Gotta act fast
All right, luvvies? The end of the year's feeling very busy: it's a week since Audio Drama Hub Podfest (met some talented people from Discord communities in person, found out about a potentially cool writers' group), tonight's part 1 of my my Actual Play UK stream as game master, and it's only a few weeks until Dragonmeet. It's full speed ahead! And I've got an appropriately action-packed instalment of our story for you this month.
running order
our feature presentation: the story picks up a year later, when Callum's got his life completely in order and nothing is about to give
asides: what's new with Merely Roleplayers, what I'm making and enjoying, #pinspiration
fin: what should I call this story?
feature presentation:
The first grenade came through the open window. Callum hadn’t opened it. The grenade smashed the bowl off the coffee table and bumped onto the carpet and under the sofa.
Callum jerked up from the desk. His chair tipped over and his vodka tonic spilled. He was still up and dressed, which gave him a chance, but wasn’t prepared for anything like this, which all but took that chance away again.
He was dashing for the door to the suite when it clicked politely open and the second grenade rolled in. It bumped off his empty boot and spun straight for his bare feet.
The door and window closed behind the grenades, less subtly than they’d opened. Callum fell back like the door had slammed right into his nose. Both grenades went off like fire extinguishers, spinning as they spurted clouds of greyish vapour.
Callum had had a year to get comfortable in the suite Vivian Hithercombe rented for him at the Horizon Hotel. Long enough to forget that comfortable wasn’t the same as safe.
aside the first: see—be seen
If you're reading this the day it lands in your inbox, I'm on the air tonight!
Heart, Part 1 of 2
Four delvers rove deep, deep into the unreality of the City Beneath. Each seeks to achieve the unimaginable. But in a city shaped by desire, it can be dangerous to want too strongly...
I love this cast and I'm excited about the things I've got planned for them! It's a while since I've had the chance to run Heart – the campaign I ran in lockdown is up there with my best ever roleplaying game experiences.
Characters in Heart choose a Calling – the reason they're down in this extremely hazardous place – and the rulebook has this note saying that having everyone choose the same Calling can give you a nice focused campaign. That note has intrigued me for ages, and when better to give it a try than in a two-and-done game? So all four of our delvers for this game are seeking Enlightenment: they believe that somewhere in the City Beneath lies the means to achieve an otherwise impossible goal.
feature presentation continues
Callum scrambled to his feet and crumpled straight back down again. His head was heavy. His legs wouldn’t take the weight. Knockout gas. They wanted him woozy, reeling, unconscious. Could mean they wanted him alive, or could mean they wanted him dead, and knocked out was step one. If you know your target’s somewhere in this set of rooms, but you know you can’t see them to get your hands on them, gassing the whole set of rooms is a solid opening shot.
Bad news: whoever they were, they knew Callum existed, and where he lived, and had a reason to attack him.
Good news: if they were gassing the whole suite, probably none of them was anyone Vivian had introduced him to. They probably couldn’t see him, or hear him coughing.
The door and window stayed shut. Waiting for the gas to do its work.
Callum got back to his feet more slowly, clawing at the back of the sofa and fighting panic. Springing up too fast would only land him back on the floor, under a heavy second carpet of gas. He emptied his lungs and took shallow breaths with his nose buried in the crook of his elbow.
aside the second: the world's a stage—& we're all Merely Roleplayers
Now playing in the Studio: The Office Party
Four Bureautopians embark on their first quest: to enhance their personal development with team building exercises in a faraway land.
Coming next in the Main House: Vigil: Fear Itself, with Alexander Pankhurst as Graham, Ellen Gould as Jess Butterworth, and Chris Starkey as Cameron Jarvis (and we've already recorded the Vigil production after that!).
feature presentation continues
Fabric samples were scattered on the coffee table. Autumn Wray Benjamin’s label sewn into the corner of each one. He’d been planning to change the curtains. The Horizon gave their rich long-term guests a lot of leeway; they were old-fashioned in some ways. Autumn had sent thick, heavy swatches. Callum had wanted to shut out the world. He reached over the sofa and snatched the closest square. Clamped it over his nose and mouth.
Doors off the living space:
Main door, shut, attacker waiting patiently on the other side.
Bathroom door, open, gas curling through. Could he hide from the gas in the bath? Running it deep enough would take too long. And he’d have to come up for air. And if the gas knocked him out, he’d fall under the surface and drown.
Bedroom door, open.
The bedroom had a window. No grenade had come in through that one.
One leg gave way. Callum’s knee struck the floor. Pain blew his drooping eyes wide. It shot into leaden limbs. He staggered drunkenly from support to support, from sofa to TV to doorframe. Kicked once, twice, three times at the wedge under the door. Fell over again getting out of the way as it swung shut.
The light in the bedroom was off and the haze of gas blurred the edges of the bed, the slid-open wardrobe door, the dresser and mirror, the closed curtains. Or maybe it was Callum’s vision that was blurred.
From beyond the door, an icy ping and crisp crunch of glass; a heavy boot encountering the remains of his vodka tonic.
Muffled voices, moving closer.
aside the third: create—consume
Writing: Dead Weight episode 2 (heavier rewrites needed on this than on episode 1!), and I got a new scene down in a frenzy the other day for an untitled project I've been codenaming Project Snakeskin
Reading: Ruin of Angels by Max Gladstone (reread), Notes for a Bisexual Revolution by Shiri Eisner
Listening: Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals (Bitter Karella), Big Game Hunger (Multitude), Formentera II (Metric)
feature presentation concludes
Callum levered himself up on the bed one-handed, still breathing through the swatch. Tore one curtain open and half off the rail. When had he locked the window? It was winter; he hadn’t had it open in weeks. No, it wasn’t locked, his fingers were just too sluglike to do the catch. It was a safety window anyway, it only opened a few inches, not enough to vent the gas out of the whole suite. Voices coming closer, barking curt updates at each other. They’d only shut it again, and if Callum re-opened it they’d guess where he must be.
He couldn’t stay. Vivian hadn’t given him a contingency for this, and he hadn’t made his own. He was meant to be safe here in the Horizon. Unseen, unknown, untouchable.
The darkness drew in until the catch was all he could see.
He couldn’t stay.
He dropped the swatch. Needed both hands for this. Needed all his strength, his lungs full. It’d either work or doom him.
Callum lifted the oval mirror off the wall and swung it at the window.
He charged after it, leaving behind the bedsheets he’d chosen, the spirits he’d discovered a taste for, the small luxuries in the bathroom he’d picked up to pamper himself – all the ways he’d left himself open to this moment.
The bedroom door slammed open and shuddered against the wall.
The mirror and the window both exploded into shards, spinning and twinkling out into a clear winter’s night.
Callum followed the mirror.
One moment chemically drowsy, next second suddenly freezingly alert, leaping through a net of sharp glass shards, lungs filling with sub-zero air mercifully free of gas – and panic lighting up every nerve as the fall began.
To be continued on 8 December
aside the last: accessorise—advertise
fin: readers—writers
I still don't have a good title for this story about Callum & co. Anything come to mind? What have you been calling it in your head, if anything? Tell me in an email (just hit reply) or tag your answer on the socials with #FoggyOutline.