The world around you slowly became aware to you as you awoke from your slumber. The reason behind this had you wrapped in his arms and had moved your hair out of your face before slowly tracing the features of your face with his fingers. A slight shiver ran down your body at the contact, his fingertips kind of cold at first touch. You moved closer against Bard, chasing the warmth that his body gave you. His arm wrapped tighter around you in response, his hand cupping your face as he placed a sweet and chaste kiss on your forehead. You could feel his gaze on you as his lips moved away and he slowly caressed your cheek with his thumb. Something inside of you wanted to see the way he looked at you right now, but you did not feel like stopping this sweet moment or opening your eyes for that matter.
It was when he spoke, however, that your position was clearly revealed. "I love you," was all it took for a smile to bloom on your face. He chuckled at the sight, and you quickly moved to hide your face in the crook of his neck, embarrassed.
There's Something down in the Old Sundiver Mine. There's Something about it that hangs in the waist-high waters; Leftovers from last rain that the aqueducts couldn't quite filter out. The Something isn't a man, but it's born of mens' suffering. The sound of picks striking metal from sunrise to sunset, all so the lucky ones can go home to their sheet metal shacks, with enough for a loaf of stale bread. The Something sits in every corner of every tunnel, and it feels their pain as its own, gorges itself upon it like a grand feast. One day it might even swallow itself whole for its effort.
There's Something in the Old Sundiver Mine, stretching miles upward until it breaches the surface and grasps desperately at the sky, pleading for death. The man in the clouds looks down on it as though pitying a sick dog. They lift their cold, metal mask and sip their expensive chardonnay. "Death?" They ask, "You will not meet death. You won't even chance to see him. Nay, you will cure death." Their smile stings like salting a wound. "You will build me a mountain of bodies so high that it dwarfs even I, and reaches up to the heavens; That I may throw wide the gates and bring the dead home." They cast The Something back down without another word, so that it may continue its wretched work.
There's Something in the Old Sundiver Mine; People from the tower of pitch black steel, chained to the very ground they dig. The tower is everywhere you might look, touching the sky and burrowing deep beneath the rock all at once. It injects poison and suffering into the earth, and its people are expected to uncover the poison; They carry it home with bare hands and empty heads, for the good of all men. It fills them with thoughts of Everything, an endless expanse of color and sound. The rainbow could do it no justice, and The Something pursues it desperately. It fashions mockeries from rock, tampers with its monuments, and devours men whole. Every day it grows larger, and the mountain of bodies higher, though we pray it may never reach that gate, in fear of what may lie in wait on the other side.
Disclaimer: These all take place in the same setting. The stories will not be listed in chronological order, as I'm not the only person writing in this setting and there would be significant gaps for stories I haven't written. None of these are publicly available (yet). Most stories will fall under the genres of horror or modern fantasy.
- The Witch's Daughter: The story of a young girl growing up in a town that no longer exists. The story spans eight chapters and two acts, detailing the events that lead to the destruction of a small town on the shore of Lake Erie. One of the two acts is currently finished. Much of the plot is recycled from an old Monster of the Week campaign I used to run. MOTW will come up a lot further down this post.
- The Woman From Elsewhere: A direct prequel to The Witch's Daughter, detailing the events that set up for the town's destruction in TWD. Set in the 1800s. This is more of a short story than a massive writing project, but it's important worldbuilding.
- The Threshold Initiative: What was originally intended to be a novel-length sequel story to my girlfriend's MOTW campaign, and is now an entire sequel campaign featuring the same party, just a different GM (me). The story follows a party of supernaturally-inclined individuals escorting a team of researchers on an expedition into an extra-dimensional superstructure. Lots of fucked up nightmare fuel ensues. Think The Southern Reach Trilogy meets House of Leaves meets Monster Hunter.
- We Need to Talk About Audrey: A direct prequel to The Threshold Initiative. The CEO of the Blakewood Biomedical Corporation recruits a willing individual to check in on her only daughter at the university she attends. Disturbing truths about the family's history are unearthed.
- Your Back is Killing You: The only completed story on this list! A short twine game detailing a recurring nightmare had by one of the setting's most important characters. Set between Hymn For The Godless (the current MOTW campaign) and The Threshold Initiative. You can play it here! No prior experience with this setting or its lore required.
- Blood and Liquor: A side story set in 1920s Pennsylvania, during a war between two crime families; one of vampires and one of vampire hunters. Contains some setup for events from TTI and beyond, but is largely its own thing. If you like stories about bootleggers, vampires, The Italian Mafia, androgynous priests, and world class dental care, this one's for you
- Flesh in The Water: Set a decade after The Threshold Initiative, a team of marine biologists journey to a new depth of the ocean, uncovered by a recent earthquake. The team must wrestle with the consequences of their lead researcher's past, and uncover the true nature of a force long thought dead.
- Project Apostle - Prototype: Project Apostle, the magnum opus of former Blakewood Biomedical CEO Noah Blakewood, did not so much have humble beginnings as it did horrific ones. The consequences of Mr. Blakewood's actions have rippled out for decades, and much of that burden falls on one Jill Faulkner, who had her life ruined by the project and now sifts through its ashes to find some meaning in her suffering. The second twine game on this list.
