The Device

The bloody thing was maybe the size of a pack of playing cards, jet black with weird runes all over it. Not that I really cared about the aesthetics; I just cared that rich people wanted it.

The Seminary was clearly expecting any thief would have magical properties, given all the sigils and the like that a quick bit of blackmailing the third in command totally bypassed.

He thought I wanted to study it, and was quite surprised when I killed him.

The payment was large, and I blew it on drugs and girls within a week.

Good timing really.

Negotiating From The High Ground

Even as Dr. Apocgeddon held me over the side of the skyscraper by my throat, all I cared about was Gale and her safety.

“I know you two have a blood bond,” the evil Doctor was saying, oblivious to my attempts to dislodge his hands. “So tell me where the Daneche Keys are, and I won’t slaughter her.”

I got out “Fu-“ before he let me go.

Three quarters down I finally got a handhold, and began to climb back up. I guessed I had fifteen minutes of bragging and general swagging about before he’d kill her.

I guessed wrong.

Firerain

When the army was maybe half a field over, I lost my cool and kicked the Corrector of Imlanor in the shin. She didn’t open her eyes, nor move from her cross-legged position, but she did reply.

“Yes?” she asked, annoyed.

“So sorry to bother you but we’re still just ten people against a couple hundred thousand and your God has-“

I stopped as the skies opened about the army, and their hollering turned to screams as some sort of acid poured down onto them.

“There we go!” I said, as she opened her eyes in shock.

“That’s not me…”

Adaptation Hills, SD

The town would adapt.

It was the first major settlement within a thousand miles… Well, couple hundred miles, but a very rough going couple hundred miles. A town built from scratch, by the best negro slaves money could buy.

And then that was made illegal, so the town adapted.

Irishmen could he hired for not much better than slave costs, with some chinamen to do anything technical.

Then that became illegal, so the town adapted. Women were cheaper anyway.

But then came Lights Out, and the collapse of modern society.

So the town adapted.

Or rather, reverted to its roots.

Politics V Government

Too many people confused politics with government.

Sure, they are intertwined, irrevocably so. But in all my years doing deals, shaking hands, taking meetings, I’ve met a whole lot of people who were playing politics.

Far fewer people who actually wanted to govern.

I made an effort to seek them out, to find those rare, delicate flowers who were looking to make the country, the world, a better place to live. I sought them out, brought them under my wing, got them to listen to me.

And either corrupted, blackmailed or just plain crushed them. Couldn’t risk them winning out…

Peaks And Valleys

Every relationship has peaks and valleys.

The initial meeting, the spark of meeting someone who you find incredible and, hopefully, feels the same way about you, that sends you flying into the stratosphere.

After the initial joy wears off, then you see the flaws, and you expose your own to them, and that can lead to disaster.

But, if you both stick to it, you can ride that out, and rise again to the top of the mountain once more in the bliss of a full, loving relationship.

Then go down again, into the valley of dull monotony.

Fingers crossed.

Past The Frontier

I’ve spent nearly twenty years out here on the Frontier. Seen the aftermath of Injun massacres, seen a man mauled to death by cougars, and seen a man take three whole days to die from a snake bite.

But when I came across the… incident, I was lost.

Wasn’t the blood or nothing, I’m used to that, and seeing someone taking the coward’s way out, well, that I’ve seen plenty.

But all in a circle, all laid out neat like… And the thing on the altar?

Pumped that thing so full of lead second I saw it. Seemed to work.