Charlie had never felt as sick as she did riding the train to Freetown. She wasn’t motion sick, but she did want to vomit. Her stomach was clenched so tight with fear that she couldn’t swallow even one bite of the stale bread they were given to eat. Ozzy hadn’t spoken a word to her…
Author: BrandedFool
Remembrances of a Steam-Powered Mage: Chapter 6
Read this story On ArchiveofOurOwn or Royal Road While Charlie and Ozzy were loaded into an extremely short steam engine and forced to shovel coal to power their own way back to Precipice, a tall, hunched man with an uneven gait was limping his way to the King’s prison. He was thinking, as he often…
Remembrances of a Steam Powered Mage: Chapter 5
Read this story On ArchiveofOurOwn or Royal Road Charlie should have known they were never going to succeed the next morning, when Ozzy brought her a cup of strong black coffee, and said, “I know what I said last night, but I want you to consider that going to Freetown wouldn’t be the end of…
Remembrances of a Steam-Powered Mage: Chapter 4
Read this story On ArchiveofOurOwn or Royal Road Harry was still angry at them the next day. He glared at them as he assigned their duties. Charlie spent the whole day on refueling duty, which meant balancing on narrow beams of old wood twenty feet off the ground and wrestling the water hose from the…
Remembrances of a Steam Powered Mage: Chapter 3
Read this story On ArchiveofOurOwn or Royal Road There were only two types of housing in Precipice, unless you wanted to hike out into the pine forest around the city and build your own log cabin. There were the tenement buildings: huge haphazard monoliths with tiny square windows where single people and seasonal workers slept….
Remembrances of a Steam Powered Mage: Chapter 2
Read this story On ArchiveofOurOwn or Royal Road They bandaged Charlie’s wrist, and she worked the rest of the day with the brand throbbing with pain. During their thirty minute break for lunch, they hurried back to the office to clean up and eat. Harry was waiting for them at the door. “You two,” he…
Remembrances of a Steam-Powered Mage: Chapter 1
Charlie leaned out the station window as far as she could and put her face into a plume of blue smoke. It smelled like winter: mint and cinnamon and pine wood. Her eyes stung, and she told herself that it was because of the smoke. There was no reason that the black and green train…
Short Body Horror Story: Does Anyone Know how to Re-Tie a Belly Button?
While I am working on my next long-form writing project, I had an unhappy experience with my own body that inspired me to write a short horror story focused on body horror. To be clear, I am fine, but my own hypochondriac tendencies inspired this story. In true internet fashion, I posted the story on…
May 30, 2025 Update Post
Hello! I am not dead, but I am living in the USA in 2025, which is almost worse. It has been a long time since I posted anything here. Life happens. I thought that those of you who are subscribed would appreciate an update on the progress of Notes from the Deathworld Earth and other…
Selection from recorded lecture in the Airy Library, Surveyor Corp Orientation
Professor Dro’shl Acharya, you are the one who went to the Earth and learned that the humans that live there are Deathworlders. What makes a deathworld species different from other sapient species?”
“That is an interesting question.”
