Four Fools Press: tease week

Showing posts with label tease week. Show all posts

Friday, December 19, 2014

Brought to you by Four Fools Press: “Crazy Good Stories”

DLOG 03-30-02-B:

Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture

Nakano

0937 Local

A triple H. this time.

The body count rises as the System struggles to get through its own HUD clutter. You would think the Cyber Crimes units would have found a way to bypass the archaic firewall known in antiquity as bureaucracy. I mean, we’ve made the jump to biosynth, discovered cychopathy+, and ensured the survival of both our species and the synthetic one we fostered...but you can’t just delete human nature.

Not that that wasn’t tried. *Shudder*

Someone is killing our own. We’re down to three units. Three. My old partner could remember when we were in the thousands. It’s like we’re being hunted. Slowly, methodically, thoroughly.

I am now one of the last CI-BR* detectives left. The first waves died putting down a coup. A hundred in a freak accident at the training center. Another company downed in a hover-trans hop. Many left the service after the great defunding of ‘94. Now, despite the upscaling to resist some nasty psycho-war++ business, Cyber C. hasn’t been beefed.

Anywho...

This is supposed to be official. I just don’t find much care left in me for being “official” or “professional” in these things. My Supe is dead, replaced by an Interim Virtual Interface (INVI). It doesn’t even detect sarcasm. Just hums, beeps, and collates. These H.s are gettin’ pretty nasty. Heads roasted and popped like an overcooked melon. Based on the placement of the bodies, they were enjoying a collective brain-tank**...Maybe one of them thought up a Riviera cafe, a traditional lodge next to Fuji, or even a smoky pub in 1940s Oxford. Who knows. Someone slipped in and turned them into headless horsemen.

Strange thing to note:

The think-tank took place on a sidewalk next to the gardens. Commuters clogged the streets, loungers covered the greens....people everywhere. Sure, you can brain-talk anywhere, but people still get spooked by the white eyes. No sunglasses, helmets, or paper screens means we either have shameless citizens, tourists, or something else going on.

Their bio-feeds show them to be locals...

Rules out tourists.

Their latest Cloud archives reflect intense isolation and introspection in all of them...

Classic Hikikimori***.

Also, from what I could jack, these were all analysts for Shingori Security. Even with Full-Transparency clearance, their project files wouldn’t decrypt. Whatever it was these cloistered crypts had been working on, it must have been big. Big enough to drive them out of their holes into a rushed mind-meld.

And now they are dead.

Just noticed an innocuous folder titled “Food.”

Would have overlooked it, except for curiosity at what a hikikimori likes to eat. Wow, no digital-to-door gourmet service. It’s chock full of personnel profiles, case studies, and feverish, near-gibberish notes. Looks like one of them had been a huge fan of CI-BRs. Cute. Articles, posters, commendations, (outdated) training manuals, casualties...shit. There’s a paper titled Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? in here. One section includes intimate details on all current CI-BRs. Too intimate. I’m in here. We’re called, mavericks, nuisances, and traitors. It outlines our habits, hobbies, homes--Everything. Even has tactics tailored to each of our tendencies. The file..........?????????????

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This week is Tease Week!

(We're Jesters after all, you should expect some tricks...)

If you want to know the end of this Writing Warm-up, Subscribe to our Mailing List now!

You'll get the ending to this story on Sunday!

Don’t miss our latest Four FOols release, Weregild.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QOE1GN6

12-19-14 Writing Warm-up

6:53 AM

12-19-14 Writing Warm-up

#MMWW #teaseweek #WritingExcercise #WritingWarmup mmww tease week writing exercise writing warm-up

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

12-17-14 Writing Warm-up

Brought to you by Four Fools Press: “Crazy Good Stories”

On the first day of Cthulmas

My true lord gave to me

A madman’s twisted fantasy.

On the second day of Cthulmas,

My true lord gave to me

Two deep ones

And madman’s twisted fantasy.

On the third day of Cthulmas,

My true lord gave to me

Three frog-spawn

Two deep ones

And a madman’s twisted fantasy.

On the fourth day of Cthulmas,

My true lord gave to me

Four crawling bholes,

Three frog-spawn

Two deep ones

And a madman’s twisted fantasy.

On the fifth day of Cthulmas,

My true lord gave to me

Five yellow kings,

Four crawling bholes,

Three frog-spawn,

Two deep ones

And a twisted madman’s fantasy.

On the sixth day of Cthulmas,

My true lord gave to me

Six gugs a-slaying,

Five yellow kings,

Four crawling bholes,

Three frog-spawn,

Two deep ones,

And a madman’s twisted fantasy.

On the seventh day of Cthulmas,

My true lord gave to me

Seven shantaks a-shrieking,

Six gugs a-slaying,

Five yellow kings,

Four crawling bholes,

Three frog-spawn,

Two deep ones,

And a madman’s twisted fantasy.

On the eighth day of Cthulmas,

My true lord gave to me

Eight Monks of Mu,

Seven shantaks a-shrieking,

Six gugs a-slaying,

Five yellow kings,

Four crawling bholes,

Three frog-spawn,

Two deep ones,

And a madman’s twisted fantasy.

On the ninth day of Cthulmas,

My true lord gave to me

Nine Lloigor dancing,

Eight Monks of Mu,

Seven shantaks a-shrieking,

Six gugs a-slaying,

Five yellow kings,

Four crawling bholes,

Three frog-spawn,

Two deep ones,

And a madman’s twisted fantasy.

On the tenth day of Cthulmas,

My true lord gave to me

Ten Lords a-sleeping,

Nine Lloigor dancing,

Eight Monks of Mu,

Seven shantaks a-shrieking,

Six gugs a-slaying,

Five yellow kings,

Four crawling bholes,

Three frog-spawn,

Two deep ones,

And a madman’s twisted fantasy.

On the eleventh day of Cthulmas.........?????????????

This week is Tease Week!

(We're Jesters after all, you should expect some tricks...)

If you want to know the end of this Writing Warm-up, Subscribe to our Mailing List now!

You'll get the ending to this story on Sunday!

Don’t miss our latest Four FOols release, Weregild.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QOE1GN6

12-17-14 Writing Warm-up

8:19 AM

12-17-14 Writing Warm-up

#MMWW #WritingExcercise #WritingWarmup mmww tease week writing exercise writing warm-up

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

12-16-14 Writing Warm-up

Brought to you by Four Fools Press: “Crazy Good Stories”

“Full sails! FULL SAILS!!!”

“I’m givin’ ‘er all she’s got, Cap’n! I’m a Wind-Catcher, not a Wind-Maker.”

“Don’t give me yer lip, Red-Beard! I’ve ‘ad enough of yer railin’s to last me a lifetime...and it better be a long lifetime at that.”

The dour sailor spat back. “It would be as long as the sky is large if you’d followed my advice. That Jonas clan is a whale of an albatross, if one ever did swim these sky-streams.”

“I said, SAILS, not lip!”

“Aye, Cap…”

The captain would have spitted and tossed the burly engineer overboard if he had a replacement. The mouthy savage had a way with running his yap as mightily as a ship. But he needed him today, more than any other day, to work his wonders. A Titan was hot on their tails.

By Odin’s beard he’d been right...not that I’d let that foul islander know it.

Far to the right sailed their cruel nemesis, the Jonah Clan. They were smug and swift, edging off in their skiff just as the monster awakened. How the colossus awoke, Captain Fiske would have paid all the treasures in Valhal to know. These Jonas, as the Gael liked to call them, seemed to have a knack for stirring up ancient ills. Rumors of drakes and trolls seemed all-too-closely tied to the fell-fliers. Now giants could be added to the lot.

“Ragnarok will be in tow, if these Loki’s sons have their way…” Fiske muttered into his frosty beard.

“What’s the status of our cannons, Spear-Spouter?” The ship’s master howled down into the hold.

A bent man scurried to the base of the ladder. “The powder’s low, but we should be able to get off a shot or two. Not that it would dent that beast, Sah! Fellin’ ships is one thing. Only Mimirs-draught could tell how to kill a giant!”

“By Odin’s beard, did Loki switch out my men with girls?! Stop wettin’ yer lips with mead and start packin’ the spear-spewers.”

Fiske whirled about, fur cloak snapping like an angry tail behind him. His piercing black eyes fell upon three men-at-arms standing ready for orders to board. The captain licked his bristled lips before shouting across the clamor from the oncoming terror. The giant’s bellows knocked words about like a fighter tossed scrawny runts.

“Here’s Tyrs-own! Have hands on your blood-embers, men. We will lay a red-mist about this raven-road yet.”

Fiske’s eyes gleamed with a hidden fire. He reached deep into the cauldron of his soul, as the grove-tenders had taught him. He could feel the warm fire gnaw up from the depths, writhing into his chest and up his arm. A horrible pain wracked his limb as a cruel, fanged blade blasted from his palm. Fiske anticipated this familiar, ravenous pain. He glanced lovingly at the ivory blade extending from his hand.

Fish-Bone may be Hel’s gift, but a mightier blood-worm you won’t find in all the realms men tread.

The Jonas may have their magics, but we’ll spine them yet.

The massive Titan plowed meadhall-sized fingers into the mountains about him. Slabs of rock uprooted from their ancient resting places as lightly as one would pull grass from the soil. The iron-hided titan then heaved the hill-sized shards into the air. The towering stone hurtling miles above the earth appeared to be floating mountains...floating mountains that moved ever nearer by the second. The sun disappeared as.........?????????????

This week is Tease Week!

(We're Jesters after all, you should expect some tricks...)

If you want to know the end of this Writing Warm-up, Subscribe to our Mailing List now!

You'll get the ending to this story on Sunday!

Don’t miss our latest Four FOols release, Weregild.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QOE1GN6

12-16-14 Writing Warm-up

11:16 AM

12-16-14 Writing Warm-up

#MMWW #teaseweek #WritingExcercise #WritingWarmup mmww tease week viking writing exercise writing warm-up

Monday, December 15, 2014

12-15-14 Writing Warm-up

Brought to you by Four Fools Press: “Crazy Good Stories”

London, Fall 1904

London had a different feel than Boston, or even New York. It was more than topography, country, or nuance of language. Even the architecture, while different in age and styles, did not set the city apart as much as the very air. The fog and coal smoke were ubiquitous, but the ancient feeling of the atmosphere here in this metropolis that had existed since the Romans was what set it apart from its sisters across the Pond.

Reese contemplated this absently as he smoked his cigar. The rhythmic click of the tip of his cane upon the wet cobbles of the street. He had left is cousin that had summoned him across from the family’s home in America. A twelve day crossing on the Arabic saw him in Liverpool and then his cousin’s home outside London. Now, after a companionable meal, which they had discussed their business at length, and then a performance in Piccadilly, he was making his way to rooms he had taken for an indefinite time.

He exhaled smoke with a hint of leather and earth, to mingle with the ever-present mists that swirled about the city on such nights as this. It was nights such as this that seemed to attract the predators, those that prey on stragglers, solitary sorts, or the unwary. Just as well, for he too was solitary, but he was not prey, he was one of the predators. This is why dear cousin Maynard Reese had sent him a cable to come to London, one that implored him to make haste as his skills were needed. Skills as a hunter of men and monsters; sometimes they were one and the same. In his fifty years of life he had handled cattle, mined, and soldiered. However, all had ultimately been in the pursuit of the family occupation of facing down and destroying those things that would prey on humanity.

He had retired to the family home in Boston when Maynard had contacted him about the disappearance of numerous children in White Chapel. Like Five Points and Boston’s West End, this was no great thing of note. Though even fifteen years later, the London neighborhood was synonymous with the Ripper. Two of the missing children had been found, it was the state in which they had been discovered that had prompted the cable.

The flesh had been bleached, the eyes and organs removed. The first, a boy of twelve, had been discovered in the basement of a tenement. It was believed the killer had been interrupted in disposing of the body and disappeared. That was when Maynard sent the cable. The second, in a similar state was discovered while Reese was on the train from Liverpool.

Maynard, a detective himself, had set up an appointment in the morning to examine the body. They would investigate the site where the body was discovered after. Now he walked the streets of White Chapel, not in any belief that he would run up on some clue or the villains themselves. That was the stuff of Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls. Rather he was exploring the battlefield, the neighborhoods, the alleys, and the corners. He did not know this place, he wanted to feel where his foe hunted, to possibly understand the mind or how it might turn.

Suddenly, Reese saw shadows shift, scuffling steps, and cries muffled by a hand...or perhaps something else.......?????????????

This week is Tease Week!

(We're Jesters after all, you should expect some tricks...)

If you want to know the end of this Writing Warm-up, Subscribe to our Mailing List now!

You'll get the ending to this story on Sunday!

Don’t miss our latest Four FOols release, Weregild.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QOE1GN6

12-15-14 Writing Warm-up

7:25 AM