Monday, February 10, 2025

Team Kraken: Debriefing, Part One

"So," asked Mr. Saint-Vincent, "How did it go?"

Kimberly Lynn Evely looked from him to Ms. Salvatore, then glanced at the students seated behind her. "I'd like my team to offer their impressions first, if you don't mind." 

"Very well," said Saint-Vincent. "Armor?"

Ally Colvin looked up from her design pad. "Yes?"

"Your impressions of your new teammate please, Armor." Saint-Vincent sounded dryly amused. 

"Oh. Um. I like her."

Saint-Vincent waited, but Ally just looked curiously at him. "Very well. Nightfall?"

Cat Montoya tilted her head slightly, studying the headmaster as he studied her. "Maria's solid," she said. "She kept up, she helped out, she worked with us."

The headmaster smiled slightly at that, then turned to Gaunt. 

"Nightfall's right," he said immediately. "We haven't seen her powers in action yet, but she worked well with us -- and on the first time out, at that."

Saint-Vincent turned back to Kim. "You have a different opinion?"

Kim hesitated. "Not exactly. Maria should definitely be part of Team Kraken. That said... I'd like you to pay attention over the next several practices, and consider the possibility that she should be team leader instead of me."

"Kim," said Gaunt, but she shook her head. 

"I'm doing my best, and I appreciate that you all support me in that. But--" She looked at Ms. Salvatore. "--and correct me if I'm wrong -- I think I only really have the position because I've studied Anomalous powers, and nobody else wanted it."

Ms. Salvatore frowned, slightly. "Don't sell yourself short, Miss Evely."

Kim shook her head. "I'm not. I think I'm doing a decent job. But Maria suggested today's strategy, it got us through successfully. I might have come up with the same approach, but she saw it while I was still trying to think about what would work best. That's why I'd like you to monitor the next few practices: so you can see if that's a pattern. If it is, I'm perfectly fine with turning the team over to her and staying on as a blaster and a subject-matter expert." She glanced back at the others. "And I'd like the rest of you to be thinking about it, too. If you'd rather have me, I'll stay on. But I promise you I am not going to be hurt if it turns out that Cloudburst can do a better job."

Friday, February 7, 2025

Team Kraken: Introductions, Part Five

Maria -- Cloudburst -- gasped, "Ben?"

He smiled at her as he strode forward. "You could just do this the easy way and hand it over," he said. 

Armor lifted an arm, but Ben swelled up as a layer of shifting stones surrounded his body and the twin needles from Armor's wrist-gun glanced off them and fell to the dirt. 

Gaunt? Cloudburst asked again, hoping that he was still paying attention. 

Yes? Oh. Yeah. More are coming. 

"Come on,"  she said, and pushed Nightfall back towards Gaunt. "Let Armor and Tempest hold them off. We need to get that box to its destination." Raising her voice she added, "Knock him down and let's go!"

One of them must have done something because she felt the impact through her feet as Ben hit the ground. Then they were all running, Gaunt in the lead and Armor and Tempest slogging along at the back. 

They broke into a clearing, and there was Goblin: short, wiry, with teeth like a shark exposed in a very wide grin. It was the combination of that mouth and the notably green tinge to their skin that gave them their name; their actual name was Vic. "Here," he said. "Give me my box."

"Spread out," said Nightfall, and the world went black. 

Cloudbust had never been blind, and for a moment she was simply too disoriented to react. Then Gaunt's voice spoke into her head: It's just dark. Move slowly and spread out. Nightfall's handing the box off to Goblin. That was... okay, she'd known this could happen. But knowing it and being in the middle of it were two very different things. 

Cloudburst took one careful step, trying to move slowly and stay quiet, and then another. She wavered; she'd never realized how much she relied on visual cues to keep her balance. I'll have to work on that as well. She'd managed four full paces and stopped again before the darkness brightened and she could begin to see again. A moment later the woods were back to their usual moderate shade, and Goblin was gone. 

Mr. Craven stepped out from behind a tree. "Well done," he said.

Thursday, February 6, 2025

Den of Thieves: Strategies

"I found them," Faldor said, as he came in the door.

"Hush," said his wife Eloida, though she tempered the word by turning a fond smile in his direction. "The baby's almost down." She went back to the soft stream of soothing words, and Faldor smiled, momentarily distracted by the sight of their daughter Aniora. 

She was getting too big for her basket; pretty soon they'd have to get her a real bed. There was room beside their own bed; it wouldn't be too much of a burden. And they could afford it; Talons Mirrak was still using him as a runner, and while some of his freelance jobs had dried up others seemed to come in from people who wanted to hear about what had happened to him. Cedric had even arranged for him to speak with the other, younger runners -- four different groups of them now -- to explain how it had been done and talk about what to watch for.

The Mist Eyes had stood by him, and if he could get information on this new crew to Cedric Bloodblade, he would. 

Aniora's breathing deepened and became more regular, and after a few more minutes Eloida let her singing grow softer until it finally trailed off. Then she stood, and gestured towards the door back to the main room; Faldor nodded and slipped out, quick and silent. Eloida followed, and eased the door closed behind them. 

"Now then," she said quietly. "What was that? You found them?"

"I found them."

"The ones who robbed you?"

"They were at Bilk's place, dealing with a bunch of kids. I managed to follow them, but they saw me and I had to drop back. They were on one of the main spokes, though: mid-city east. Had some of the local kids with 'em, too."

Eloida narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. "You're certain?"

He nodded. "Same voices. And I'd bet money they're the same ones who knocked over the furniture crafter up in Greycloak territory, too."

"That's dangerous," Eloida said slowly. "We'll need to move very carefully on this. Just because they haven't killed anybody yet, doesn't mean they couldn't. And desperate people do desperate things."

"So," said Faldor, "we have to make sure they don't feel desperate until it's too late."

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Challenge: Memorable Acquaintance

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I kind of fell off last year, so we'll see how I do with it this year.)

Prompt: A story about a memorable acquaintance

Heh. All right. 

This is back in college, when I was sharing a dorm room with a young man whom I'll refer to as J. J was a computer science major, extremely bright, and exactly my kind of odd. He loved playing with ideas, particularly about obscure esoterica: the illuminati, the idea that somewhere there was a list of all the really smart people on the planet, what if there really was a hollow earth, and like that. He didn't really believe in any of it, but the absurdity of it all appealed to him. And, of course, he was the destined savior of the human race. 

We all just pretty much took that last one in stride. He'd mention it every now and again, but it wasn't a regular topic of conversation or something he really insisted on. 

Anyway, the two of us were up very late one night, discussing the gods alone know what. Probably something vague and philosophical, possibly related to religion. I genuinely don't remember at this point. 

What I do remember is the very end of the conversation. I was already up in the top bunk, and he was sitting on the bottom bunk, and it was time to go to sleep. So he got up, crossed the room to the light switch (which was beside the door), and concluded whatever point he was making with, "After all, I'm the destined savior of the human race." He flipped the light off, then added: "Funny thing is, sometimes I actually believe that."

Then he crossed the room again (in the dark), tossed himself down onto his mattress, and missed by a good two feet, thus crashing into the floor instead. No harm done, but the timing could not have been any more perfect.

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Post-Event Assessment: Rock Climbing

We took Secondborn to the rock climbing gym this weekend. He's had summer classes there before, so he was already on file and certified to use the auto-belay. Beautiful Wife and I were not, so we filled out our waivers and went over the process with the staff so we could be on record as officially certified. 

(For those who don't already know: belay is the term for the safety line that keeps a climber from falling to the ground if they lose their grip. It also allows them to be lowered back down once they reach the top of the climb. For a manual belay, the belay line basically goes up to a pulley and you have somebody on the ground to pull the rope so it stays tight as you climb, and then to feed it back out gently to lower you down. A lot of the modern climbing gyms have auto-belays as well, which are rigged to a spring-and-pulley system. On their own, they will retract all the way up to the spool, but with a person clipped to the end of the line they will keep the rope tight until you fall or let go and put your full weight on it. At that point, it feeds the line back out slowly, so you land gently on the ground.) 

Secondborn, as I said, has done this before, and recently. Beautiful Wife and I have also done this before, and not recently. So he clambers around on the bouldering areas, and scampers up the climbing walls with considerable agility, and returns to the bottom smiling. 

Me, not so much. I tried four climbs and a bit of bouldering, and I will say this in my defense: at least I can still do it. I have to take about a ten minute break between climbs, but I can do it. So my assessment looks like this: 

Good:

  • Grip strength and upper body are still equal to the task.
  • Agility and technique are still there; I remember how to go about it.

Bad:

  • Cardio is desperately in need of more work.

So, we're going to do their one-month trial -- which looks like a pretty good deal -- and see if we can't get back in better shape while giving Secondborn a regular family outing that he loves. 

Events of note: Secondborn showed us how he can go up a section of the wall devoted to timed trials -- not anything complicated; the first two-thirds is basically a series of wooden rungs with a nice, heavy lip that's very easy to grip. Harder than it looks, though, because the rungs are about two feet apart. So, after watching this, I informed Secondborn that he was going to get to watch me beat his time.

I made it halfway up -- if we're being generous. It was probably closet to a third. I really need to lose some belly to make that work. Secondborn was, of course, suitably smug about the whole thing. 

Monday, February 3, 2025

Den of Thieves: A Momentary Sighting

"You asked to see me?" Vallista Greycloak eased back from her desk, weighing him with her eyes, and Bassom swallowed. 

He knew he was only still a Greycloak by courtesy, and because he had gone for help when he fled. Derlina and the rest of the crew had been down by then; he'd done the sensible thing. But since the other three -- and Derlina in particular -- had gone down fighting, everybody in the gang thought of them as heroes... and him as a coward. It wasn't right, it wasn't true, but there it was and he was stuck with it.

"Yes, um, Boss. I heard news, and you'll want to hear it to. Bilk Tendal, down on lower city north? He had a group of kids had made a hideout in the back of his shop. Wannabe gang, it sounds like, but still just kids. Anyway, this group came in and helped Bilk bust 'em out: pried 'em out of their hideout, dressed 'em down in the street, then made 'em clean up and marched 'em home to their parents."

Vallista Greycloak leaned forward, studying Bassom closely. He managed not to swallow again, but it took an effort; Vallista was old Anderlin's daughter, likely to take over the gang if her father ever passed. "Why, exactly, did you think I needed to know this?" she asked quietly.

Oh, right, yeah. "'Cause they was the same group as done us," he said. "A dragonborn, a dwarf, an elf, and a couple'a humans. Has to be the same ones, dunnit?"

Vallista leaned back again. "And how long ago was this?"

"Two days ago, maybe three," Bassom admitted. "I came as soon as I heard the word."

"Well," said Vallista Greycloak, "You're the first I've heard it from, so that was wise."

She extended a single finger, tapped it on the arm of her chair. "Very well," she continued after a moment. "Should I call in Derlina? Or do you think you can go down there and ask some questions without attracting attention?"

"They ruined my rep," Bassom said. "I'd rather take care of it myself."

"Hm. Nothing without my permission, though."

"That's why I'm here," Bassom assured her. "I'm loyal -- to the 'Cloaks and to the Guild. Maybe I screwed up, but I want to do this right." There, he'd said it. He wanted to earn his place back -- his real place, not this shunned role out on the edges of everything that mattered to him. 

"As you wish," Vallista told him. "See what you can find out: who they were, who they know, who they're working for. You report directly to me until I say otherwise, and you don't breathe a word of this to anybody else. Until we know who these people are and who they're working for, we move very quietly on this."

"Not a word to anybody else," Bassom told her. "I swear it."