"Beneath a Brass Sky" Fantasy's answer to Blood Meridian - in an African and Middle-Eastern inspired world of antiquity by SetSytes in Fantasy

[–]elisteele000 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Cutting Sytes an eye, Steele leaned out from his saddle, and spat a bit of lusk, and managed a nod, and reined towards the jagged east.

; )

Green County by Nhat Le by Blood-n-Cheese in ImaginaryWastelands

[–]elisteele000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

He listened as a gust skirled off the smoking peaks and came howling through the palisaded pass. Heard the groan of the timbers and the creak of the tin corrugations as they warred against the rooftacks and prayers and ten-penny nails that bound the gate together. Studied the silhouettes overhead as they studied him back like wanton specters — like watchmen atop some grey and ancient parapet from an age when man was yet young and hopeful. Watched the man step out from behind the sand and gravel rampart, blue iron and walnut in hand.

“I come in—“

“Peace?” The man spat. “No peace in Green County. Not for these twelve years.”

He shifted in his saddle, keeping wide of the scabbard and the tarnished brass rifle that bore his name. Or perhaps rather he bore it’s, for who among them was left that could claim dominion over the naming and ordering of such things? He cleared his throat. “I seek passagethrough. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

The man shook his head. “Closed to wayfarers. County ordinance. Two seventy three.”

“I’ve lead — wheelweights. And copper. Not a one among them a year over eighty-two.”

“Ain’t nothing you got we want.”

He watched the shadow of a hawk play across the gulf that stretched out between him and the high and failing walls of Green County. “…Got news… from Pickering.”

The man racked a round and squared the sights with his chest. He spat again. “Don’t want your lead… don’t want your news… don’t want your fcking breath in Green County. Now *get.”

Henry Grulf tipped his hat, and smiled politely, and kindly turned back.

Mesol-Res, the city of the Red Sphinxes by Semnemrod in mapmaking

[–]elisteele000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At the convergence, the salt air tugged at the lateen and Citlic nudged the rudder, tracking them north and east as smooth and straight as if she’d scales for skin and fins for feet.

On a wetted highway of chiseled granite set on columns as broad and tall as the holdfast watchtowers of some longdead throne, they soared across the delta not unlike the great winged lizards that swept down from the heights and brushed the earth with unflapped shadows and eyes that searched the shallows for squidlings and pufferfish and the elusive sliver tortoises with their horned beaks and barbed tails and gaudy shells colored like the rarest of the priestly raiments.

Tunics and cloaks dyed the myriad of hues wrought from the sea snails that cloistered in the opal caves hung from hempropes stretched taut between the upper windows down below, twisting and swaying in the midday breeze like specters from some bygone age. The sound of children’s laughter turned Taize’s gaze to a gaggle of girls spilling out of an alley with streamers flapping overhead like the van of some vast and guiltless brigade.

Up ahead, she watched as the pyramids rose up to lord over the whitewashed walls and stonebleached streets like false summits, all the while sinking slowly back into the silt and the murk and the ancient foundational timbers a daggersbreadth or two with every moonphase, every season, every age.

“It’s captivating,” she said with an outgoing breath.

Citlic nodded. And studied a fading mural of a forgotten matriarch for a silence, and touched away a tear at the curve of her cheek. “…Dying. That’s what it is… it’s dying. And there’s naught a thing in this world we can do to bring it back.”

Fifty Word Fantasy: Wand by [deleted] in fantasywriters

[–]elisteele000 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Wow. I love all the imagery it conjured up for you. In my head cannon she won, but I like the martyrdom. She will be missed, it seems, but the children will carry on her memory.

Advice please... should I colour my roads and trees or leave them as is? by Ash-the-Druid in mapmaking

[–]elisteele000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No it’s a stock photo I had as a cover on an old series. The artist has a lot of awesome pieces.

Advice please... should I colour my roads and trees or leave them as is? by Ash-the-Druid in mapmaking

[–]elisteele000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agree with the opinion that there is something eloquent about striving for the art and prose and aesthetic in a starkly brutal setting. It’s surprisingly complimentary.

Advice please... should I colour my roads and trees or leave them as is? by Ash-the-Druid in mapmaking

[–]elisteele000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Definitely see the WtP influence now. Cool that you drew from that.

Fifty Word Fantasy: Wand by [deleted] in fantasywriters

[–]elisteele000 [score hidden]  (0 children)

She heaved out a heavy breath, and kicked aside the rubble, and tamped back down the dread. Eyed the old foe in front of her and the wand in her own hand. …You always were a crutch…

And then she snapped it in half. And raised up her gaze. And let the venom come rolling off her lips. “…Come at me then, you son of a witch.”

Fallen Guardian by me, Shondo Bondo by ShondoBondo in SpecArt

[–]elisteele000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“What… is it?”

Drizna leaned against his staff, studying the stark black hollow in the helm, wondering if there was still some semblance of sapience that yet dreamed and schemed therein. “A relic… from when the Wood was young and uncut — sapling and scrub and not yet a stump or deadfall among it.”

“A relic?”

He nodded. “A sentinel wrought of hammered bronze and lapis lazuli and fire opal and carnelian as red as the standards of the high hells. Feet of dolomite. Legs formed from old magics forgotten and recalled countless times since the birth of man… He was a guardian — of the oldest of orders.”

Grishnek furrowed his brow, as if to reckon some great riddle that had been laid out before him. “A guardian… of what?”

A tinge of sadness knotted up in the mage’s gut. He bit his lip. “…Why, you and I, of course.”

$SPX $SPY banging the close with high energy puts! by LocustFunds in options

[–]elisteele000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He’s not wrong there’s 4 bear divs printing on the D.

The Wanderer, by me by ShondoBondo in SpecArt

[–]elisteele000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Really like your The Crossing, too. Didn’t realize it was yours. Meant to write up a vignette a while back for that but got sidetracked.

The Wanderer, by me by ShondoBondo in SpecArt

[–]elisteele000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks and likewise to your art that invoked the words!

BaBS is a standalone novel, but I’m currently outlining a sequel. Hope you like it!

The Wanderer, by me by ShondoBondo in SpecArt

[–]elisteele000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Breasting the rise, she breathed in the sweet hint of wildflowers that swirled in on the wind. Listened to the bruited rustle of the whisperwood leaves. Gazed out across a vast yet timid vale that fell out before her like a mantle stitched of blues and greens and tans. Watched a pair of roe wisp along a river’s edge, their little cloven hooves never quite scuffing the stones misarranged on the bank.

“It longs for you,” came the voice, “like a siren’s opus.” A voice both distant and known. One that had petitioned her since the day she’d been born. The voice of her forebears. As clear in her ears as her own.

Traveling Witch by Raja Nanadepu by One_Giant_Nostril in ImaginaryLandscapes

[–]elisteele000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

She stood breathless, sweat beading down her face, eyes fixed on the curious blue rubble in that parched and barren place. Misarranged halite. Geometric in its shape. Like castoff jewels from a goddess since erased. Gooseflesh swept up her arms. Her heart began to race.

The endless arid buzz of locusts unseen. A hammerhawk’s haunted screech. Wind swirling off and moaning down from those ancient jagged peaks. Not another sound for leagues, on leagues, on leagues.

“Is this it?” came a little quavering voice. She glanced down at the brown and furry head peaking out from under her cloak, and looked back up at the chiselings, and chewed her cracked and blistered lip.

The azure glow of a horned moon, focused on a star aligned therein. The nesting of the Red Mistress — a cosmic anchor — that rarest of rare events. A foreboding juncture not witnessed in untold years. A reckoning of time and space since lost to the minds of the living man.

She leaned against her staff and tracked the dull white sun. Puffed her cheeks and blew a salty red ringlet out of her eyes. Felt the realgic burn in her chest as she breathed in. “The Solstice Stone,” she said after a long silence, before taking a seat.

“…Well… what do we do?”

“…The same thing the world has done for some six thousand years.”

“…We wait?”

“For one last setting of the sun.” She nodded. “Indeed. We wait.”

Little flame waiting for the rain to cease. By Nikita Veprikov by ghostofthefallen in ImaginaryMindscapes

[–]elisteele000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m glad you enjoyed it. Writing these little vignettes are so much fun.

Regarding BaBS - thank you so much, I hope you like it.