest of all halls in the palatial estate of the Forever Non-Existent-but-Always, Master of the Infinite-Nothing, The All-at-Once-and-Never, Lizard King.

This was his affair and our expectations would doubtlessly be exceeded as the festivities intensified through-out the evening, always seemingly at their greatest apex, only to rise to higher and higher levels still, until the lightening of the eastern sky would signal the coming of the Dawn Beast. The fiery golden orb would herald the conclusion to the chaotic splendor, and our bodies, minds, and souls would embrace the gentle lull of the dreamless, death-like slumber that we would come to so richly deserve.

The invisible servants brought out a tray of immense proportion, made of an opalescent material, refracting a myriad of lights, shimmering with the beauty of the Aura-Borealis in the most violent photon rage of the Dawn Beasts history. Without the slightest disturbance to the carefully laid out table settings, unseen hands placed the giant covered platter in the center of the huge table.

Scents of seasonings so perfect and exotic that they inspired an erotic and nearly orgasmic reaction from those present wafted across the great hall. The undulation of pleasure from the mere aroma of this feast was already in excess of the loftiest critic’s expectations, and, in fact, the feast had yet to begin. Intonations of the ascension in mood and spirit were carried through the shimmering, pulsing air on waves of sound that teased and alluded to a crescendo, a climax to be long and rich, an eternity made of a single perfect moment.

A silhouetted hand slid through the steam pressing out from beneath the smooth rounded cover, feeling along the surface to find a hold by which to raise the throbbing, sweat-shrouded dome. In a raptured daze the party collectively took a deep breath of anticipation as the tempo aligned to the soft pulsing aura of the platter. With the luminous throbbing, the tempo gained from the driving roll of long ocean waves to the ready pulse of expectant lovers. A susurrus wave of hastened breaths and soft panting began in the guests as the steady acceleration of the tempo reverberated through us all, caressing our bodies, wooing our souls.

A cacophony of shattering crystal and intense screams rang through the hall as the tempo broke into a blanket of hard white noise, the now lurid crimson dome shot skyward, releasing a thick fog of succulent vapor, and staining the hall blood red. The aroma of the feast was full upon us, and the intensity of it was far beyond mortal pleasure's comprehension. The intensity of the screams belied more than mere orgasm, they were our efforts to remain cognant and aware of who and what we were, to not yield to the absolute darkness of release. The chaos ensued for what could pass for a lifetime--for a score of lifetimes. In the haze of the feast an innumerable orgy of pleasures gripped us, each intensifying until it became an unbearable Hell, and salvation was only a new pleasure, another wave crashing on our over-stimulated bodies, minds, and souls.

This was indeed no ordinary gathering, that was already quite certain, and as the mist dissipated and the ocean's waves ebbed, the realization of exactly why began to dawn on us all. This was to be the grandest feast, the most intense of banquets. Every bite was to be a new apex, every morsel a transcendent high. No words would pass as the entire congregation devoutly devoured the sacrament in abandon, reveling in the experience. This was the Lizard Flesh Banquet, and the main course, there amidst a garnish of exotic fruits and delicate blossoms, was no less than the elusive Broiled Host.

With the arrival of dawn, and the passage into a dark and forgiving slumber, we quietly and for one last time, thanked our Immaculate and most intensely Now-and-For-Never Friend, Host, and Main Course, The Lizard King.