http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/list.pl?gallery=139

Samuel Araya is the best... and so the tale continues.

************************************************************************************


    Kirsten stood naked in the chill warehouse, bathed in the pale bulbs above. Her sensual form contrasted against the dark of the mechanised enviroment. About her a circle of dark robed figures paced in a counter-clockwise motion, murmuring verses under the cloaking hoods.
    Kirsten inhaled deeply, her cehst rising in anticipation, her desire growing, wanting to feel this 'power' wash over her. About her the chanting grew, reverberating about the store house and taking on a metallic tang.
     Faster and faster the circle of warlocks paced, all seven drawing blades from within their shadowed coats, pointing with the glinting daggers toward the naked form.
    The lights stuttered, and all about the vermin and insects hid.
    The chanting grew.

    "Orrooobaasss! OOOrrrrooooobaaaassssss!" The seven hoods, a mandala of black pawns, added further urgency to their calls. Kirsten shuddered, her body inviting the alien force to caress her.

    The seven daggers darted back in toward their owners, followed by a snap of sound, the sharp tune of a taught eleastic band being cut. The blades flicked back to point at the female, drawing with them a crimson stream of fluid, the claret speckling the ivory skin of the woman. She gasp in ectasy. Her cheeks flushed. She tingled and felt the world fall away.

    As one the warlocks were blown back, dark ragged sails on the wind, blown by a wave of cerise nebula.
    Kirsten shrieked. This wasn't how they had been told that it would work. It should have been some blessing in honour of a spirit of life and dreams. Sparkled tears flowed down her cheeks and she trembled alone in the dark.
    She retched, dropping to her knees. spilling out a mixture of acrid stomach juices. But also blood. The ferrous taste coated her lips. She whimpered and clutched at her belly, heaving up another foul mouthfull of mordacious fluid.

    "Help!" Kirsten quietly whimpered. "It hurst. Its in me."

    Her hands slipped in the bile and acid that coated the concrete floor as she tried to steady herself. She gagged again, falling onto her side with a wet thud, her body twitched and writhed in pain.

    "Mum. Please. Mum?"

    A miasma of gore and meat erupted from her stomach, rending her body open like and obscene flower, a mess of red and white petals. And there is the dark in its sanguinary birthing hall the being took its first breath.
   

Burn it.... burn it all!

So here I am tidying my room ready for my moving house.

So much... not crap... but things discarded. Small things... things from a life previous in a way.

I have a half dozen books I will bin. Not often so I do that. Destroy a book. But this time it has to be. The books represent a part of me, a previous iteration that died a while back. A good 2 years previous or more. it just goes to show what happens in that amount of time.

But then it is liberating, finally getting to shed that skin. Some small trinkets from it will remain. But those are the fresh buds. The ones to be planted down the line, free of the cesspit that they were originally born into.

Time to die. And stand again.

Technomancer tale contd

    The pavements blurred past,  a menagerie of people and places, luminous curry houses, gabbling bars, 24 hour supermarkets, and the streets being woven by lines of students and frolickers of the night.
    It was almost ten and night had now properly set in, the navy sea of the heavens loomed in, gazing down onto the orb of the world through a host of beady ice eyes. The bus lurched and stuttered in the traffic, a near constant chatter pervaded the carriage, intermingled with the pungent aromas of kebad and perfume. Vincent sat lazily at the back of the coach, one foot propped upon the seat before him, his arm resting on his knee cupping his chin in hand. He simply watched the world rush by, his eyes filled with the neon reds of car headlights, of the sodium yellow of the street lamps.

    Every thing about us is just numbers and connections, formula trying to balance itself.

    The bus sputtered and ground metal gears as it pulle dup to another bus stop. Outside club goers ejected from the bar nearby balled and jeered, laced with the under current of shattering glass and wailing of intoxicated foul mothed women.

    Or maybe its just formula out of balance, and this thing we call 'Life' is just one glimmer of the world we just to control. Is this our destiny? To tear and rend one another apart just to feel that control once more?

    The tired metal behemoth, feet of molded rubber and heart of  of cut steel and noir vitae, came to a stop just outside the museum. With a reptilian hiss the door swung open and Vincent alighted, turning to gaze at the gothic spires of the Manchester museum, its walls of cut sandstone now grime slick with soot and bird foul.
    A choking cloud signalled the departure of the bus and Vincent stood on the pavement as ther other inhabitants of the city flowed by. He inhaled deeply and allowed his mind to rise above the clamour of the world, focused upon the quadratic form of a formula, a wavefunction, one cut by his very being, allowing him to expand onto the buzzing sea of thoughts about him.

    How lucky, to worry and fret about such minor, small, insignificant things. Is you curse, the snuffing out of your flames, a blessing shielding you from the darkness about?

    Vincent shook away from the ocean of thoughts and turned to view the Maths tower, the university mathematics department, a spire of poorly designed concrete and sheat glass. An eye sore on the campus, yet the home of a secret more bewildering than the madness of pi.

    Having crossed the road and past its gas burning contraptions, Vincent skulked about the base of the tower, his eyes alert for those that might have need to follow him. He paused and took in his surroundings, the neat little alcove of cast stone and brick. His eyes were drawn down and he smiled as he found, as always, the greeting card of the sanctum, the inlaid metal emblem, a version of the Atlantean symbol for the arcana of Space, sat upon one of its sides making it resemble the symbol for pi, the emblem though having been fractured into dull and polished lines. The symbol also acted like a barcode.

    Vicent approached the alcove and searched the surface for the right spot, his fingers folling every groove, every scratch. And there hidden amongst cracks and worn stone was the symbol of Space again, though different, altered by other cuts, altering the underlying power of the rune. It glowed.
    He withdrew his hand as the rune came to life, lime green essence seeping from the engraving. The wall before him shuddered and a slither of light sliced its way down the length of the alcove. With a grinding of cement and sand the alcove opened, dust falling snow like from the emerging doorway. The concrete revealed a dented and gnarled metal elevator door, the edges rusted and spattered with grime. With an accomplished 'ping' these doors also opened, revealing the checkerboard printed metal floor and dimpled sides of the inside of the lift. A faint musty smell emanated from the lift, the exhalation of air catching Vincent's coat. He stepped inside and jabbed the button for the only floor available. Floor 13, the sanctum of the Hyperion cabal.

If only everyone could heal as fast as Wolverine

OK so its been a fun weekend of smoking, games, movie, madness, and more movies.

X men 3 was great. Finally getting to the epic levels that you would expect from a Marvel film. Just kind of sad to see some of the characters die off.
How about other things then?

Well I finally debugged and I am now sure my code is good at work. It does everything that we need. There is a month left on the clock to get my transfer report done, so I need to start using my time wisely.

Roleplay based stuff is good too, with exalted going again, my Manchester book burning away at the back of my mind, and stuff for Etherscope and others.

I guess I feel tired walking out of the cinema today because I went on my own. Being single does have its down sides some days. Plus with my house empty except for me, and of course I have to tidy stuff up so I'm ready to move, I just feel a little down.

Oh well. Just the right mood to write some more to my short story.

Your Birthdate: January 18

You are a cohesive force - able to bring many people together for a common cause. You tend to excel in work situations, but you also facilitate a lot of social gatherings too. Beyond being a good leader, you are good at inspiring others. You also keep your powerful emotions in check - you know when to emote and when to repress. Your strength: Emotional maturity beyond your years Your weakness: Wearing yourself down with too many responsibilities Your power color: Crimson red Your power symbol: Snowflake Your power month: September

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

    OK so today at London went well. Car journey was good, didn't get there too late. THe presentations were a bit to take in (bloody materials science and condensed matter physics).
    Lunch allowed me to chat to a Dr at the Royal Institute about water simualtions. Needless to say he didn't understand the magnitude of what we are doing.
    After that the farce began, the allocation of the hours for HPCx, a supercomputer we use. We had asked a modest amount an it got cut down. But still we know what we can do with those hours. Fucking loads.

    Car journey back was amusing, my supervisor has a weird and direct sense of humour. Work was discussed and  it seems like I'll inherit alot of research to oversee. Shit! I'm becoming important.

    So now for the weekend and an early start tomorrow to run some neural nets now that they are optimised.



    Above is a quantum topological iso surface of the electron density of the water dimer. Pretty eh!?

Early night tonight so no story chapter update. Off to London for a meeting over who gets what hours on a supercomputer..... should be fun meeting some other guys in simulation. It's good to network in the field of chemistry.

On other news.... there isn't much other than normal PhD work... which would bore the hell out of you guys

Hmmm.... does what does this say about me

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Moderate
Schizoid:	Moderate
Schizotypal:	High
Antisocial:	Low
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Low
Narcissistic:	Low
Avoidant:	Moderate
Dependent:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Low
-- Personality Disorder Test -- -- Personality Disorder Information --

Yeah the Schizotypal thing is about right

Digital daemon Part 2

      Vincent lay outstretched on his bed, his hands behind his head, buried by his shock of hair, his boots still laced up and resting on the deep ruddy duvet sheet. The thoughts running through his mind, triggered by the squat fiend, had caught his imagination, and his darkest fears. He let out a weary sigh and stared at the ceiling.
    Unlike his study, his sanctum, the rest of the house was a sty, lacking any sort of attention. Wall paper pealed from the damp, plaster was dented and crumbling, mildew lined the bathroom tiles, a stale air filled the kitchen. His bedroom merely did its job, providing a means for sleep. A worn and lumpy spring mattress lay on top of the bed frame with scruffy worn sheets covering it. The pillows were old and lacked body, and the room had a single chair, the type made of a plastic bucket seat sat on a painted coated metal frame, the gloss plastic bubbling up due to rust just below the veneer.
    The ceiling above with its chip flecked wall paper faded to a digital fuzz and the tender embrace of sleep robbed him of consciousness. The support of the well-used mattress gave way to the agoraophobic nothingness of incubus, and Vincent, or more correctly Mercury, drifted along the threads of sleep.
    Clad in a cloak of  polythene gossamer, a deep grey iridescent with circuitry, Mercury, Vincent, both one and the same, his inner and outer guises, stood before the vast open roof top, a surface of tar and gravel covered in shallow pools, the ever present thunderstorm pulled back by the tide of cognizance. A crisp, abrasive salty air filled the breathing reality, the gravel rubbing their asperous surfaces together like a choir of stoney crickets, a digital substance of silica.
    Mercury strode down the beach and listened to the roar of the untamed storm in the distance, the clamour of nightmares and desires and lust of all the other humans of the world, of Sleeper and Awakened alike. He wandered to the edge of the roof top and clambered up onto the ledge and stood to observe the land below. All around a roiling ocean of ashen waters clashed against the pitted concrete of the tower, the wind whipping up his cloak, a snakes tongue of synthetic flesh.

    Come on.  I know your out there. Your watching, listening, looking for that name, that power. Why not be more blunt? Take the name, its yours. Or has it been so long you have forgotten what it is?

    "You as much as anyone should know that no road is that straight."

    The ocean below smashed into the silica rock of the tower, sending up a chlorine spray. The tempest clouds illuminated with a sliver of electron light. Mercury turned on his heel and eyed the new arrival.

    "So we have a face then, demon." Mercury hopped off the ledge and stepped forward, approaching the raven being, a wry smile crossed his face. Before him was a man, some 8 feet tall, draped in a fuligin shroud, topped by a equine spartan helmet, the plume a mass of bloody hairs and feathers matted together. The booming sound of the storm slapped the tower.

    "Just one I plucked from the chimera of thoughts out there in the mortal gestalt." The onyx being approached Mercury, his steps met with the faint chalkboard scratching of raptor claws upon the chipped stone. "But we know that faces only serve to act as a body to the thoughts we wish to show. Why look at you my argentate warlock, dressed in the trappings of your wisdom and ego."

    "I guess this little meeting explains why that Decabrian sucked up so much hard disk. Your a Trojan, a message, a warning" Mercury growled "An annoyance! But I like the play on words."

    "I knew you'd appreciate it." Mercury watched as the ebon form stalked to the ledge, looming over the edge. "So many voices, all wanting, all lusting. Dreams are so painful are they not? I have sampled for eons their misguided hopes, no matter how vile or honourable. They still taste bland." The hollow helm turned to regard Mercury, his hair now a silver static made the two seemed perfectly opposed in the realm incubus. One of dark, one of light. One of the modern age, one of ages now forgotten.

    "Dreams give us hope. Hope to fight on. Hope to allows us to survive pain and anguish. Its gives man strength in the face of being cleansed of of our weakness, our foibles. Surely I thought you'd know about that? I mean Pandemonia is what ties us?"

    "Ahh. But then that is where your ego, the faith in your skill, is your weakness. You really think I have anything to do with the realms beyond?"

    Mercury stepped back taking in the full weight of the words, their very syllable. The colour washed from his eyes and his coat bled away its polychrome.

    "Oh. Yes. You have a phone call."

    "W-w-What?" Mercury stood open mouthed. His mind was lost in confusion and in the maze of illusion and mystery.

    A phone call? Shit! The phone!

    Vincent awoke with a start on his bed. His phone wailed away in synthetic tones.

    "FUCK!"

OK so here it is. First fucking post. Ye and ha!

Lets start with some simple shit.

    The city was still in the summer breeze, hues of orange and violet filled the evening sky over head, jet contrails crisscrossing the heavens, carving through the nimbus clouds.
    The buildings of the city loomed overhead like dark brooding priests, tired from gasping in the carbon thick air of the streets. Their vermillion brick faces stained by the years of smog and acerb rain. Windows, dusty filters to the world, dragonfly arrays of lenses held in place by pealing acrylic, look down and dour.
    In this twilight of greenhouse chemicals and ammonia clouded skies Vincent marched home, his noir polymer boots stomping on cracked and crushed paving slabs. Each step heard a faint creak as the leather clad feet strode along the pavement.
    A tinkle and rattle of coins and keys heralded Vincent's return home as he dug from his pinstrip trousers his door key. A satisfying clunk and a ghostly creek welcomed him home, the warm synthetic air gave way to a chill musty air, pugent incense still lingered on from the night before.
    The long windbreaker hung from its usual peg, and the satchel nestled into the sofa. A bubbling and a click, and soon Vincent had a piping hot coffee in hand, the mug emblazoned with an insipid "Your the Best".
    Running a hand through his flambouyant red hair, allow the tufts to take on a sembalance of order, though still a ragged vivid mess, he removed the shades from his forehead and made his way up stairs, collecting the satchel as he passed.
    The leather boots thumped up the steps, muffled by the 70's vomit patterned carpet, the banister creaking with each hand grip upon the laquered cream paint.
    He passed the other rooms on the floorr and made his way to his study, entering the curtained room , faint slivers of light cutting past the the thick fabric drapes.
    Sat humming in some digitial tune was Vincent's PC, the titanium white case freckled with dust. Beside it sat a dated CRT monitor, the standby light blinking a lime green disco. Above the monitor was a crome camera, its cover off to allow the device to zoom at the corner of the room.
    Vincent took in a tired breath and sat down on the thread worn office chair and took a gulp of the amaroidal coffee. "Still no answer the?" He sighed, his voice ragged, disguising his youth.
    He turned about on the spot, the chair straining, and he looked in the direction the camera was veiwing.
    Inscribed in a sticky black fluid was a circle, lined with ten burning candels in one quadrant of the circumference. Within the circle lay a fat slab of beef steak and about it three small coffee mugs containing various fluids; one contained Mercury, the next had some Iodine brown emulsion, the last held what was obviously blood, thick and blackened by the oxidised iron.
    Vincent turned back to the PC and pulled out the keyboard from under a morass of books and printouts; some held menageries of norse runes, pages held madalas and seals. The monitor blinked on.
    FILE TO BIG
    Vincent eyed the screen and peered at the unix shell, fumbling about for a DVD to write too.
    Well thats new. I thought these demons were only little.

Digital Daemon: A Technomancer Tale

    The tray slid out of the face of the difference engine, and Vincent plucked the silvered polycarbon dish out with his middle finger. A faint emanation of sulphur followed the disc from the cd writer.

    Should be glad I know at least which realm this blighter is from.

    Gingerly Vincent held his hand out over the magic circle and placed the disc on the pungent piece of cow, directing the rainbowed face towards the digital camera.

    For a Decarabia this sucker has taken up a lot of band width.

    Viincent sat back on the chair and swivelled around so to lean his forearms on the back rest, he took off his suit jacket and slung it on the door handle. He reached back for his cup of coffee and pulled out a coin from his pocket. With a plop the coin dropped into the inky caffine and he took a slug of the potion.

    Words not heard of on Earth except by those of his calling emanated from his stern lips, the sounds tugging at the cords of the world, holding back all the locks and veils for a brief moment. The world paused in its rotation and the stars above screamed from their fiery hearts. The candles flickered and the cd crackled as the reflective metal vaporised within the disc. The smell of cooking fat filled the room and a wind picked up, flicking pages and notes from the computer desk.

    Vincent grinned. Time for an interrogation.

    Seeping through the cracks in the cage of reality, the Decarabia took form, its luminous being spilling from the camera lens and sucked into the magic circle. Blood and mercury boiled.

    "Bastard! Who are you to bring me here!" Spat the foul toady being, no higher than 2 feet, it observed Vincent with avian orbs. "I shall have the crows tear from you your eyes I will. Feast upon them and dance upon your broken form."

    Vincent leaned back laughing and gulped back more of the coffee and held out his cell phone, the LCD screen flared into life and red numerals bleed in from the edges. The demon clutched at its ears with 6 spindle like fingers on each hand.

    "Yaarggghhh!" The beast screamed, frantically shaking its pocked marked head back and forth. "It hurts! Nooo. No More!"

    "We have an understanding I see." Vincent lowered the phone. "So lets get the obvious stuff out the way. Whats the price?"

    "Fine!" The demon sulked and stared at the mage. "Bloody toys and you. Easy it was back when all they had were swords and crystal balls. Nooo. Make diiigiiital  things you did. Bah! Lazy!"

    "Oh come on. I at least gave you breakfast."

    "Ok. The half moon, on the eleventh hour of night. Burnt in foxglove and nightshade. The hair of a newborn boy. And with it part of the placenta."

    "I see we've gone and gotten a little refiined in our tastes." Vincent got up of the chair and crossed over to the edge of the circle, bringing with him a map of the city and a collection of glossy photos. "You know what I'm going to ask."

    "The city stone. The Great Stone. Oh dear. Late in the hour is it that we try to undo the mistakes of ages past. Of our forefathers." The Decarabia grinned and licked at it's greasy lips, cracked and weeping with sores and scabs. "You've heard him dream. Restless he is. Neither here nor there he dreams. Looking for what was his."

    Vincent sighed. "Yeah. I guess we are a bit late. What is the name?"

    The pygmy creature let out a gutteral cackle. "You think any of us know. Viiiiincent my boy. Are we tired? Has it been a long day? Bless."

    "Fuck you." Vincent sat down cross legged and placed the maps to his side. "Lets rephrase that shall we. What awoke it?"

    "A shard. How does one cut diamond? One uses diamond of course. What awoke him is what sealed him away. Stones and rocks are my speciality didn't you know" With a snigger the demon held up the 'OK' hand signal. Vincent had to smile, as much as these beast were cruel, they did have a way with comedy.

    "Ok, so some idiot breeched the Atlantean seals using some device made of the same stone as the Great Stone and the standing stones about the city. How do we seal it?"

    "Now thats a tough one. Bit like an egg shell."

    "Huh?" Vincent rubbed his chin and got up for a second, the floor boards creaking as his weight shifted. The Decarabia hopped up onto its avian legs and turned to regard the lump of steak and greedily snatched it up, gnawing away of the racid flesh with a mouth of pirana teeth.

    "SHIT!" Vincent turned on a heel and stared at the demon. "Your saying those seals were a one shot! Oh fuck. We're fucked then!"

    "Mwha?" The demon looked over its shoulder, it's mouth half stuffed with the sickly meat. "Mwo ye. Mwah!" The hellish spawn giggled.

    "But thats what it's looking for its name. It's true name. That was how they stripped it of its power. Stole its name and sent the bastard to Elsewhere. Genius. Now all I need to do is find its name before it can. That'll be easy." Vincent chewed on a nail and paced abck and forth in the study.

    "Book of Dead Gods."

    "Don't take the piss. Lovecraft was having a joke when that was written. Its not true. The one in London has no power."

    "But in his own cage Man makes power and makes magic."

    Vincent stood and looked at the hellspawn puzzled. Makes its own power and its own magic. Then did the Seers truely win? What if they made things worse. What if man can in the emptiness of this cage invent horrors never seen of before the Fall.

    "Best joke ever made I think that one."

    Vincent raised an eyebrow and slid his hand into his back pocket and ran a finger over the smooth plastic buttons of the cell phone.

    "Piss off!" And in unison Vincent thumbed the button on the cell phone. A high pitched whine broke the stench of the air and the veil of the worlds open once more, sucking back into the pits of hell their foul little minion.

    "Remember the deal Vincent! Remember" The howl of the winds of the Abyss cut the vile creature off as its form was folded into itself and the CD crumpled and crispened.