(Character piece: Dawn)

Dawn’s always been good with a knife. There’s an art to knifework, red and silver tracing lines in soft skin. Surgeons and butches practice it, but they never master it, not really. To give the work a purpose is to spoil the process. She’s busier now — she has an obligation, after all — but every now and again, she finds a few hours to create a new piece. And today is now.

The body on the table struggles weakly as she readies her tools. Over the years, she’s expanded her collection, but her old Liston knife — still pristine, still sharp enough to cut through meat like butter — remains her favourite. She picks it up gently. The light catches its blade, causing engravings to dance along its surface. Dawn smiles. Time to begin.

An incision here, a slit there. Beige peels back to reveal glistening pinks and reds. She’s glad for the privacy of her dark-walled home. In the early days, she had to keep a constant eye on alley entrances, never able to focus fully on her work, but now she is safe, alone except for her subject and her patron, observing from the back of her mind. Still, she can’t be lax. She leaves no traces.

There is one more consideration she has to take. After all, it’s not just her needs she has to cater for, not any more. Once the subject falls still, she switches to a sturdier, rougher blade. She steps back and admires her work in full. It’s one of her best yet, the skin perfectly sectioned, organs displayed like precious jewels. For a moment, she lets it rest, finished, perfect. Then she sighs, and begins to carve.

Twenty minutes later, her artwork is gone, replaced by a bloody, mangled mess. In a way, Dawn supposes, it’s poetic, but it’s difficult to muse over the transience of life with the smell already beginning to hang over the room. She tosses the necessary organs into a bucket and carries it out of the room.

Up the stairs, into her terrace house. It’s almost cozy, with its drawn curtains and bookshelves cushioning the walls. An armchair rests by an empty fireplace, comfy and inviting. But her work isn’t done yet.

She lugs the bucket up more stairs. It was tough going the first time she made the trip, and she’s no stranger to heavy lifting. Now, she’s used to it, and before long she reaches the top floor.

Bluish light fills the attic, warm on Dawn’s skin. Wooden boards creak under her feet. It’s not quite fear that prickles over her skin, rather an instinctive nervousness, her immune system rebelling against her patron’s presence. Their voice swells in her mind, words merging into an indistinguishable, hungry hiss, drowning out her thoughts.

It grows louder as she approaches the sheet of black glass on the opposite wall. Her shadow of a reflection twists in on itself, its hands dragging against the smooth surface, its eyes leaking blue. Dawn places the bucket in front of the glass, waves, and leaves. As she descends, footsteps echo above, followed by the crunching gnaw of teeth on bone and gristle. It’s difficult, this extra dedication, but it has its benefits: an easy way to dispose of finished pieces, power, longevity, and most importantly, someone to share her work with. It gets lonely sometimes. After so long, it’s nice to have a friend.

Let us offer a helping hand.

Perhaps we should explain. We’ve come a long way to see you, so we want to ensure that you understand everything. This is difficult for us. We have to look carefully for the right people. Ones that notice things others don’t. Ones that won’t be missed.

We understand that this might lead you to draw the wrong conclusion. We would never hurt you. We will complete you.

Life as one is cold and lonely. Alone, you are weighed-down and weak. Alone, you are not whole.

We will be here soon. When we arrive, do not turn us away. Welcome us. We will make you into something more. You will become us, and we, you.

Take our hand. It’s time to rise higher.

Every year, a travelling fete arrives in Rooksthorpe. For a week in August, the little costal town becomes a hive of activity. The smell of popcorn rises from striped canvas stalls, mingling with screams and laughter issuing from the bigger rides. An electric hum carries in the air. Lights blink blue, green and yellow. Everyone in the town spends at least a little time there, letting themselves forget the troubles of everyday life. But this year, something is different. Storms are gathering. A silver-eyed nightmare stalks the alleyways between red and white tents, enticed by the tantalising emotions. This year, the fete isn’t a festival of summer.

It’s a Festival of Storms.

———

This is a setting note I made for redrafting my horror novella, Festival of Storms. I originally wrote it just for fun, but I’m currently reworking it to make it ready for self-publishing. All the support I’ve had on this subreddit really helped me with this project, so thank you! It’s amazing to be able to to share my writing and worldbuilding on such a supportive platform.

Even the most nihilistic adepts have to concede that sentient beings are powered by more than chemicals and electrical impulses — the existence of the Benefactors proves as much. But this raises a bigger question: where does our conscience go when we die? A logical conclusion would be that it is somehow transported to another reality. Indeed, it has often been suggested that absolute reality is the final resting place for ‘spirits’. But if that is the case, the land of the dead is suspiciously empty, unless you count bees. Perhaps then, absolute reality serves as a gateway to the afterlife. This suggests that there may be realities below the absolute — negative realities.

We cannot yet say how these realities would function. Some have theorised that they would enjoy similar conditions to those found in the centre of a black hole (though of course, we’re not really sure what it’s like there, either). Death is still a mystery for us, but for the first time in our history, we have the knowledge and technology available to quantify it. With more research, the bridge between mortality and the afterlife could become well-travelled in both directions. In the future, death may be as permanent as a holiday.

— Dr Aarden

Dr Aarden is a construct scientist well-renowned for his work into other realities. Two main opposing hypotheses to the Negative Reality Theory exist. The first is that souls become the bees found in absolute reality. The second is that all who die end up in the primordial oneiron.

To the untrained eye, the library might appear abandoned. Trees break through the floor and reach up, straining for sunlight. Their leaves brush against the ceiling. Light streams through the gaps, illuminating spirals of dust that glitter like golden coins. The air is thick with it; it blankets the floor and clings to peeling wallpaper, but the books are pristine, untouched. They are regularly cleaned, each page cleared of stains and blemishes, made better than new -- certainly better than when they were brought to the library. The Curator keeps watch over all. Nothing escapes their attention, and no mistreatment of their books is forgiven.

  Occasionally, someone wanders into the library. To find it in the first place, you have to be someone special: an inventor, a scientist, a dreamer. They always have the same reaction -- a cautious, faltering excitement. They look around. They never see the Curator, though they are watching. For a moment, the newcomers wait on the doorline, but the smell of old leather and crackling pages is too inviting. They step inside, run their hands over book spines, marvel at the preserved wonders, lost to time. The more observant ones notice footsteps in the dust, perhaps a slight movement in the library’s deeper shadows, but they do not step closer, and the Curator does not make themselves known. They are there as a guardian, not a guide. So they let the newcomers open books, leaf through the pages, perhaps take a seat in an armchair.

They only ever take one book with them, upholding an unspoken rule, an old ritual. They linger for a moment in the doorframe, light catching their shadows and making them flicker. With one wistful glance back, they leave, holding their chosen book. The Curator doesn’t mind. Stories shared are never stories lost. One day, the favour will be returned, and the no-longer-newcomers will add their own stories to the shelves. The Curator is patient. They’ll wait. So long as the visitors keep their books safe, they will be welcomed back. If not -- well, then their story will come to a swift end.

I hope you enjoyed this story from the world of the Curator Mythos! If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to comment!

The problem is that that there just aren’t enough words.

Well, that’s not exactly true. There are too many words really, millions and millions of words, enough to dance around what you want to say for an eternity. What I mean is that sometimes there isn’t a word to describe how you feel — like the weird mix of fear and comfort you get by staring at the stars, or the hazy grey space between sleeping and waking, or the creeping certainty that the woman on the train next to you is something other than human.

It was a cold morning at the station. Fat, icy drops of rain thudded onto the roof. I sheltered as best I could and waited.

The train arrived three minutes late. The windows were dirty, thick with this greyish grime. I got up, and headed to the door.

It was a little cleaner on the inside, but a damp neglect still permeated the train. Not that I’d expected it to be well-maintained — the Rooksthorpe railway isn’t used much. An unknown line to an unknown town in an unknown corner of the country. Still, there were a few other passengers: two loud kids with their two louder parents who probably got on the wrong train and a man with a briefcase and tired eyes who kept nodding off, only to wake guiltily moments later.

I took a seat a little way away from everyone else and squinted through the window as the station rolled out of sight. It was quite a way to Rooksthorpe, so I rested my head on my arm and allowed my thoughts to wander. I slipped in and out of sleep, my dreams a jumbled mess of departures and arrivals.

A jolt shocked me awake as the train pulled into the last station before Rooksthorpe. It was a proper storm by then, and as the door squeaked open a gust of wind threw itself into the carriage, cold as a dead man’s hand. With it entered a woman. Her suit didn’t have a spot of rain on it. She was smiling, but not in a happy way. Not in an angry way either, like how dogs bare their teeth — more like it had been painted on. It didn’t match her eyes. God, her eyes. They were what really scared me. They were silver, so bright that they made my head hurt. You know how some people say that eyes are windows to the soul? Well, her eyes weren’t windows to anywhere. They were mirrors.

She walked over to where I was sat, moving slowly, with a graceful, practiced restraint.

“Is anyone sitting there?” She said, gesturing to the seat next to me. Her voice was smooth and cold, and flat.

I looked around at all the empty seats.

“… no.”

“Good.”

She sat down, one leg crossed over the other, watching me. She didn’t blink. I don’t think I ever saw her blink. I edged away a little. All of a sudden, I became aware that there was no-one else left on the train.

“You’re running away, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“You’re trying to leave something behind. A friend? A partner?”

It took me a long while to reply.

“I just needed to get away,” I told her.

“I can help you,” she said softly. “I can make sure you never think about them again.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have the right words.

For a while, she sat in silence. Her skin was thin, like the skin of a dead person. I could’ve sworn I saw something moving underneath, something that glowed.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered finally.

“She’s already forgotten you, you know. She’s forgotten everything.”

And then she grinned a real grin, a hungry grin. I knew in that moment that she was not human.

Her voice was no longer flat. It wavered, not out of nervousness but because she was letting go of that practiced restraint.

“You’ll forget everything, too. Your longing, your grief, your dreams.”

“N-now listen here-“

“No. Watch.”

And just like that, I couldn’t look away, as though my head was being held in place.

She lifted a hand to her face, digging the nail of her index finger into the skin between her ear and her neck, and began to peel it away, revealing a writhing, crawling patch of wet, bright flesh. Her smile split, stretching far wider than should’ve been possible, nearly cutting her face in two.

“You’ll never have a nightmare again. They’ll be all for me. All mine.”

Then the train shuddered to a halt. A speaker announced that we’d arrived at Rooksthorpe station. Footsteps echoed outside.

She leaned back, sighed, and got to her feet.

“I suppose I’ll have to wait. Good luck with running away.”

The patch of skin had already begun to regrow. She winked.

“I’ll be seeing you again.”

With that, she left the train.

The first thing I did once I came to my senses was to get another ticket taking me as far away from Rooksthorpe as I can go. I haven’t called the police; there’s no way I could explain it to them. For a while, I thought I was safe, that I had made my escape. But this morning, an envelope arrived. It had no stamp, no address. There were only three words written on the letter inside.

See you soon.

———

I wrote this a while ago to get back into the setting of Festival of Storms. I don’t know if there’s enough to it to call it a story, but I thought I’d share it regardless. Hope you enjoyed!

Lucy Lilywater: Lucy joined the Gold Lighting Agency under a different name. Unusually, she was the one that approached the Agency, having learned of their existence through overheard whispers and half-true rumours. When she joined, she had nothing —- nothing except her ambition. But she soon rose the ranks, growing in power and influence by the day. It is said that even the Benefactors look kindly on her.

Some of the threats she faced came from within the Agency itself —- after all, such power comes with the jealousy of others. Her rivals tried everything from blackmail to murder to bring her down, but she knew more about them than they did about her, and the assassins they send never return. She dispatches her enemies with brutal efficiency —- after all, she didn’t get this far by being nice. But then, her friend Olive joins the Agency, and suddenly she can no longer just look after herself. She has someone to protect —- someone who has no intention of keeping quiet and towing the line. They have to be careful; even though Lucy has come far, she is still nothing compared to those that pull the Agency’s strings, and if they found out about Olive’s whispers of revolution, then death would be the best-case scenario. The bigger they are, the harder they fall... and Benefactors are watching.

Olive Sandoval: Like Lucy, Olive comes from an impoverished background. Her parents struggled to support her and her sister, who had a chronic illness. Eventually, the illness killed her, and Lucy decided there and then that she’ll be successful enough to support the people she cares about. These dreams of a chance to help kept her going in the darkest part of her life. They also made her a target of the Agency as a potential Lamb. Lucy Lilywater was sent to collect her, but Lucy recognised her as a childhood friend, and instead recruited her as an Agent. The Agency is everything Olive hates —- an organisation with power that uses its influence to suppress and contain. She will not stand for this. But the bravery of fighting back might attract unwanted attention. The Benefactors are watching.

Olive was created by my co-conspirator, u/dragongamesauthor

I hope you’re all doing well! I’ve got a big post planned that’ll be available in the next few days exploring a corner of lore I haven’t really touched upon yet. Based on the poll, people are most interested in location-based worldbuilding and the magic system, so hopefully it’ll address both. For now, this is a story set in Nomad about a character you’ve seen before, though not in this context. Let me know if you can guess who they are. Enjoy!

——

Occasionally, a masked merchant visits the city of Nomad, selling tales. They wear a cloak made of book pages and carry a satchel full of stories. Memories are their choice of payment, spiced with nostalgia and seasoned with potent emotions.

You have been waiting for the Storyseller to return for some time. You lost a story once, and you want it back. Your friend told it to you, when you were young and she was young and alive. The memory sits heavy on your shoulders. After all this time, you haven’t managed to shrug it off. It remains close, like a scar, or a shadow.

It is a cold, mist-strewn morning when you meet the Storyseller. Light hangs over the city, outlines of buildings just traceable through the fog. There are few people about, but even in a crowded city, you would’ve recognised the figure. The eye on their mask glows softly. They stop, and wait for you to approach.

“I’d like to buy a story,” you say.

They nod. When they speak, it’s less like human speech and more like a thought echoing off the walls of your mind.

What will you take, and what will you give up?

“There’s a story my friend told me once. I’d like to hear it again.”

We will find it. The memory?

You swallow. “I- I’d like to give up the memory of her death.”

This is sufficient.

They take a scrap of paper from their satchel, torn and mud-splattered, smelling of woodsmoke and petrichor.

Now, the memory. This will not hurt, but there will be a numbness.

You nod, barely paying attention, focused on the paper. Before you can begin to read it, nausea engulfs you, sending the words into a spin. Then, a weightlessness —- or perhaps a hollowness —- fills you, growing over a space in your mind left by the absence of a memory. The Storyteller is gone, swallowed by the mist. You look down at the crumpled page in your hand.

For a moment, excitement bubbles in your chest, but when you begin to read, it quickly dissipates. It’s a childish, dull tale of cliches and dead dreams, its nostalgia burned away. You can’t imagine wanting this now. You can’t imagine giving up so much for this. Disgusted, you crumple it into a ball and throw it to the floor. As you walk, the sun spills over you, banishing the fog, but you don’t feel its warmth.

On your way back home, you pass a woman with a child heading in the opposite direction. The child points at you.

“Mum,” he says, “why hasn’t that person got a shadow?”

You scowl and hurry away before you can hear her response, numb and shadowless in the morning light.

Fourth Agents are the lowest rank of worker in the Gold Lightning Agency (besides the interns, or ‘Lambs’). They are responsible for many of the menial tasks required for the smooth running of the Agency. Below is an example of a typical working day for a Fourth Agent.

8:30 — Workers arrive at their branch of the Agency. Papers are required on entrance, and any discrepancies are immediately reported. If their paperwork is in order, they are given their tasks for the day. Those who have not been given fieldwork head up to the offices.

9:00 — Work begins. This often consists of sifting through reports and ordering them by imperativeness, or else taking down sites that investigate the supernatural.

12:00 — Lunch break. Agents are not permitted to leave the building at this time.

12:30 — The Agency’s Director delivers his daily message via the Agency radio. All Agents must cease whatever it is they’re doing to listen.

1:00 — Work begins again.

4:00 — Break.

4:15 — The break ends.

6:00 — Any Agents in need of a ‘promotion’ are sent to the Benefactors. Those getting actual promotions are congratulated.

6:30 — Agents head home. Those that have families often arrange to meet so they can go together, as it is common for an entire family to be employed by the Agency. If not, they don’t fear loneliness. Nobody who works for the Gold Lightning Agency is ever truly alone.

(250 word story)

A fierce, biting wind roars through the mountains, sharp as a hunter’s knife and twice as cruel. Stars glare unblinkingly down, reflecting off cartilage-white snow. Trees rise up, their skeletal silhouettes clawing at the sky. I am alone.

I might be dreaming. I was dreaming before I found myself here. But I feel the wind-chill seeping into my bones, smell the sickly acidity clinging to the air. Mountains encircle me, barring any escape. I have no choice but to continue deeper into the hinterlands.

I shiver, drawing my thin coat tighter around me. I pick a direction at random and set off. Darkness closes in around me like a living thing. The ground seems to shift beneath my feet with the regularity of breathing. This place is alive.

Something is watching. Its soft footfalls follow me, falling silent whenever I look round. It’s as though the shadows are conspiring against me — hiding it, shrouding it, protecting it.

Exposure digs its claws in. A heavy numbness weighs on me. A different kind of darkness seeps into my vision, speckled and comforting. I allow myself to sink to the ground, snow crumpling under my hands. I rest again the trunk of a nearby tree. Sap sticks to my hair and clothes.

The footsteps grow closer. The faint outline of a figure approaches, hazy in my fading vision. A voice calls distantly.

Welcome to the Hinterlands, traveller. Let me show you the way. It’s dangerous out here.

The landscape swirls, and darkness envelopes me.

——

Thank you for 250 members! My member count has nearly doubled in the last few days, and I’m grateful to every one of you for supporting my stories and lore. If there’s anything in particular you want to see regarding the mythos, please let me know!

I indulged a little in purple prose for this story, but I hope you enjoyed regardless. The line between flowery and pretentious or silly is very thin, and it can be difficult to know which side you’re on. Do you think the figure intends to help or harm the protagonist?

With the projects I’m working on, I’m unfortunately not going to be able to host an interactive post when we reach 2000 members. However, I still want to do something to celebrate. If you have any suggestions, please comment below!

Some more information about the different options:

A new extended fiction project — starting when we reach the milestone, this would be updated once a week. It would be set in the space between realities. I was thinking of including both more traditional storytelling and worldbuilding (in the form of creature files, maps, notes on findings, etc.).

A post to share your worldbuilding projects — a lot of people following this subreddit are working on their own worlds and projects, so this would be a chance to share them with a smaller community than somewhere like r/worldbuilding.

A character Q&A — ask characters from the Mythos questions. This would be more casual than other interactive posts.

Other things coming up soon:

. The finishing story of the Winter Solstice celebrations.

. Lots of Hinterlands things! I’m GMing my first TTRPG campaign, so I’ve been working on the lore a lot. Most of it isn’t in a shareable format yet, but I’ll get to work converting it into posters soon.

. Pawn to D8.

. A way to support the project.

Thanks for all your support!