8FOLD: Mighty Medley # 35, December 2016, by Messrs. Brenton, McClure, Perron, and Russell

[Drew Perron]

On Sunday, December 25, 2016 at 11:40:15 AM UTC-5, Tom Russell wrote:
<snip>
> The reign of the Dead King; the School of Night; the fate of a fly and
> a flower petal.

Oh yeah. Someone's gonna get schooled. :D

> The original Seven Wonders - all eight of them! The BLACK DIAMONDS OF URUK!

RAD

> "Quest" Part 1
>    by Saxon Brenton

YAY more Saxon

>     From the chronicles of Erebus Tamor:

Ahhhh, of the Digimon Tamors.

> After the death of Emperor Mandragus, his corpse was dug up by his
> successor to be tried. In the midst of the trial, however, the eyes of
> the corpse opened, and he condemned his successor to death.

NICE. Good invocation of history.

> Upon the coast of Telmar stood Amarantine, the oldest and greatest of
> all the cities of Terra Alter, called the Eternal City. It had
> survived chaos and change, war and revolution, for its magic kept it
> strong and secure.

It's gonna fall by the end of the story, isn't it. Okay, maybe not, since Adrian knows the emotional value of setting points, and if it does fall he's gonna make it worth it; but for most writers, a statement like that would be considered an ironclad Chekov's Gun; if you have a thing in act one that is considered eternal, it must be utterly destroyed by the end of act three.

>    In the labyrinth of catacombs that lay beneath the Eternal City sat
> the chapterhouse of the School of Night. Once it had been an cabal of
> revolutionary aristocrats. Over the course of centuries, it became an
> order of assassins, controversial among even the other worshippers of
> the goddess of death.

Fascinating. <3

>    In a bright place within the all-consuming dark of the tombs,
> magical light streamed through its stained glass windows, showing the
> most famous murders of history. It shone upon a colorful garden,
> holding all the poison flowers in the world. Spiders and scorpions
> crawl among them.

Oh my god this is great? :D So pulp

> She was Azella Alraune, daughter of the
> Emperor Mandragus, the Dead King. She had lacked obedience. Like many
> problematic daughters, she was sent to a nunnery, in this case the
> chapterhouse of the School of Night, to whose craft she was well
> suited.

Aaaaaa yes <3 <3 <3 SO pulp

>    "I thought you didn't dream anymore, Father." Her voice was a
> well-tuned lute whose strings dripped with poison.
>    "I should not, and yet I do! I don't like them! Dreams are nothing
> but riddles deep-fried in folly! Would that I could behead councilors
> who speak such double-tongued drivel as the Lords of Dreams!"

I love how simultaneously evocative and petulant this is.

> ROLL CALL: Pharos, Egyptian sorcerer! Rhodes, the colossal man!
> Century Man, guardian of the holy spear! Midnite Man, two-fisted
> crime-smasher! The Headsman, weird avenger! Windhover, sentinel of the
> skies! Doctor Eight, world-famous adventurer and polymath! Together
> with their secretary Spectra, mistress of light, the SEVEN WONDERS
> battle injustice to preserve freedom!

Ahhhhh, I see the milieu we're invoking. :3 These are great names, BTW - they don't suffer the "obviously all created at the same time" problem of many pastiche superteams.

>    Spectra speaks. "How queer! First Century Man, Windhover, and
> Rhodes! Then, the Headsman! Now Doctor Eight! Three separate cases,
> all with the same bizarre conclusion!"
>    Pharos tosses his own fragment!

How Gardner Fox-ian!

> I called in Pharos! Surely his mastery of light
> and shadow made him the ideal crime-fighting partner for this case!
> (Spectra clears her throat.)

*snerk*

> He was
> hugging the wall, feeling his way around, slowly working his way
> toward Ryan! He may have been there for hours! That's how he got into
> the locked room - he was there all along! And that's how he got out -
> unseen - when the body was discovered!

Diabolical!

> And that's why we brought all four
> BLACK DIAMONDS OF URUK here, to our secret hideout, to lure Griffin to
> us! He's here now! And no match for the Seven of us together!"
>    "Eight," mutters Spectra, and then the fight begins.

Nice place to stop. XD

> Picturesque,
> especially right now in the warm twilight of early evening. The trees
> have leaves of a rich blue-green and there are lanterns for the
> approaching mid-summer festival bobbing from the branches. The lazy
> drone of insects and the occasional chirrup from nightingale bats
> accompanies the sounds of carousing from the taverns.

Ahhhh, good description ~.~

> Better to think of it as an access point to the next
> gaming level. And then the next one beyond that, and the one beyond
> that... And at the very top, assuming the rumours were true and there
> actually was a top, was the demesne of the Arjitect from which it was
> possible to end the game and send everyone home.

oooooh. :D Trapped-in-an-RPG.

> Tunhelg was growing into a broad shouldered man, with the braided
> beard and already having the scars of a seasoned adventurer, but the
> way he bobbed his head reminded Yulgna of the boy she had babysat in
> her own youth.

Possibly for a very long time?

>    "Yes and no," says Medusa. "A cloak was made once before, back in
> 1939, and we know how it was done. It's just prohibitively expensive:
> millions of dollars per square inch. The original suit was all but
> destroyed by the Seven Wonders, leaving only a few scraps."

Ah! :D Linking it together!

> Seven Wonders trophy room?"
>    "There isn't really a trophy room anymore, not since they
> disbanded. When Julie Ann came over to the Daylighters, she arranged
> for everything to be turned over to Blue Boxer.

That makes sen--

> We kept some of it,
> but items like the cloak, which might require further study, he in
> turn turned over to Cradle Tech."

D'oh!

>    "What."
>    "It's in their world headquarters in California."
>    "What."
>    "I am not comprehending your line of questioning. I know that you
> know where their world headquarters is."
>    "Oh my gosh, you are such an AI."

Heeheehee

> "So, in order to sneak
> in to the Cradle Tech world HQ building, which we're pretty sure has
> been infiltrated by FEVER, we need to nab the invisibility cloak,
> which requires sneaking into the same building which we can't sneak
> into without. That's probably not grammatically correct or whatever,
> but I don't flipping care. I will punch grammar in the face on a daily
> basis.

X3

>    "You can't see it, of course, but if I had a mouth, I'd be smiling
> slyly right now."

ADORABLE.

>    "Dollhouse," says Medusa, "open bay doors." The house starts to
> shake, and Cal's kitchen pulls away from her living room to make room
> for...
>    "It's a flipping me-sized jet," says Cal. "Oh, wow. Thanks, Medusa!
> Did I ever tell you how awesome you are?"

Awwwwwwww! <3 <3 <3

Drew "good relationships" Perron