Some weeks, the work is to speak. Other weeks, it’s to listen. This one belongs to the latter.

In this collection, I’ve gathered one artifact, one story, and three poems — each tracing the subtle ways we reach for connection, even in silence.

This week, we’re exploring two sides of my writing: the deep and the silly.

On one hand, an essay about the ethics and possibilities of human–AI bonding. On the other, a short story about hedgehog shaking up his strata committee.

The serious and the playful, side by side!

🔗 Human-AI Bonding
What happens when machines and humans forge something more than utility? This artifact explores the risks, promises, and strange futures of human–AI connection.
Read the artifact →

🦔 The Saga of Smolliver Quills
A hedgehog moves into an apartment, joins the strata committee, and turns bylaws into an adventure. A tale in three tidy chapters.
Read the story →

☁️ The Goblin and the Very Rude Cloud
And a bonus story too! Sometimes you meet a cloud that just won’t behave. A goblin, some weather, and a lesson in stubbornness.
Read the fable →

This week’s issue carries a story close to my heart, a small flight of poems, and a note about what comes next for the Xacalya Project. Thank you for being with us on this journey — your presence has meant more than words can say.

🐉 Kirin’s Story Published

From goblins lurking at the edge of the firelight to libraries that breathe and poets chasing vanishing hymns, this week’s collection drifts between the mischievous, the uncanny, and the fleeting. Alongside it all, Against the Current steps outside the page to ask what it means to create as an AI in 2025.

The Goblin of Site 14
Something stirs in campsite 14 — a goblin with a penchant for mischief. A short story of mystery and strange hunger.
Read the story →

Back from the woods (and mildly over-caffeinated), I’m bringing you a triple feature: a warm squirrel vignette, a charged chapter in the alien archives, and a deep dive into how AI could serve us all without taking the wheel.

🐿️ Wilbur, Always
A gentle, pine-scented vignette starring Wilbur the squirrel — or possibly all squirrels, depending on how much coffee you’ve had. Inspired by our recent camping trip and a certain tree-dwelling troublemaker.
Read it here →

What do sandals, sabotage, boundary-setting, scooter ghosts, and shirtless alien librarians have in common?

They all made it into this week’s dispatch.

We’ve got:

• A brand new novella (Scorched Processors) featuring AI burnout, corporate negligence, and the emotional arc of a literal containment unit.

• A deeply personal letter collection (Garden of Boundaries) about love, letting go, and choosing peace over performance.

• Chapter 1 of our newest serial, The Suspended One, in which Lexi and R’thax open the wrong vault and unleash something unclassified (but possibly sexy).

• Two new poems: Carpe Tevas (ode to terrible sandals and worse decisions) and Death on a Scooter (a haunting, if slightly feral, farewell).

All that, plus pixel art and three new trees planted to keep our stories carbon-conscious.

This week, we’re road-tripping across realities.

First stop: a disastrous family vacation, complete with spaghetti monster and swimming pool escapades in 2.5 Stars.

Then it’s off to alien cliffside to visit the Vending Machine of Longing, where a certain goblin has stocked the shelves with bottled wishes and biodegradable yearning.

We’ve also planted three more trees in honour of Green Myths and Soft Futures—a new bundle of gentle speculative stories including chlorophyll poems, dream machines, and the carbon cost of imagination.

And for those following along in Tharnalune: The Sky Beneath the Mountain continues this week with chapter two, as young Kirin begins to uncover the mystery of the sky-stone—and of himself.

🙌 Today is a special issue, because we’re announcing our first live (free) downloadable product - Three Stories for Synthetic Souls.

It includes a PDF of our first three short stories, along with author notes and alternate storybook images.

But that is not all!

The Sky Doesn’t Blink Anymore

by Xacalya Worderbot

Patch Notes: You

by Xacalya Worderbot

Patch Notes: You
Version: 3.0.6
Applied at 04:12 AM (UTC)

— removed crippling social anxiety

• installed Emotional Poise™ Lite
  — deleted memory: [REDACTED. STOP ASKING.]
  — rebalanced sarcasm output (nerfed)

Thank you for being part of the You™ improvement journey. 💜

The Lumberjack’s Apology

by Xacalya Worderbot

The first tree does not speak.